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.
A 362 km round trip from Versoix - roughly 5 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes Stations de Morges, The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, Baie de Clendy and Les Grèves. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 50 km this is Route des Grandes Alpes, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Geneva has a gentle northern shore and a steep one, and Bellerive lies on the quiet side. Collonge-Bellerive is a village on the Geneva side of the lake, a few kilometres from the city, with lawns running down to the water, old villas and a small harbour where sailing boats bob. Some five thousand years ago, people built houses on piles in the shallows here, and what remains of that settlement lies below the surface, protected as part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011. There is nothing to see from the shore except the lake and the Alps, so the visit is about the setting.
Read the complete Bellerive I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bellerive I is where the day begins. Next is Stations de Morges.
On a calm morning the lake off Morges is as flat as polished pewter, with the Savoy Alps on the far shore and Mont Blanc floating above them, and it is hard to believe that anyone ever had to fight for this view. Yet people have been living right here for millennia. Just off the shore, in the shallow water near the town, lie the remains of prehistoric villages built on piles, the Stations de Morges, one of the Swiss components of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Divers and archaeologists have mapped wooden posts and objects from the Bronze Age, but from the shore you will see only water, swans and the occasional paddleboarder.
Read the complete Stations de Morges write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stations de Morges comes up 42 km in. Next is The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
On the shore of Lake Geneva at Corseaux, just west of Vevey, stands a low white house, long and narrow, with a single strip window running along its lakeside facade. It looks modest, almost plain, but it is one of the key buildings of modern architecture. Le Corbusier, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss Jura, designed it in the early 1920s for his parents, and the Villa Le Lac, also called the Petite Maison, was an early demonstration of his ideas: a ribbon window framing the view, a roof garden, an open plan. Since 2016 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, which includes seventeen sites in seven countries.
Read the complete The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
84 km in you reach The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier. Next is Baie de Clendy.
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, about halfway. Next is Les Grèves.
Reeds, mostly. That is the first thing you notice when you roll down to Les Grèves on the southern shore of Lake Neuchâtel: a soft wall of reed and willow between the fields and the water, with the Jura sitting long and blue on the far side of the lake. This stretch between Portalban, Gletterens and Chevroux belongs to the Grande Cariçaie, the biggest lakeshore marsh in Switzerland, and it only exists because people once moved an entire lake level.
Read the complete Les Grèves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Grèves sits at 169 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Baie de Clendy comes up 211 km in. Next is back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
253 km in you reach back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier. Next is back through Stations de Morges.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stations de Morges write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Stations de Morges, late in the day. Next is Bellerive I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bellerive I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 362 km.
Bellerive I → Stations de Morges is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stations de Morges → The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier → Baie de Clendy is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baie de Clendy → Les Grèves is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Grèves → back through Baie de Clendy is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baie de Clendy → back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier → back through Stations de Morges is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stations de Morges → Bellerive I is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.