MooN Posted September 12, 2023 Share Posted September 12, 2023 6 of us set off Saturday morning for a weekend in the Beaujolais, it wa going to be a laid back one cos the nutjobs of the usual group were otherwise occupied so there was only us sensible ones left... The first leg was from a mates house in Vallan ( 'bout 10 minutes from mine) down through the well known riding area of the Morvanand into the Charolais region south of here. As we were not actually straying far from home we took a meandering roundabout route which ended up at La Clayette for lunch. Being just south of Charolles, it was eviden that charolais steak was on the menu. the restaurant was easy to find, "opposite the Chateau" this was a coffee stop in a sleepy burgundy "one horse town" This was like 10 AM and the temp was just starting to get warm, around 25 ish (c) By the time we stopped for lunch we were vying for space in the shade at the bike parking and it was a solid 30deg C The chateau has belonged to the same family for the last 300 years, but was built in 1380, so a little over 100 years BEFORE colombus set of to get lost... themorning route: The afternoon route dropped south as far as Tarare, before winding back north east to Tramayes and again was planned to keep pretty much to the back roads. the route down as far a Tarare: Having had an excellent lunch of prime charollais steak and chips we lazed about a bit befor getting moving and reached Tarare around 4, temps well up around 35 C we were looking for shady roads... At tarare I jumped off from the group as I needed to sort a problem for by bro in law in Lyon and my plan was to nip across to Lyon, sort the problem and then jump on the autoroute north from there to meet the others at Tramayes around 6 30 pm when they should also arrive at the hotel. so my route looked like this I got to bro in law's in under an hour and sorted what needed sorting ( and had a bit of a mank at the care staff as he's got an expensive high tech cooling fan in his room but no one had thought to turn it on for him... not really their fault, there are almos no permanent staff now so they're all agency staff and know fuck all about anything and care a little less...) The temps in the city were up in the 40's so I wasn't hanging about longer than neccessary and rapidly got the F out of there ( I don't like cities at the best of times) Getting out or Lyon northwards means either going all the way around to the east or going through the Vaise and then the Fourvieres tunnels which is like the dartford crossing but with french drivers... not exactly fun at 5pm on a saturday evening and though I was able to filter through the worst of it thanks to a local bike who I let through and then tailed, by the time I got through the peage onto the A6 proper i was ready for some air so trusted the "Coyote" navigator to warn me of any speed traps I wound the bike up and didn4t get overtaken till I was pulling off at Macon ( for info, on the autoroute, apart from the automatic cameras that are well signed, the police are only really interested in anyone doing over 150km/h real speed cos less than 20km/h over the limit is basically a 45€ fine and 2 or 3 points so not worth their while) so I kept it around 150 t0 155 on the speedo, which is 145 to 150 real, you take of 5% which gives about 142 - 145 and your'e well within the "less than 20 over" bracket... so I got to Tramayes in time to grab the room with the best shower and grab a beer from the bar before the others arrived. Lyon -> Tramayes ( and no it didn't take me an hour and 9 minutes...) The hotel was nice and clean, had a well stocked bar, which we underetook to de-stock in a fairly methodical manner, and a good kitchen sunday morning dawned after a hot night only really disturbed by a bunch of drunken old men giting up to piss out all the beer they'd consumed that evening... oh, wait a minute... that was us... Oh yeah, and the gunshots at 04h30, that definately wasn't us... Usual continental breakfast, coffee and lots of it, croissqnts, breqd and jam etc we rode northish from there via Mont st Vincent where we stoppoed for coffee at the village fete that was seting up as we arrived, very genteel it was too and the views... https://www.burgundy-tourism.com/natural-sites/le-mont-saint-vincent the church here is 11th century so a good 200yrs OLDER than yesterdays castle Only 10 am but temperatures soaring again so we were all grouped in the shade How d'ya fancy a front door like this? then onwards towards Santenay where we pulled up in the main square at midday and aced the last free table at the better of the two restaurants. Believe it or not I had fish and chips We'd been riding through vinyards all morning with evocative names like, Mercurey, Rully, Santenay, and so forth, Les vendanges ( grape harvest) oficially started last weekend and so were in full swing with tractors and grape waste strewed liberally all over the roads, which made for some acrobatic cornering manouvres fron some of the group. The afternoon was a fairly straight forward run home across our usual playground and our lead rider who had meticulously planned the route thus far expressed a desire to follow for a while rather than lead and made the mistake of sending me up front. Well, the days of the group waiting for me and the transalp after a particularly "fun section" are definately over and my revenge was well and truly exacted Autun, chateau chinon, planchez, quarré les tombes for a beer, avallon and home The section Autun, chateau Chinon, planchez is one that parisians will ride 2 hours down the autoroute to get to and 2 hours autoroute home having ridden it, that is how much fun it is. Sorry so few pictures but i wasn't leading so didn't get to choose when to stop, and when I was leading I was having too much fun to stop, and it was too hot anyway. Highest temp was 37.5 degC as we rode through Autun. about 700 odd km over the weekend I guess. 9 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Great report Chris How hot was it there? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Slowlycatchymonkey Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 1 hour ago, XTreme said: Great report Chris How hot was it there? Err its in the last line of the post 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boboneleg Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 Nice report Chris Just one point of order, you went to the Charolais region and yet not one photo of the famous cattle , not even a photo of the one you had for dinner ........... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busabeast Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 12 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said: Err its in the last line of the post Classic Pete line if ever there was one 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skippy Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 12 hours ago, Slowlycatchymonkey said: Err its in the last line of the post He was testing you and you passed. Well done 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XTreme Posted September 13, 2023 Share Posted September 13, 2023 5 minutes ago, Skippy said: He was testing you and you passed. Well done 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MooN Posted September 14, 2023 Author Share Posted September 14, 2023 On 13/09/2023 at 11:59, boboneleg said: Nice report Chris Just one point of order, you went to the Charolais region and yet not one photo of the famous cattle , not even a photo of the one you had for dinner ........... too busy eating it mate ! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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