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.
287 km from Estavayer-le-Lac to Estavayer-le-Lac, about 4 h 32 of riding. On the way it passes Corcelettes Les Violes, Le Locle, Dorfstation and back through Le Locle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 42 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Lake Neuchâtel is the largest lake entirely within Switzerland, a long, narrow body of water at the foot of the Jura mountains, and its shallow shores have been home to people for thousands of years. La Bessime is one of the prehistoric pile-dwelling sites of the lake, part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, listed by UNESCO in 2011. Like most such sites, it lies underwater or buried in the lake bed, with the remains of wooden posts, tools, pottery and food preserved in the mud, invisible to the visitor but invaluable to archaeologists.
Read the complete La Bessime write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Bessime is where the day begins. Next is Corcelettes Les Violes.
Corcelettes is a little lakeside hamlet just north of Grandson, near the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, and Les Violes is the stretch of shallow shore where Bronze Age people built a village of wooden houses on piles, some three thousand years ago. The site was one of the first in the region to attract attention in the nineteenth century, when low water levels after the correction of the Jura waters exposed forests of ancient posts in the mud. It is now listed among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corcelettes Les Violes comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Locle.
Le Locle, high in the Swiss Jura near the French border, is a town built for making watches. After a series of fires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was rebuilt on a grid of parallel streets, with houses and workshops designed to let maximum light into the rooms where watchmakers worked at their benches. The town, with neighbouring La Chaux-de-Fonds, was listed by UNESCO in 2009 as an example of urban planning shaped entirely by a single industry. Tissot was founded here in 1853, Zenith in 1865, and many smaller firms continue the tradition. Daniel JeanRichard, a goldsmith who is said to have founded the Jura watch industry, worked here in the eighteenth century.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 98 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Locle. 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, about halfway. Next is back through Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Le Locle sits at 137 km, about halfway. Next is back through Corcelettes Les Violes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Corcelettes Les Violes comes up about 244 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Bessime.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Bessime write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Bessime closes the day.
La Bessime → Corcelettes Les Violes is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corcelettes Les Violes → Le Locle is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Locle → Dorfstation is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dorfstation → back through Le Locle is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Le Locle → back through Corcelettes Les Violes is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Corcelettes Les Violes → La Bessime is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.