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 327 km round trip from La Chaux-de-Fonds - roughly 5 h 38 in the saddle. On the way it passes Old City of Berne, The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier and back through Old City of Berne. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 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 67 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, 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 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.
Old City of Berne comes up about 67 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier.
On the shore of Lake Geneva at Corseaux, just west of Vevey, stands a low white house, long and narrow, with a single strip window running along its lakeside facade. It looks modest, almost plain, but it is one of the key buildings of modern architecture. Le Corbusier, born in La Chaux-de-Fonds in the Swiss Jura, designed it in the early 1920s for his parents, and the Villa Le Lac, also called the Petite Maison, was an early demonstration of his ideas: a ribbon window framing the view, a roof garden, an open plan. Since 2016 it has been part of the UNESCO World Heritage site of the Architectural Work of Le Corbusier, which includes seventeen sites in seven countries.
Read the complete The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 163 km into the recorded legs you reach The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier. 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.
back through Old City of Berne, 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.
Back at La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. That is the ride.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Old City of Berne is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Old City of Berne → The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The Architectural Work of Le Corbusier → back through Old City of Berne is 96 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Old City of Berne → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 67 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.