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 497 km round trip from Rivoli - roughly 9 h 11 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sacro Monte di Belmonte, VI.1-Emissario, Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal and Il Sabbione o settentrionale. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,600 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Rivoli stands on a ridge at the mouth of the Susa valley, where the Alps give way to the plain of Turin, and the Savoy dukes liked it for exactly that reason: from the castle terrace, you can see the city to the east and the wall of mountains to the west. A fortress stood here in the Middle Ages, and in the eighteenth century the architect Filippo Juvarra began to rebuild it as a grand residence for Victor Amadeus II. The duke, who had become King of Sardinia, ended his days here in 1732, reportedly confined by his own son, and the great project was never finished.
Read the complete Castello di Rivoli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castello di Rivoli is where the day begins. Next is Sacro Monte di Belmonte.
On a granite hill rising above the Canavese plain north of Turin, the Sacro Monte di Belmonte looks out over the foothills toward the Alps. The sanctuary, run by Franciscan friars, has a church and a circuit of chapels representing the stations of the Passion, built in the early eighteenth century on a site that had long been a place of pilgrimage. It is part of the UNESCO-listed Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, and the walk around the chapels, under chestnut and oak trees, is calm and shady even in summer.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di Belmonte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte di Belmonte comes up about 56 km into the recorded legs. Next is VI.1-Emissario, 48 km on.
Lago di Viverone is a small, warm lake in northern Piedmont, cupped inside one of the most remarkable glacial landforms in Europe. Ice flowing out of the Aosta Valley during the last glaciations dumped a vast ring of moraine here, the Morainic Amphitheatre of Ivrea, and its eastern wall, the Serra, runs for many kilometres as an almost perfectly straight wooded ridge. The lake sits at the foot of it, with the villages of Viverone and Azeglio on its shores and Ivrea around a quarter of an hour's ride to the northwest.
Read the complete VI.1-Emissario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 101 km into the recorded legs you reach VI.1-Emissario. Next is Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal.
Varallo is a small town at the point where the Valsesia stops being a wide valley and starts becoming a mountain one, and above it, on a rocky spur reached by a winding road or a short cable car, is the oldest and most ambitious of the Sacri Monti. In 1491 a Franciscan friar called Bernardino Caimi, back from the Holy Land, set out to recreate Jerusalem here for pilgrims who could never make the journey. The result is a hilltop village of more than forty chapels filled with life-size painted terracotta and wooden figures, hundreds of them, telling the life of Christ like a frozen theatre. Gaudenzio Ferrari, the great Renaissance painter of this valley, worked on many of them.
Read the complete Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal, about halfway. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Lake Monate is small, round and remarkably clean, set in the gentle hills of the Varese province between Lake Maggiore and Lake Varese. It has no river flowing into it, being fed by springs, and its water is among the clearest of any lake in Lombardy, which makes it a favourite with swimmers on hot summer days. On its northern shore, near Cadrezzate, the site known as Il Sabbione preserves the remains of a prehistoric village built on piles at the water's edge, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The Varese area is rich in such sites, and the finds from them, including pottery, tools and the remains of wooden canoes, are displayed in local museums.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale sits at 195 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal comes up about 323 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through VI.1-Emissario, 49 km on.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete VI.1-Emissario write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 398 km into the recorded legs you reach back through VI.1-Emissario. Next is back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacro Monte di Belmonte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte, late in the day. Next is Castello di Rivoli.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castello di Rivoli write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 497 km.
Castello di Rivoli → Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte di Belmonte → VI.1-Emissario is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
VI.1-Emissario → Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte o “Nuova Gerusalemme” di Varal → back through VI.1-Emissario is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through VI.1-Emissario → back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacro Monte di Belmonte → Castello di Rivoli is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.