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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 278 km round trip from Bevaix - roughly 4 h 48 in the saddle. The stops in between: Dorfstation, Old City of Berne, Rütte and back through Rütte. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 37 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Dorfstation.
The south shore of Lake Biel is a gentle place of reeds, vineyards on the far bank and farmland stretching back towards the Seeland plain, and at Lüscherz, one of the small lakeside villages, the remains of a prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement lie in the shallows. Dorfstation, as the site is known, is part of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, inscribed in 2011. Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers built their houses on wooden piles along the shore, and the waterlogged ground preserved timbers, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorfstation comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Old City of Berne.
Bern does not shout. The Swiss capital sits on a sandstone spur in a tight loop of the green Aare, with six kilometres of arcaded streets that let you walk the whole old town in the rain without getting wet. It was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, and legend says he named it after the first animal he killed hunting nearby, a bear. The bears have been the town's mascots ever since, and a few still live in the BärenPark down by the river at the end of the Nydeggbrücke.
Read the complete Old City of Berne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Old City of Berne. Next is Rütte.
Rütte sits on the gentle southern slope above Lake Biel, a scatter of farms and orchards between the village of Bellmund and the lakeshore, with the long blue ridge of the Jura filling the view across the water. Nidau and the city of Biel are a few minutes away, yet up here it feels thoroughly rural: cows, cherry trees, a sharp smell of cut grass in early summer and the clank of a tractor somewhere below.
Read the complete Rütte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rütte, about halfway.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old City of Berne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Berne sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rütte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rütte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rütte comes up about 173 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Old City of Berne.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Old City of Berne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 207 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Old City of Berne. Next is back through Dorfstation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dorfstation, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 278 km.
L’Abbaye 2 → Dorfstation is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dorfstation → Old City of Berne is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Berne → Rütte is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rütte → Old City of Berne is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Berne → back through Rütte is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rütte → back through Old City of Berne is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Old City of Berne → back through Dorfstation is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dorfstation → L’Abbaye 2 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.