I love the riding in the Doubs, not least because this small region on the Swiss border – sandwiched between the Vosges and the Jura – remains relatively unknown. I really only discovered it thanks to French road tester François, who first suggested visiting and recommended a few roads.

 

This is a great place to ride and even though it’s not a huge area, it’s packed with great riding. Yet it’s bizarrely easy to overlook: if you’re heading to the French alps, you’ll probably hurry past to the east; if you’re heading to the Dolomites, the Austrian alps or even to the Swiss alps, your fastest route is probably further west.

 

Which means this is a relatively quiet area. I planned the Vosges and Jura tour around getting here and I already have one tried-and-tested route around Pontarlier, the Doubs Explorer route published in Europe for Bikers. But is one circular route enough? Not when there are so many great roads to discover.

 

So this is the Plan B route: a second day of brilliant roads around Pontarlier, heading down into the Jura as well. It’s designed to work with both the Doubs Explorer and the St Claude Butterfly (the Jura route in Europe for Bikers) and the tour, to make it easy to have a couple of great days’ riding around a single base.