A ride in very old volcanoes montains

[Delphisa]

Last week-end I enjoyed a two days ride in the Ardeche area, about 100 miles from home -usually I prefer to stay in the Alps mountains, but these medium altitude mountains in France center ("Massif Central") are also very nice for motorcycling.

Very good conditions, weather was nice after one night raining, in the morning roads were drying and sunshine was forecasted.
First stop still under much clouds, but we are optimistic :


Arrived in Massif Central, sun is here


Note that it is an "old style" travel : no GPS, a paper map is necessary !


We arrive near by our first target : Mont Mezenc. In this area there are numerous rocks such as this one, very old volcano chimneys, erosion has flatten all the volcanoes except these remaining hard rocks :


We climbed Mont Mezenc, a little bit less than one hour walking from the road to the top of mountain. We hand carry helmets because the top case are full with luggages... Acceptable for a short walk like that.


From Mont Mezenc summit (1753 m height, 5750 feet) we can see these old volcano rocks all around :


Here we see the one where we ealier had a stop :


And here we see our next target : Mont Gerbier de Jonc. It's just one rock among other ones here, and not so high, but it is well known in France, as being "where is the source of the river Loire" (the longer of french rivers). So many people go there, visit the river source, and climb the rock...


Later we arrive near the Mont Gerbier de Jonc. Too late for climbing it this day (we will come back!)


My wife had booked a nice bed & breakfast for the night. Recently built house, on google maps (satellite view) you can only see a green parcel there


For our second day, the target was to climb this little one, before going back home trough some other nice roads. Compared with Mont Mezenc or Mont Gerbier de Jonc, climbed by hundreds of people each good weather day, this is a desert place : we didn't meet anyone in the morning !
Pic de Don : 1165 m height (3820 feet)



Had a look at Crest city. Nice castle!


I have uploaded some more photos (full resolution, and with map) in a new (for me) website, I wonder if it works well for forum viewers - let me know ! Here is the link : [url=http://opa.cig2.canon-europe.com/s/m/H5cud3KSmQX]Canon Gateway 2015-05 Ardeche Selection

Have good fun with the CB1100, wherever you are...
Jean-Pierre

[Pterodactyl_imp]

Delphisa, well done mate. Those photos are superb. Both in your post and on the Canon Image Gateway. I'm going back for a more leisurely look.

Cheers, and thanks for posting.

[Rocky_imp]

Well done indeed!!
Beautiful pictures. Thank you for taking us along

[Chapomis_imp]

Nice ! Beautiful country side. Thanks for sharing.

[redbirds_imp]

Lovely country and your photos truly capture the natural beauty.

[14CharlieBravo11_imp]

Beautiful! Always nice to see the world on this forum. Thank you!

[emptysea]

Great pictures. What a lovely place to ride.

If you purchase a short cable with loops at both ends, you can link your two helmets together through the d-rings and lock both to the bike using the stock helmet lock. I use the helmet cable that came with my wife's CTX for this purpose. Makes life a lot easier when we do our "bike and hikes"

[Novice_imp]

I'm jealous. Beautiful place!

[Cormanus]

Delphisa, you really have some beautiful country to ride in and you manage to take great photos of it. I'm looking forward to having a slow crawl through all the pictures on the Canon image gateway.

[the Ferret]

Love the Mont Mezenc photo, but all the photos are of course spectacular.

I can't believe how much difference the silver motor and wheels make on the standard. I like the silver.