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 Silvaplana - plan on about 58 min of riding. On the way it passes Sils and St Moritz. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,500 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 9 km this is Julier Pass Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Maloja is a pass that does two things at once: it sits at the head of the Upper Engadine, where the valley is wide and gentle, and it looks down over a cliff into the Val Bregaglia, where the road suddenly tumbles in a dozen or so hairpins toward Italy. The difference in character is startling. On the Engadine side the village lies by the shore of Lake Sils at around 1,800 metres, among larches and meadows, while a few hundred metres away the Italian side falls steeply, as if the mountain had been sliced.
Read the complete Maloja write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maloja is where the day begins. Next is Sils.
Sils is really two villages, Sils Baselgia and Sils Maria, on a flat shelf between two lakes in the Upper Engadin, and it has the particular glow of a place that artists and thinkers have chosen to retire to. Friedrich Nietzsche spent his summers here from 1881 to 1888, renting a small room in a house that is now a museum, and it was on a walk by the lake that he conceived the idea of eternal return. Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse came too. The light, high and clear, has something to do with it.
Read the complete Sils write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sils comes up about 9 km into the recorded legs. Next is Silvaplana.
Silvaplana is where the Upper Engadine opens out into water and wind. The village sits on the edge of a lake of the same name, at around 1,800 metres, between the larger resort of St. Moritz and the little village of Sils, and above it the high peaks of the Bernina and Albula ranges hold glaciers in their cirques. The light here is famously clear, an effect of altitude and dry air that has drawn painters and thinkers for generations.
Read the complete Near Silvaplana write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 14 km into the recorded legs you reach Silvaplana. Next is St Moritz.
St. Moritz is not subtle, and the world's most famous winter resort does not intend to be. It sits at about 1,800 metres in the Upper Engadine, on a sunlit shelf above a lake, with ranges of white peaks on every side and a record of sunny days that the tourist board advertises with some pride. Its mineral springs were known in the Bronze Age, and in the Middle Ages pilgrims came to drink the water. Winter tourism, legend says, started in 1864 when the hotelier Johannes Badrutt bet English summer guests that they would enjoy the Alps in the snow. The town has hosted the Winter Olympics twice, in 1928 and 1948, and the Cresta Run, an ice toboggan track, still runs every winter.
Read the complete St Moritz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
St Moritz, late in the day. Next is Zernez.
Zernez is a small village in the Lower Engadine, at about fifteen hundred metres, and the gateway to Switzerland's only national park. The Inn river runs through the valley, a cold green stream fed by glaciers, and the surrounding mountains are dark with larch and pine. The village has an unusual look for the Alps, with white houses decorated with sgraffito, patterns scratched in plaster, and small windows set deep into thick walls, typical of Engadine architecture. Most of the older buildings date from after 1872, when a fire destroyed much of the village, and the rebuilt streets are wider than most in the valley.
Read the complete Near Zernez write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Zernez. That is the ride.
Maloja → Sils is 9 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sils → Silvaplana is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Silvaplana → St Moritz is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St Moritz → Zernez is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.