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 167 km round trip from Bodio - roughly 4 h 52 in the saddle. It goes by way of Monte San Giorgio, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy and back through Monte San Giorgio. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,100 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 53 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Gavirate, on the northern shore of the Lago di Varese in Lombardy, has a sweet claim to fame: it is the home of the brutti ma buoni, ugly but good, crunchy biscuits made with hazelnuts and egg whites, which were reportedly invented here in the nineteenth century and are still sold in local pastry shops. The lake itself is a small, shallow lake surrounded by low hills, and its shores were home to some of the earliest pile-dwelling villages in Italy. The site of Bodio Centrale, also known as delle Monete, on the southern shore near Bodio Lomnago, is part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete is where the day begins. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
On the western shore of Lake Como, above the village of Ossuccio and facing the little Isola Comacina, a cobbled path climbs the hillside through olive groves and woods, past fourteen small chapels, to a sanctuary at the top. This is the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio, one of nine sacred mountains in Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO. Built in the seventeenth century, the chapels illustrate the Mysteries of the Rosary with life-size terracotta and plaster figures arranged in dramatic scenes, each one a small piece of theatre.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. Next is back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio, late in the day. Next is Bodio centrale o delle Monete.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bodio centrale o delle Monete write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bodio centrale o delle Monete. That is the ride.
Bodio centrale o delle Monete → Monte San Giorgio is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Monte San Giorgio is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monte San Giorgio → Bodio centrale o delle Monete is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.