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.
75 km one way from Bregenz - plan on about 1 h 26 of riding. The stops in between: Egg, Bezau and Schoppernau. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 17 km this is Bregenzerwald Cheese Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Bregenz is the Austrian end of Lake Constance, and the lake is the whole point. The Bodensee stretches out in front of the town like a small sea, flat and silver in the early light, with Germany and Switzerland on its far shores and the Alps rising right behind your shoulder. Bregenz is the capital of Vorarlberg, with around thirty thousand people, so you will find every kind of shop, fuel station and café you might need before you set off. It is an easy place to begin a ride and an easy place to put off beginning it.
Read the complete Bregenz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bregenz is where the day begins. Next is Egg.
Egg is the sort of village where the first thing you notice is the wood. Houses, barns, bus shelters and cafes are all clad in timber, in an elegant, modern way that has made the Bregenzerwald one of the most admired regions in Europe for contemporary country architecture. The older farmhouses have shingled facades that have weathered to silver, and the newer ones echo the style so faithfully that you can hardly tell where one era stops.
Read the complete Egg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Egg comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bezau.
Bezau is a handsome valley village, with a church tower, a few grand hotels from the age of early summer tourism and a pleasant, slightly sleepy main street. It stands on the Bregenzerach in the middle of the Bregenzerwald, at the foot of the Bezauer Wanne, the hollow in the mountain wall behind the village, and a cable car climbs to the pastures above if you have time for a walk with a view.
Read the complete Bezau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 38 km into the recorded legs you reach Bezau. Next is Schoppernau.
Schoppernau is the village where the Bregenzerwald starts to run out of valley. Beyond it the road climbs toward the Hochtannberg Pass, and the mountains that were polite and green in Egg and Bezau become taller and rockier. Houses are still clad in timber, fields are still steep and immaculately mown, but the sense of enclosure is stronger, and the big limestone walls of the Allgäu and Lechquellen mountains look down on the village from all sides.
Read the complete Schoppernau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schoppernau, late in the day. Next is Warth.
Warth is a high Walser village on the Vorarlberg side of the Arlberg, a cluster of wooden chalets and ski lifts at the end of the Lech valley's road. It sits at around 1,500 metres, a short ride from Lech, and it has a reputation among skiers as one of the snowiest places in the Alps; locals will tell you that winter can bring metres at a time. In summer it is quiet and rather beautiful, with the meadows steep above the road and the cowbells carrying across the whole valley.
Read the complete Warth write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Warth. That is the ride.
Bregenz → Egg is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Egg → Bezau is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bezau → Schoppernau is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schoppernau → Warth is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.