CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
53 km one way from Thusis - plan on about 56 min of riding. On the way it passes Bergun and Albula Pass. The highest point is about 2,450 m. Albula Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
For about 30 km this is Albula Pass Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 15 km.
Thusis is a gateway town, and it knows its job well. It sits where the Hinterrhein, the young Rhine, comes out of the gorge of the Viamala and into the wide, orchard-lined valley of the Domleschg, and from here roads and railway lines fan out into the Graubünden mountains: south over the Splügen and San Bernardino passes, east through the Schin gorge toward the Albula and Davos. At about seven hundred metres in altitude, it is a fairly low base for such high terrain, and that makes it a useful place to be at the start of a mountain day.
Read the complete Thusis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Thusis is where the day begins. Next is Bergun.
Bergün sits in the Albula valley in Graubünden, in a landscape so steep that the railway has to loop and spiral to climb it, and the village is where the show begins. A line of the Rhaetian Railway runs through the village on its way up to the Albula tunnel, and on the slope above, trains can be seen passing in several levels, vanishing into tunnels, crossing viaducts and turning around themselves in great loops. The whole line, with its bridges and tunnels, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Bergün is one of its best vantage points.
Read the complete Bergun write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bergün comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Albula Pass.
The Albula Pass is a quieter and more elegant sibling to the Julier and the Flüela, and at 2,312 metres it sits on a bare, stony plateau between the Albula valley and the Engadin. The road was opened in 1865, making it one of the early Alpine crossings built for coaches, and its surface and gradients still show the sensible hand of a nineteenth-century engineer. It is an open, sweeping road, quiet in the shoulder seasons and delightful when the light is good.
Read the complete Albula Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 45 km into the recorded legs you reach Albula Pass. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is La Punt Chamues-ch, mostly downhill.
There are places in the Upper Engadine where the light behaves differently, and La Punt Chamues-ch is one of them. The valley here is high, around 1,700 metres, wide and flat-floored, with the young Inn river meandering through meadows and larch woods, and the air has a dry, thin brightness that makes distant peaks look sharp. The village is a cluster of traditional Engadine houses with thick walls, deep-set windows and sgraffito decoration scratched into pale plaster, and the language spoken here is Romansh, one of Switzerland's four national languages, in its local Puter form.
Read the complete La Punt Chamues-ch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Punt Chamues-ch closes the day.
Thusis → Bergun is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bergün → Albula Pass is 15 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Albula Pass → La Punt Chamues-ch is 8 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.