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 195 km round trip from Erlach - roughly 3 h 32 in the saddle. It goes by way of Pointe de Montbec I, La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle, L’Abbaye 2 and back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 23 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The south shore of Lake Biel is a gentle place of reeds, vineyards on the far bank and farmland stretching back towards the Seeland plain, and at Lüscherz, one of the small lakeside villages, the remains of a prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement lie in the shallows. Dorfstation, as the site is known, is part of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, inscribed in 2011. Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers built their houses on wooden piles along the shore, and the waterlogged ground preserved timbers, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorfstation is where the day begins. Next is Pointe de Montbec I.
The south shore of Lake Neuchâtel is a long, soft margin of reeds, shallow water and woodland, and it hides one of the richest archaeological records in Europe. Pointe de Montbec, near the villages along the Fribourg and Vaud shore opposite Neuchâtel, is one of the places where prehistoric lake dwellers built their villages on the water's edge thousands of years ago. Their houses stood on piles driven into the soft lake shore, and when lake levels rose, the remains were sealed under water and mud, preserving wood, textiles, seeds and tools in astonishing detail. The prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps were inscribed by UNESCO in 2011 as a single serial site spanning six countries, and this shore contributes a good number of them.
Read the complete Pointe de Montbec I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pointe de Montbec I comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
At about a thousand metres up in the Jura, in a long, high valley where winter arrives early and leaves late, two towns spent two centuries making most of the world's watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle are strange, fascinating places: not pretty old towns, but industrial cities laid out on a grid, with long parallel streets of apartment blocks designed to let maximum light into workshops where generations of craftsmen assembled tiny gears by the window. Their urban planning, built entirely around one industry, is on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. Next is L’Abbaye 2.
The north shore of Lake Neuchâtel is a long, gentle slope of vineyards running down to the water, with villages of honey-coloured stone and the Jura rising behind. At Bevaix, on the shore below the village, archaeologists have found traces of prehistoric pile dwellings at a site known as L'Abbaye, named after a medieval priory that once stood nearby. It is one of the Swiss components of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage site. Nothing is visible on the surface; the remains lie underwater or in the lake sediments. But the lakeshore is beautiful, and there is a pleasant path along the water.
Read the complete L’Abbaye 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’Abbaye 2, about halfway. Next is back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle sits at 108 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pointe de Montbec I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pointe de Montbec I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pointe de Montbec I comes up about 172 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dorfstation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorfstation closes the day.
Dorfstation → Pointe de Montbec I is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pointe de Montbec I → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → L’Abbaye 2 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’Abbaye 2 → back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → back through Pointe de Montbec I is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pointe de Montbec I → Dorfstation is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.