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.
48 km one way from Altdorf - plan on about 53 min of riding. It goes by way of Klausen Pass and Urnerboden. The highest point is about 1,950 m. Klausen Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
22 km on Klausen Pass.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For about 14 km this is Klausen 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.
Altdorf is the capital of the canton of Uri, a small town at the head of Lake Lucerne's southern arm where the Reuss river leaves the mountains and the Gotthard route begins. It is a practical, low-key place, flat and sheltered, with a pretty centre and a roar of traffic nearby from the motorway, and it is the sort of town where riders refill the tank, buy a coffee and look up at the wall of peaks above.
Read the complete Altdorf fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Altdorf is where the day begins. Next is Klausen Pass.
The Klausen Pass was built for horse-drawn coaches in the 1890s, and a generation later it was being used for motor racing. Between 1922 and 1934, the Klausenrennen, a hillclimb from Linthal to the summit, was one of the great events of European motor sport, with drivers such as Rudolf Caracciola and Hans Stuck throwing huge cars up the hairpins at average speeds that the road had never been designed for. The race was dropped in the 1930s, but the road has never quite lost the association, and on a quiet morning you can imagine the noise.
Read the complete Klausen Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Klausen Pass comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Urnerboden, mostly downhill.
Urnerboden is a long, flat valley floor on the Glarus side of the Klausen Pass, and it is the largest alpine pasture in Switzerland. From June to September, hundreds of cows, calves and goats graze on its meadows, watched by herders and by a handful of farm buildings, and the cowbells drift across the grass like a distant orchestra. Its walls of rock rise on every side, streaked with waterfalls after rain, and the tiny church and the scattered chalets give it a human scale.
Read the complete Urnerboden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 34 km into the recorded legs you reach Urnerboden. Next is Linthal.
Linthal is the last real village at the head of the Linth valley in canton Glarus, a long way into the mountains and a place that the modern world mostly passes by. About a thousand people live here, among steep meadows, old wooden houses and the dark shapes of textile mills from the days when cotton printing ruled the valley. Above the village rises the Tödi, the highest peak of the Glarus Alps, at over 3,600 metres, with ice on its flanks and a long history of mountaineering. From the valley floor, in the right light, the glaciers look like they are poured down the rock.
Read the complete Linthal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Linthal closes the day.
Altdorf → Klausen Pass is 22 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Klausen Pass → Urnerboden is 12 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
Urnerboden → Linthal is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.