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 Bevaix it runs 225 km to Bevaix; allow about 3 h 58 of riding. The stops in between: Spitz, Bahnhof, Forêt de la Bettlachstock and back through Bahnhof. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For about 35 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.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 35 km.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Spitz.
On the southern shore of the Murtensee, just west of the medieval town of Murten, a little point of land juts into the water at Greng, and here, beneath the shallows, archaeologists found the posts of prehistoric lake villages. Greng-Spitz is one of the Swiss sites in the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, and while there is nothing to see but reeds, water and the occasional marker, it is pleasant to know that people lived on this shore some five thousand years ago.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Spitz comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Bahnhof. Next is Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
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, 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 sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Spitz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Spitz comes up about 183 km into the recorded legs. Next is L’Abbaye 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’Abbaye 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’Abbaye 2 closes the day.
L’Abbaye 2 → Spitz is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Spitz → Bahnhof is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → back through Bahnhof is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bahnhof → back through Spitz is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Spitz → L’Abbaye 2 is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.