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.
A 38 km one-way ride from near Formazza, about 38 min of riding. The stops in between: Nufenen Pass and All Acqua. The highest point is about 2,500 m. Nufenen Pass is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
This part of the ride is 22 km of Nufenen Pass.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
For about 13 km this is Nufenen 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.
Ulrichen is a small Valais village in the Goms, the upper valley of the Rhône, where the river is still a shallow, quick stream running between wide meadows. The valley is long, high and quiet, about 1,350 metres up, and its villages are clusters of dark wooden houses raised on stone stilts, burned black by the sun over centuries. This is a Walser landscape, a place settled by mountain people who lived at the limit of the habitable, and even now there is a sense of space and slow time. Summer visitors come for cycling and walking, winter ones for the long cross-country ski trails that run the length of the valley floor.
Read the complete Ulrichen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ulrichen is where the day begins. Next is Nufenen Pass.
The Nufenen is the highest road pass that lies entirely inside Switzerland, at 2,478 metres, and it feels it. The road climbs out of the Goms valley in the canton of Valais and crosses a bleak, rocky crest before dropping into the Ticino, and nothing grows at the top except a few tough mosses and lichens. The wind blows hard across the saddle, the air is thin and cold, and on a clear day the view of the Bernese Alps to the north and the Ticino peaks to the south is vast and sharp.
Read the complete Nufenen Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nufenen Pass comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is All Acqua, mostly downhill.
All'Acqua is the last place before the Nufenen on the Ticino side, and the sort of place that makes you want to stop even though there is hardly anything there. A few stone buildings, an inn with a restaurant and a small chapel stand at the head of the Bedretto valley, at about 1,600 metres, with the long slope of the pass rising behind. The air is cold and clear, and the light has a hard brilliance that makes the grey stone look almost white.
Read the complete All Acqua write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 25 km into the recorded legs you reach All Acqua. Next is Airolo.
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 closes the day.
Ulrichen → Nufenen Pass is 22 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Nufenen Pass → All Acqua is 3 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
All Acqua → Airolo is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.