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.
336 km from Aix-les-Bains to Aix-les-Bains, about 5 h 33 of riding. On the way it passes Lac d’Aiguebelette, Secteur des Mongets, Immeuble Clarté and back through Secteur des Mongets. It crosses from France into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 31 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Hautecombe Abbey stands on the western shore of Lac du Bourget, in Savoy, and it is almost impossible to reach without seeing the lake first. The Lac du Bourget is the largest natural lake entirely in France, a deep blue sheet under limestone cliffs, and the abbey sits on a small rocky spur above the water, with a boat landing and a church whose tower is visible across the bay. The poet Lamartine, who fell in love here in 1816, wrote a famous poem called Le Lac, about a lost love at this water.
Read the complete Hautecombe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hautecombe is where the day begins. Next is Lac d’Aiguebelette.
Motorboats are banned on the Lac d'Aiguebelette, and on a calm summer morning you notice the difference straight away: rowers sliding across water so still it mirrors the wooded slopes above, swimmers heading out from small beaches, and no engine noise beyond the occasional car on the shore road. The lake, in Savoie just west of Chambéry, is one of the largest natural lakes in France, and its clean water is among the warmest of the alpine lakes in summer. It hosted the World Rowing Championships in 2015.
Read the complete Lac d’Aiguebelette write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lac d’Aiguebelette comes up about 48 km into the recorded legs. Next is Secteur des Mongets.
Sevrier, on the western shore of Lake Annecy, is home to an unusual industry: bells. The Paccard foundry, which has been casting bells since the late eighteenth century and moved to Sevrier in the 1980s, has made bells for churches and carillons all over the world, and its museum explains how they are designed, cast and tuned. It is a curious contrast to the quiet lakeshore just below the village, where the Secteur des Mongets marks the remains of a prehistoric village built on the edge of the lake, now under water. It is one of the sites included in the World Heritage listing of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, and divers have found wooden piles, pottery and tools in the lake bed.
Read the complete Secteur des Mongets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 115 km into the recorded legs you reach Secteur des Mongets. Next is Immeuble Clarté.
In 1932, while most of Geneva was building in stone, Le Corbusier put up an apartment block made almost entirely of steel and glass. The Immeuble Clarté, in the Eaux-Vives district on the east side of the city, was revolutionary for its time: a prefabricated steel frame, huge windows that flood the apartments with light, duplex flats with double-height living rooms and a structure that allowed flexible layouts. The name means clarity, and the building lives up to it. Since 2016 it has been part of the UNESCO listing of the architectural work of Le Corbusier, alongside the Villa Savoye, the Unité d'Habitation and other buildings on several continents.
Read the complete Immeuble Clarté write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Immeuble Clarté, about halfway. Next is back through Secteur des Mongets.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Secteur des Mongets write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Secteur des Mongets sits at 190 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lac d’Aiguebelette.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lac d’Aiguebelette write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lac d’Aiguebelette comes up about 288 km into the recorded legs. Next is Hautecombe.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hautecombe write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hautecombe closes the day.
Hautecombe → Lac d’Aiguebelette is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lac d’Aiguebelette → Secteur des Mongets is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Secteur des Mongets → Immeuble Clarté is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Immeuble Clarté → back through Secteur des Mongets is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Secteur des Mongets → back through Lac d’Aiguebelette is 68 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lac d’Aiguebelette → Hautecombe is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.