CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 Airolo it runs 56 km to Andermatt; allow about 58 min of riding. The stops in between: Tremola lower hairpins, Tremola upper hairpins and Gotthard Pass. The highest point is about 2,300 m. Gotthard Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For 5 km this is Gotthard Pass, 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 last of the trees go and the road runs out onto open ground. The summit of the Gotthard Pass sits at 2,106 m, and what surrounds it is rock, weather and distance. Cold comes early up here and stays late. Ride it with something in reserve: the summit is not the end of the work, only the middle of it.
Airolo sits at the southern mouth of the Gotthard, the point where northern and southern Europe seem to hand over to each other in a single valley. At 1,175 metres it is a small town of about fifteen hundred people, and the first sign of Italian Switzerland if you come from Andermatt: the roofs turn to stone, the stucco gets warmer, and the language changes to Italian. It has fuel, cafes, a couple of bakeries and a railway station, and it is a natural place to start or finish a day among the passes.
Read the complete Airolo write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Airolo is where the day begins. Next is Tremola lower hairpins.
The Tremola is the old road up the south side of the Gotthard, and its lower hairpins are where the cobbles begin. Built between 1827 and 1832, when the Gotthard became a proper carriage route, it climbs out of the Ticino valley above Airolo in a staircase of twenty-four tight bends, laid with granite setts and held up by dry-stone walls. The setts are rounded and worn, and in the morning dew or after rain they are slippery in a way that tarmac riders forget until the front wheel reminds them.
Read the complete Tremola lower hairpins write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tremola lower hairpins comes up 7 km in. Next is Tremola upper hairpins.
Higher up the Tremola, the hairpins lose their trees. The old Gotthard road climbs out of the last of the stunted spruce and into bare granite and tussock grass, and the walls that hold up the bends rise in neat steps, one above another, with the tiny shapes of other riders and walkers moving along them. This is the part of the road that appears on postcards, and it deserves it. From a bend near the top you can look straight down on three or four hairpins at once, laid out like the folds of a ribbon.
Read the complete Tremola upper hairpins write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
14 km in you reach Tremola upper hairpins. Next is Gotthard Pass.
The Gotthard Pass is the pass that Switzerland is built around. At 2,106 metres, it lies in the middle of the country on the great watershed between the Alps' northern and southern slopes, and four of Europe's major rivers rise within a few kilometres: the Rhine, the Rhône, the Reuss and the Ticino. Armies, merchants, pilgrims and, today, motorcyclists have been crossing it for eight centuries, since the Schöllenen gorge was opened by a daring bridge in the thirteenth century, and the pass became the shortest link between Germany and Italy.
Read the complete Gotthard Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Gotthard Pass, late in the day at 2106 m. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Hospental, mostly downhill.
Hospental is a small village with a big job: it sits in the Urseren valley, a high, treeless basin between the Furka, the Oberalp and the Gotthard, where the Reuss river begins its journey north. Its name comes from the old hospice, a resting place for travellers on the road over the Gotthard, and the village is still very much a gateway. Above the houses stands a stone tower, often called the Lombard tower, a medieval watchtower from which the lords of the valley could see who was coming. Andermatt, a couple of kilometres away, has more shops and fuel, and the nearest sizeable town is Altdorf, thirty kilometres down the valley.
Read the complete Hospental write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Hospental. That is the ride.
Airolo → Tremola lower hairpins is 5 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Gotthard Pass → Hospental is 16 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
A specific claim in this page was clarified on 2026-11-12. The original source records remain retained. A disputed chapter measurement is not a verified road or summit measurement, and the source association still needs reconciliation.