CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 398 km round trip from Cadrezzate - roughly 7 h 48 in the saddle. On the way it passes Valli di Lodano, Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch and back through Valli di Lodano. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Italy into Switzerland - 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 74 km this is Nufenen Pass Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Monate is small, round and remarkably clean, set in the gentle hills of the Varese province between Lake Maggiore and Lake Varese. It has no river flowing into it, being fed by springs, and its water is among the clearest of any lake in Lombardy, which makes it a favourite with swimmers on hot summer days. On its northern shore, near Cadrezzate, the site known as Il Sabbione preserves the remains of a prehistoric village built on piles at the water's edge, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The Varese area is rich in such sites, and the finds from them, including pottery, tools and the remains of wooden canoes, are displayed in local museums.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale is where the day begins. Next is Valli di Lodano.
Halfway up the Maggia valley in Ticino, a narrow side valley climbs steeply west from the village of Lodano into a forest that has been left almost untouched for decades. The Valli di Lodano, together with the neighbouring valleys of Busai and Soladino, form a forest reserve in which beech trees grow from the valley floor up to the tree line, and in 2021 they were added to the World Heritage site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, a series of forests spread across eighteen countries. Walking up into the reserve, you pass through old chestnut groves, then into the beech forest, with moss-covered boulders, streams and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valli di Lodano comes up 71 km in. Next is Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch.
No road comes anywhere near. This is a landscape of ice, rock and sky, the first Alpine area to be listed as a World Heritage site, and the riding is all around it rather than through it.
Read the complete Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
142 km in you reach Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. Next is back through Valli di Lodano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Valli di Lodano, late in the day. Next is Il Sabbione o settentrionale.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Il Sabbione o settentrionale write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Il Sabbione o settentrionale. That is the ride.
Il Sabbione o settentrionale → Valli di Lodano is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Valli di Lodano → Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch → back through Valli di Lodano is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Valli di Lodano → Il Sabbione o settentrionale is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.