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 483 km round trip from La Bresse - roughly 7 h 52 in the saddle. The stops in between: La Manufacture à Saint- Dié, La place forte de Neuf-Brisach, Strasbourg and back through La place forte de Neuf-Brisach. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 800 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 69 km this is Route des Cretes, Vosges, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
The ride follows Route des Vins d'Alsace for 81 km.
At around 1,200 metres, the Grand Ventron is one of the high rounded summits on the main crest of the southern Vosges, where Lorraine meets Alsace. To the west lie the valleys of La Bresse and Ventron; to the east the ground falls steeply into the Thur valley above Kruth. The top is open, grassy and wind combed, a classic Vosges hautes-chaumes landscape of summer pastures, bilberry and granite boulders, with beech and fir forest closing in below. On a clear day the view runs across the Alsace plain to the Black Forest, and on rare exceptional days the Alps show as a pale line far to the south.
Read the complete Grand Ventron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grand Ventron is where the day begins. Next is La Manufacture à Saint- Dié.
Le Corbusier designed only one factory in his long career, and it stands in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, a town in the Meurthe valley on the western side of the Vosges mountains. The Manufacture Claude et Duval, a hosiery factory built between 1946 and 1951, is a concrete block raised on pilotis, with a roof terrace and brightly coloured interiors, and it embodies many of the architect's principles. It was part of his plans for the reconstruction of Saint-Dié after the town was largely destroyed by the retreating German army in November 1944, though most of his grand urban plan was never built. In 2016, the factory was included in the UNESCO listing of the architectural work of Le Corbusier, alongside buildings in seven countries.
Read the complete La Manufacture à Saint- Dié write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Manufacture à Saint- Dié comes up about 69 km into the recorded legs. Next is La place forte de Neuf-Brisach.
After the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, France had to give the fortress of Breisach, on the right bank of the Rhine, back to the Habsburgs, and Louis XIV needed a new stronghold to guard the river. His engineer Vauban designed it from scratch on an empty plain on the left bank: Neuf-Brisach, a perfect octagon of walls, bastions and moats, with a grid of streets inside and a large central square with a church and a parade ground. Built between 1698 and the early eighteenth century, it was Vauban's last great work and is often considered his masterpiece. It is one of the twelve groups of Fortifications of Vauban, listed by UNESCO in 2008.
Read the complete La place forte de Neuf-Brisach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 150 km into the recorded legs you reach La place forte de Neuf-Brisach. Next is Strasbourg.
Strasbourg sits where the Rhine, France and Germany come together, and the city has been passed back and forth between them for centuries. It was a free imperial city, then French from 1681, German from 1871 to 1918, French again, German again in the Second World War, and French since 1944. The history is written into the city, in the half-timbered houses of the Petite France quarter with their steep roofs, in the German-built Neustadt and the Palais du Rhin, in the language, Alsatian, which is a Germanic dialect still spoken by older residents, and in the food, with sauerkraut, tarte flambée and Riesling. Today the city is also the seat of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
Read the complete Strasbourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strasbourg, about halfway. Next is back through La place forte de Neuf-Brisach.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La place forte de Neuf-Brisach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La place forte de Neuf-Brisach sits at 277 km, about halfway. Next is back through La Manufacture à Saint- Dié.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Manufacture à Saint- Dié write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Manufacture à Saint- Dié comes up about 412 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grand Ventron.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grand Ventron write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grand Ventron closes the day.
Grand Ventron → La Manufacture à Saint- Dié is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Manufacture à Saint- Dié → La place forte de Neuf-Brisach is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
La place forte de Neuf-Brisach → Strasbourg is 90 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Strasbourg → back through La place forte de Neuf-Brisach is 91 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through La place forte de Neuf-Brisach → back through La Manufacture à Saint- Dié is 81 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through La Manufacture à Saint- Dié → Grand Ventron is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.