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 186 km round trip from Murten/Morat - roughly 3 h 39 in the saddle. On the way it passes Bahnhof, Forêt de la Bettlachstock, Inkwilersee Insel and back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For about 27 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 35 km.
Lake Murten is small, shallow and warm, framed on its north side by the vine-covered whale back of Mont Vully. Under its shallows near the Vully shore lie the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and Chenevières de Guévaux is one of them, part of the UNESCO site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, people built houses on timber posts along lake shores like this one. Waterlogged conditions preserved posts, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years, and the finds transformed what we know about early farming communities in Europe.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chenevières de Guévaux I is where the day begins. Next is Bahnhof.
The label says only "Bahnhof", which is a nicely Swiss joke, because the real attraction here is not a station at all but the south shore of Lake Biel between Täuffelen, Gerolfingen and Lüscherz. This is the Seeland, a low, fertile plain between the lakes, and the villages along the shore are surrounded by vegetable fields, orchards and vineyards on the gentle slopes. Like the shores of Lake Neuchâtel to the south, this lake edge was home to prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and several sites around Lake Biel form part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The finds, from pottery to wooden tools, tell of farming communities that lived here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Bahnhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahnhof comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Above the watchmaking towns of Grenchen and Bettlach, the first chain of the Jura rises like a wall out of the Aare plain, and on its steep southern flank grows the beech forest of the Bettlachstock. In 2021 it became one of the Swiss components of the UNESCO Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a serial site that stretches across the continent to show how beech spread after the last Ice Age. What makes this patch special is that it has been left largely to itself for decades, on slopes so steep and rocky that nobody bothered to log them hard, and so the trees grow old, fall, rot and feed the next generation.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 62 km into the recorded legs you reach Forêt de la Bettlachstock. Next is Inkwilersee Insel.
You could ride past the Inkwilersee a dozen times without noticing it. It is a small, shallow lake tucked into a fold of farmland right on the line between the cantons of Bern and Solothurn, ringed with reeds and alders, with a tiny wooded island near its middle. That island is the reason for the label: beneath its trees and in the mud around it lie traces of prehistoric lakeside settlement, enough to earn the Inkwilersee a place among the Alpine pile-dwelling sites on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Inkwilersee Insel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Inkwilersee Insel, about halfway. Next is back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bahnhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahnhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bahnhof comes up about 159 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chenevières de Guévaux I closes the day.
Chenevières de Guévaux I → Bahnhof is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Inkwilersee Insel is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Inkwilersee Insel → back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock → back through Bahnhof is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bahnhof → Chenevières de Guévaux I is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.