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.
From Lausanne it runs 168 km to Lausanne; allow about 2 h 26 of riding. On the way it passes The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, Petite villa au bord du lac Léman, Baie de Clendy and Le Marais. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
For about 20 km this is Lavaux Vineyard 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.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 1 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Lausanne tips down a steep hillside to Lake Geneva, and you feel it in your legs, your brakes and your bike's low gears. The city sprawls over three hills and a lake front, with the old town at the top and the harbour district of Ouchy at the bottom, joined by one of the world's smallest metro systems. The Gothic cathedral looks out over the roofs and the water toward the French Alps across the lake.
Read the complete Lausanne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lausanne is where the day begins. Next is The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
On the shore of Lake Geneva at Corseaux, just west of Vevey, stands a low white house, long and narrow, with a single strip window running along its lakeside facade. It looks modest, almost plain, but it is one of the key buildings of modern architecture. Le Corbusier, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss Jura, designed it in the early 1920s for his parents, and the Villa Le Lac, also called the Petite Maison, was an early demonstration of his ideas: a ribbon window framing the view, a roof garden, an open plan. Since 2016 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, which includes seventeen sites in seven countries.
Read the complete The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Petite villa au bord du lac Léman.
In the 1920s Le Corbusier built a house for his parents on the shore of Lake Geneva, and he called it, a little ruefully, the little house, la petite maison. It stands at Corseaux, just east of Vevey, and it is tiny, only about sixty square metres of living space on a strip of garden between the railway and the water. The design is a manifesto in small. A single long window frames the lake and the mountains of Savoy like a painting, the garden wall has a table and a window cut into it, and every cupboard and corner has a purpose. His mother lived there into her nineties, and he wrote a little book about it. The house is part of the UNESCO listing of his works, and it can be visited in the season, with timed guided tours.
Read the complete Petite villa au bord du lac Léman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 21 km into the recorded legs you reach Petite villa au bord du lac Léman. Next is Baie de Clendy.
At the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, just east of Yverdon-les-Bains, the shore curves into a shallow bay fringed with reeds, poplars and a beach where local families swim in summer. Behind it, in a meadow, stands a double row of tall grey stones. These are the menhirs of Clendy, raised by Neolithic farmers more than five thousand years ago and re-erected in the twentieth century after they were found toppled in the ground. Offshore and along the bay lie the remains of lakeside settlements of the same era, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baie de Clendy, about halfway. Next is Le Marais.
At the south end of Lake Neuchâtel, below the old Roman and medieval town of Yverdon, the shore turns into a wide, flat belt of reed beds and meadow, one of the biggest areas of shoreline marsh in Switzerland. Le Marais, near the village of Yvonand, belongs to this landscape, and like many places along the lake it also belongs to the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings that UNESCO lists, because the shallows hold timbers and artefacts from villages built on stilts thousands of years ago. The remains lie under water or mud, so there is nothing to see at the spot but reeds, willows and the glinting lake, but a visit to the museum in Yverdon or Neuchâtel brings the finds to life.
Read the complete Le Marais write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Le Marais sits at 83 km, about halfway. Next is back through Baie de Clendy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Baie de Clendy comes up about 93 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Petite villa au bord du lac Léman.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Petite villa au bord du lac Léman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 147 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Petite villa au bord du lac Léman. Next is back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, late in the day. Next is Lausanne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lausanne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 168 km.
Lausanne → The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Petite villa au bord du lac Léman → Baie de Clendy is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baie de Clendy → Le Marais is 9 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Marais → back through Baie de Clendy is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baie de Clendy → back through Petite villa au bord du lac Léman is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier → Lausanne is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.