2019-26 Riom-ès-Montagnes to Aurillac

In 2019, we did self-supported touring for a little less than 2 months from mid-September through early November.

Day 26 - Riom-ès-Montagnes to Aurillac

The ride on D3 was beautiful despite it’s being a relatively major road. Traffic was sparse and we enjoyed the ups and downs. The climb to the Col d’Entremont (1210M) was relatively benign from this direction, with the slope being pretty gentle.

Arriving at D139, which hits D3 several kilometers before Murat, we turned in and found a beautiful road that connected south to Laveissière and a road (D439) that runs parallel to N122.

At Fraisse-Haut, which is just a little west of Laveissière on D439, we found an unnumbered side road that paralleled N122 for a number of kilometers. Taking this narrow single lane chaussée-deformée (but fortunately paved) road, we had a beautiful but very very challenging climb that took us up past a railway bridge and eventually back to N122, not far from the Tunnel du Lioran. I think this was the first time this trip that I actually used my lowest gear on my touring bicycle. We did not try to go through the tunnel (probably it is prohibited for cyclists) and instead climbed further on D67 to the Col de Cère at 1294M, passing several ski areas as we climbed. We had planned to use other smaller side roads after the Col de Cère to avoid being on N122 for much of the remaining mileage to Aurillac, but this climb starting from Fraisse-Haut had been so tough that we figured we’d have to stay on N122 to make sure that we’d get to Aurillac before dark. (Due to last night's time change because of the end of daylight savings time, I think we both through that we had one less hour of daylight remaining. I had not changed the time on our bicycle computers.) In any case, with a few exceptions, most of the remaining ride to Aurillac was downhill, with the first kilometers after rejoining N122 from D67 being a heck of a downhill run. Overall, N122 wasn’t bad as the scenery is great and there wasn’t much traffic until getting within ten kilometers or so of Aurillac. It also occasionally had some road shoulder. We arrived in Aurillac about two hours before sunset, so no problem on timing.