We left Rasteau and the vineyards of the Villages des Côtes du Rhône beneath Mont Ventoux and the Denterelles de Montmirail after an early breakfast and crossed the Rhône on the medieval ecclesiastical bridge at Pont St Esprit. Next the famous road along the belvederes and corniches of the Ardèche gorge and a stop for coffee and croissants at Vallon Pont d'Arc.
Onwards up Mont Lozère via Les Vans to a picnic halt at Le Mas de la Barque at 1440 m. up Mont Lozère, which overlooks the Cévennes.
We passed some vineyard tractors collecting this year's fine grapes but otherwise we found the roads largely clear of holiday traffic this last weekend of September, We saw the canoe trailers leaving Vallon Pont d'Arc whilst we were enjoying our coffee so no trouble there either.
Brilliant ride of around 300km in any case but especially brilliant as it's my first ride for over a year. Christophe kindly took me as pillion on his KLV1000: very many thanks to him for that (his bike is left on the bottom right photo). 300km on the comfortable pillion seat of a KLV1000 ridden by an absolutely top rider on roads that one dreams of, and in the best possible weather too! Also thanks to Henri who researched the route and to Simon, the leader of our group, all of AMA. Our club celebrated its 30th birthday with a grand cake and a special run of 30th anniversary shirts.
Ma carte postale de notre ballade de samedi au route des gorges de l'Ardèche, Mt Lozère et les Cévennes. Grand merci à Christophe et sa moto qui m'ont accepté comme passager, et de Simon et Henri de l'AMA qui ont proposé la ballade.