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 398 km round trip from Yverdon-les-Bains - roughly 6 h 22 in the saddle. On the way it passes Dorfstation, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp and back through Dorfstation. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 59 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
At the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, just east of Yverdon-les-Bains, the shore curves into a shallow bay fringed with reeds, poplars and a beach where local families swim in summer. Behind it, in a meadow, stands a double row of tall grey stones. These are the menhirs of Clendy, raised by Neolithic farmers more than five thousand years ago and re-erected in the twentieth century after they were found toppled in the ground. Offshore and along the bay lie the remains of lakeside settlements of the same era, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baie de Clendy is where the day begins. Next is Dorfstation.
The south shore of Lake Biel is a gentle place of reeds, vineyards on the far bank and farmland stretching back towards the Seeland plain, and at Lüscherz, one of the small lakeside villages, the remains of a prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement lie in the shallows. Dorfstation, as the site is known, is part of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, inscribed in 2011. Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers built their houses on wooden piles along the shore, and the waterlogged ground preserved timbers, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorfstation comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut sits on a hill above Ronchamp, at the foot of the Vosges, and it is one of the strangest and most beautiful buildings of the twentieth century. Le Corbusier designed it in the early 1950s and it was consecrated in 1955. The white walls curve and lean, the roof sweeps up like a hull or a hat, and the thick walls are pierced by small deep windows filled with coloured glass. Inside, light falls in coloured pools on the floor, and the whole room feels carved rather than built. There has been a pilgrim chapel on this hill for centuries, and the earlier church was destroyed in the war, which is what led to the commission.
Read the complete Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 204 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. Next is back through Dorfstation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dorfstation, late in the day. Next is Baie de Clendy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Baie de Clendy. That is the ride.
Baie de Clendy → Dorfstation is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dorfstation → Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp is 145 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp → back through Dorfstation is 136 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Dorfstation → Baie de Clendy is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.