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 Grenchen it runs 206 km to Grenchen; allow about 4 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Vingelz / Hafen, Lobsigensee, Bahnhof and Môtier I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
This part of the ride is 28 km of Grand Tour of Switzerland.
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.
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.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock is where the day begins. Next is Vingelz / Hafen.
Biel and Bienne are the same city, one name in German and one in French, and street signs, conversations and even jokes switch between the two languages without anyone noticing. At its western edge, the lakeside district of Vingelz, with its small harbour, has given archaeologists remains of prehistoric pile dwellings in the shallow water of Lake Biel, and the site is one piece of the World Heritage property for pile dwellings around the Alps. The lake, long and narrow, lies at the foot of the Jura mountains, and its shores have been inhabited for thousands of years.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vingelz / Hafen comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Lobsigensee.
Lobsigensee is a tiny lake, barely more than a pond, hidden among fields and woods on a low hill above Aarberg in the Bernese Seeland. It is a nature reserve, ringed with reeds and alder trees, and it is home to frogs, newts, dragonflies and birds. It also hides one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage sites: the remains of Neolithic settlements along its shore. There is nothing visible on the surface, but the quiet, green setting gives a sense of what the landscape might have looked like thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Lobsigensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 48 km into the recorded legs you reach Lobsigensee. 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, about halfway. Next is Môtier I.
Murten, or Morat as the French speakers call it, is a small walled town on the shore of a lake of the same name, on the language frontier of Switzerland. Its ramparts are among the best preserved in the country, and its main street is lined with arcades and painted fountains. In 1476, it was the site of a decisive battle, when the Swiss Confederates defeated the army of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and ended his attempt to conquer the region. A stone memorial to the battle, and the legend that a runner carried the news of victory to Fribourg, gave Switzerland a long-lasting patriotic story.
Read the complete Môtier I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Môtier I sits at 79 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 130 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Lobsigensee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lobsigensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 157 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Lobsigensee. Next is back through Vingelz / Hafen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vingelz / Hafen, late in the day. Next is 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.
The route ends here after 206 km.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Vingelz / Hafen is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vingelz / Hafen → Lobsigensee is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lobsigensee → Bahnhof is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → Môtier I is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Môtier I → back through Bahnhof is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bahnhof → back through Lobsigensee is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lobsigensee → back through Vingelz / Hafen is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vingelz / Hafen → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.