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.
From Yverdon-les-Bains it runs 372 km to Yverdon-les-Bains; allow about 5 h 54 of riding. The stops in between: Bahnhof, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp and back through Bahnhof. It crosses from Switzerland into France - 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 54 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Corcelettes is a little lakeside hamlet just north of Grandson, near the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, and Les Violes is the stretch of shallow shore where Bronze Age people built a village of wooden houses on piles, some three thousand years ago. The site was one of the first in the region to attract attention in the nineteenth century, when low water levels after the correction of the Jura waters exposed forests of ancient posts in the mud. It is now listed among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corcelettes Les Violes 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 54 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 192 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. 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, late in the day. Next is Corcelettes Les Violes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Corcelettes Les Violes. That is the ride.
Corcelettes Les Violes → Bahnhof is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp is 138 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp → back through Bahnhof is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Bahnhof → Corcelettes Les Violes is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.