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.
199 km from La Chaux-de-Fonds to La Chaux-de-Fonds, about 3 h 34 of riding. It goes by way of L’Abbaye 2, Spitz, Lobsigensee and back through Spitz. 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 29 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
28 km on Grand Tour of Switzerland.
La Chaux-de-Fonds sits at nearly a thousand metres in the Swiss Jura, on a high, windswept plateau where the winters are long and cold, and it should not really exist. There is no river, no great harbour and no easy farmland, but the people who settled here in the seventeenth century turned to making clocks in their farmhouses during the winter, and the town became the world's capital of watchmaking. After a great fire in 1794, it was rebuilt on a grid pattern, with wide, straight streets that allowed light to reach the workshops and homes, and with the long, high windows that watchmakers needed. That orderly plan is why it is listed by UNESCO, together with its neighbour Le Locle.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Chaux-de-Fonds is where the day begins. Next is L’Abbaye 2.
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 comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Spitz. Next is Lobsigensee.
Lobsigensee is a tiny lake, barely more than a pond, hidden among fields and woods on a low hill above Aarberg in the Bernese Seeland. It is a nature reserve, ringed with reeds and alder trees, and it is home to frogs, newts, dragonflies and birds. It also hides one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage sites: the remains of Neolithic settlements along its shore. There is nothing visible on the surface, but the quiet, green setting gives a sense of what the landscape might have looked like thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Lobsigensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lobsigensee, 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 sits at 107 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through L’Abbaye 2 comes up about 168 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Chaux-de-Fonds closes the day.
La Chaux-de-Fonds → L’Abbaye 2 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’Abbaye 2 → Spitz is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Spitz → Lobsigensee is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lobsigensee → back through Spitz is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Spitz → back through L’Abbaye 2 is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through L’Abbaye 2 → La Chaux-de-Fonds is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.