The Grande Traversée du Jura à Vélo – the Jura by bike from Montbéliard to Culoz – is one of France's most stunning long-distance road routes.
Distance: 375km
Difficulty: Difficult. This is a touring route for experienced cyclists. It has 6572m in elevation gain over the 375km, so there is a lot of climbing here.
The Grande Traversée du Jura à Vélo – a signposted long-distance road biking route across the Jura area from Montbéliard to Culoz – is one of France's most stunning long-distance road routes. It connects the Doubs and the Rhone rivers, but also runs concurrently at various stages with other minor river systems, plus provides lakeside riding or detours.
It's also a little off-the-beaten-track and offers road riders something a bit different from the more popular Alps and Pyrenees climbing routes. That said, there are some big-name Tour de France climbs accessible from just off the route, including Le Grand Colombier and Col de la Faucille.
It is most definitely a road riding route – some 371km of it is on shared roads with just a few kilometres on dedicated bike paths. However, these are mostly smaller local and regional roads and you may find the traffic more sparse than on similar roads in the Alps or Pyrenees.
The route starts in Montbéliard - the home of Peugeot. So if cars or learning about early bicycle production is your thing, then make sure you leave time for the Musée de l'Aventure Peugeot before you start.
Cycling up the Recula slope of Combe de Laisia, just off the main route near Lajoux, north-west of Geneva. Photo: ©Jura Tourisme
Connecting with other routes: The route connects with the Euro Velo 6 Loire Valley route at the start of the Jura route at Montbéliard, meaning you could ride down from central or northern France and then head south on the Jura route.
As the route loops down through Valserhône, you could cross here to the Via Rhona Euro Velo 17 bike route and ride back up to Geneva. This is also possible at Culoz a bit further south – it's just a short ride across the bridge in the centre of town to join the Via Rhona to either continue south towards Lyon or Avignon. You could cross to La Belle Via at Valence for Chambery or Annecy, or continue down to the Mediterranean Euro Velo 8 coastal route or the Sete-Toulouse-Bordeaux route further south. Once on the Via Rhona, you could also head back north to Geneva. It's worth noting that a large chunk of the Jura ride hugs the Swiss border and provides local roads across into Switzerland (the river Doubs at times acts like a border).
Accommodation: It's important to plan accommodation ahead on this route as some of the riding is quite remote. Depending on your preferred daily distances, it may be necessary to leave the route for hotels and B&Bs. Camping is, of course, also possible (including wildcamping if you are discreet).
Elevation: This is not a beginners' route – it covers 375km and there is a good 6572m of climbing here if cycling from north to south. Even in reverse from south to north there is a comparable amount of gain given there are multiple climbs with gains of between 400m and 800m at a time. That said, the route is not insurmountable for medium-level or irregular cyclists if you take your time and break the stages down into manageable chunks.
Here is the elevation map.
Baggage transfers: There aren't any baggage transfer services as such covering the whole route. If you don't have on-road car support from a partner or tour company and you need baggage transfers, it's best to work with your hotels or other accommodation providers each night to arrange these via their recommended taxi firm. This may get expensive and may only be an option for groups that can split the costs. Otherwise, consider taking panniers or bikepacking bags and keeping them as light as possible. If you need on-road car/mechanic support, you can email me via my bespoke service here and I can try and find you a suitable guide/driver.
Bike hire: As with baggage transfers, one-way bike can be tricky but it is possible if are flexible and allow a bit of time to arrange it. if you email me your dates, start/end points and other bike requirements, I can try to help – see this page here.
Trains to/from the Jura bike route: Local TER trains Montbéliard. It's on the Belfort-Lyon line (which has connections to Paris), but it's also possible to reach Montbéliard using local connections via places like Dijon or Besançon. Culoz is also linked to Lyon, as well as to Geneva. There are fast TGV services but these can be more complicated with bikes (in that they require bike resevrations and/or bike boxing). If you have time, it's worth planning to travel by local TER train. See this page to get started with bike-train info.
Note that this road route should not be confused with an equivalent mountain biking/gravel route that cannot be done by regular bike. There is also an equivalent walking/hiking route.
Download the GPX file for this route.
