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 209 km to Lausanne; allow about 3 h of riding. The stops in between: Chenevières de Guévaux I, Spitz, Segelboothafen and Môtier I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 12 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Lake Murten is small, shallow and warm, framed on its north side by the vine-covered whale back of Mont Vully. Under its shallows near the Vully shore lie the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and Chenevières de Guévaux is one of them, part of the UNESCO site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, people built houses on timber posts along lake shores like this one. Waterlogged conditions preserved posts, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years, and the finds transformed what we know about early farming communities in Europe.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chenevières de Guévaux I comes up about 79 km into the recorded legs. Next is Spitz.
On the southern shore of the Murtensee, just west of the medieval town of Murten, a little point of land juts into the water at Greng, and here, beneath the shallows, archaeologists found the posts of prehistoric lake villages. Greng-Spitz is one of the Swiss sites in the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, and while there is nothing to see but reeds, water and the occasional marker, it is pleasant to know that people lived on this shore some five thousand years ago.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
At least about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Spitz. Next is Segelboothafen.
Murten is the rare Swiss town where you can walk the medieval walls almost all the way round, looking down on brown tiled roofs on one side and the lake on the other. Its sailing harbour, the Segelboothafen, lies just below the old town on the shore of Lake Murten, and in the shallows here are the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, one of the Swiss components of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Nothing shows above the water, but the lakeshore has been a place to live for thousands of years.
Read the complete Segelboothafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Segelboothafen, about halfway. Next is Môtier I.
Murten, or Morat as the French speakers call it, is a small walled town on the shore of a lake of the same name, on the language frontier of Switzerland. Its ramparts are among the best preserved in the country, and its main street is lined with arcades and painted fountains. In 1476, it was the site of a decisive battle, when the Swiss Confederates defeated the army of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and ended his attempt to conquer the region. A stone memorial to the battle, and the legend that a runner carried the news of victory to Fribourg, gave Switzerland a long-lasting patriotic story.
Read the complete Môtier I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Môtier I sits at 87 km, about halfway. Next is back through Segelboothafen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Segelboothafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Segelboothafen comes up about 115 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Spitz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 119 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Spitz. Next is back through Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I, 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 209 km.
Lausanne → Chenevières de Guévaux I is 79 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chenevières de Guévaux I → Spitz is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Segelboothafen → Môtier I is 10 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Môtier I → back through Segelboothafen is 10 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Spitz → back through Chenevières de Guévaux I is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I → Lausanne is 80 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.