Pont de Sablons, Suspension road bridge over the Rhône between Sablons and Serrières, France

Pont de Sablons is a suspension bridge over the Rhône between Serrières in Ardèche and Sablons in Isère. Its light blue-green metal truss deck, with a slight upward curve, hangs from main cables that sweep to a tall pylon on the Sablons side and rest on a stone abutment. Vertical suspender cables drop to the deck.

A first suspension bridge was built here in 1828 by the Compagnie Jules Seguin, replacing a cable ferry; it had a 4 m wooden deck on two 90 m spans. Judged obsolete, it was replaced by a metal bridge opened on 17 October 1933, built by Établissements Baudin. German troops destroyed that bridge on the night of 31 August to 1 September 1944; the same firm rebuilt it on the old foundations, reopened on 16 February 1951.

The bridge is the third built on this crossing; the first, from 1828, replaced a ferry rope (bac à traille). When the 1933 bridge was destroyed in September 1944, that ferry returned until the 1951 reopening. The mayors of Serrières and Sablons attended that reopening, after tests with 18 loaded trucks.

The bridge carries the road between Serrières in the Ardèche and Sablons in the Isère. Lorries were banned in December 1972 after a suspension cable corroded, and the crossing was closed to all vehicles the next day; traffic returned on 9 June 1973 over two temporary Bailey bridges. A new suspension system was installed by the Arnodin firm in summer 1975.

The 1933 steel bridge was the first suspension bridge built entirely with chrome-copper steel. When German troops blew it up in 1944, the blast was heard in Peaugres, about 4 km away; the Baudin firm rebuilt it on the old foundations and reopened it on 16 February 1951 after tests with 18 loaded trucks.