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.
62 km one way from Luzern - plan on about 56 min of riding. On the way it passes Brunnen and Sisikon. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,800 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 6 km this is Klausen Pass, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Lucerne is where central Switzerland likes to show off. The town sits at the end of its lake, with the Reuss river sliding out through the middle, old houses with painted gables along the quay, and mountains on every side, Pilatus to the south and the Rigi to the east. The best-known sight is the Kapellbrücke, the Chapel Bridge, a covered wooden footbridge from the fourteenth century with a stone water tower beside it, and painted panels under the roof. A fire in 1993 burned much of it, and the bridge was rebuilt, so the paintings you see are mostly reconstructions, but the shape is old. Nearby the Lion Monument, carved into a sandstone cliff in 1821, commemorates Swiss guards who died in Paris in 1792, and Mark Twain called it the saddest piece of stone in the world.
Read the complete Lucerne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lucerne is where the day begins. Next is Brunnen.
Brunnen sits on a bend in Lake Lucerne where the water turns the corner toward the Urner arm, and from the promenade you can look straight across to the meadow of the Rütli, the spot where the founders of Switzerland are said to have sworn their oath in 1291. The town has a place in the story itself: in 1315, after the victory at Morgarten, the confederates met in Brunnen to renew their alliance, and a stone on the shore commemorates the writer Friedrich Schiller, whose play on William Tell made the legend famous.
Read the complete Brunnen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Brunnen comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sisikon.
Sisikon is a thin line of houses between a mountain and a lake, which is exactly how most of Lake Uri works. The water, the deepest and most dramatic arm of Lake Lucerne, is squeezed between steep rock walls, and there is barely room for a road, a railway and a village. The Axenstrasse, one of the oldest built mountain roads in Switzerland, was blasted out of the cliff face in the 1860s to link Schwyz with Uri, and it has been clinging to the rock ever since.
Read the complete Sisikon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 54 km into the recorded legs you reach Sisikon. Next is Fluelen.
Flüelen is the harbour at the southern tip of Lake Uri, the long, dark, steep-sided arm of Lake Lucerne that cuts into the heart of Switzerland, and for hundreds of years it was the starting point of the Gotthard route. Goods and travellers came up the lake by boat, landed here and went on by mule to the pass. Today it is a quiet village of around two thousand people, with a tower, a small harbour and a few cafés, and the old trading importance has dissolved into the calm of the water. The proper town, Altdorf, is three kilometres away and has the fuel, supermarkets and hardware shops.
Read the complete Fluelen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Flüelen closes the day.
Lucerne → Brunnen is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Brunnen → Sisikon is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sisikon → Fluelen is 8 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.