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 La Chaux-de-Fonds it runs 224 km to La Chaux-de-Fonds; allow about 3 h 40 of riding. The stops in between: Les Graviers, Port-Conty, Les Grèves and Spitz. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 14 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
At about a thousand metres up in the Jura, in a long, high valley where winter arrives early and leaves late, two towns spent two centuries making most of the world's watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle are strange, fascinating places: not pretty old towns, but industrial cities laid out on a grid, with long parallel streets of apartment blocks designed to let maximum light into workshops where generations of craftsmen assembled tiny gears by the window. Their urban planning, built entirely around one industry, is on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is where the day begins. Next is Les Graviers.
Auvernier is a wine village with its feet in the water. Its old stone houses, cellars and narrow lanes climb from the shore of Lake Neuchâtel into vineyards, and the lake bed just off its little harbour holds the remains of prehistoric villages. Les Graviers is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, where archaeologists have found the traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements, with wooden piles, tools, pottery and food remains preserved in the lake mud. Many of the finds from the region are displayed at the Laténium, a superb archaeology museum by the lake at Hauterive, on the other side of Neuchâtel.
Read the complete Les Graviers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Graviers comes up about 22 km into the recorded legs. Next is Port-Conty.
Under the shallow water off Port-Conty lie the remains of villages that were built on stilts more than five thousand years ago, and you will see none of them from the shore. The site, near Saint-Aubin-Sauges on the north-western side of Lake Neuchâtel, is one of the many locations in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Archaeologists have found posts, tools, pottery and remains of food preserved in the lake mud, painting a picture of Neolithic and Bronze Age communities who farmed, fished and built their houses along the water's edge.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 36 km into the recorded legs you reach Port-Conty. Next is Les Grèves.
Reeds, mostly. That is the first thing you notice when you roll down to Les Grèves on the southern shore of Lake Neuchâtel: a soft wall of reed and willow between the fields and the water, with the Jura sitting long and blue on the far side of the lake. This stretch between Portalban, Gletterens and Chevroux belongs to the Grande Cariçaie, the biggest lakeshore marsh in Switzerland, and it only exists because people once moved an entire lake level.
Read the complete Les Grèves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Grèves, about halfway. 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 sits at 70 km, about halfway. Next is back through Les Grèves.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Grèves write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Grèves comes up about 129 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Port-Conty.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 183 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Port-Conty. Next is back through Les Graviers.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Graviers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Graviers, late in the day. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 224 km.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Les Graviers is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Graviers → Port-Conty is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Port-Conty → Les Grèves is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Grèves → Spitz is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Spitz → back through Les Grèves is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Grèves → back through Port-Conty is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Port-Conty → back through Les Graviers is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Graviers → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.