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 Peseux it runs 394 km to Peseux; allow about 6 h 29 of riding. It goes by way of Forêt de la Bettlachstock, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp and back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 64 km.
The shore of Lake Neuchâtel, on the Swiss side, is lined with vineyards, and at the foot of them sits a thin strip of beach and reeds called La Saunerie, near the village of Auvernier. Four or five thousand years ago people lived here in houses raised on piles over the shallows, fishing, hunting, farming and keeping cattle, and the waterlogged mud preserved the timbers, tools, textiles, seeds and even bread that most archaeological sites would have lost. Together with more than a hundred similar places around the Alps, La Saunerie is part of the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings, and the underwater site is not meant to be visited, only protected, though the shore and the museum nearby tell the story.
Read the complete La Saunerie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Saunerie is where the day begins. Next is Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Above the watchmaking towns of Grenchen and Bettlach, the first chain of the Jura rises like a wall out of the Aare plain, and on its steep southern flank grows the beech forest of the Bettlachstock. In 2021 it became one of the Swiss components of the UNESCO Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a serial site that stretches across the continent to show how beech spread after the last Ice Age. What makes this patch special is that it has been left largely to itself for decades, on slopes so steep and rocky that nobody bothered to log them hard, and so the trees grow old, fall, rot and feed the next generation.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut sits on a hill above Ronchamp, at the foot of the Vosges, and it is one of the strangest and most beautiful buildings of the twentieth century. Le Corbusier designed it in the early 1950s and it was consecrated in 1955. The white walls curve and lean, the roof sweeps up like a hull or a hat, and the thick walls are pierced by small deep windows filled with coloured glass. Inside, light falls in coloured pools on the floor, and the whole room feels carved rather than built. There has been a pilgrim chapel on this hill for centuries, and the earlier church was destroyed in the war, which is what led to the commission.
Read the complete Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 197 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. Next is back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock, late in the day. Next is La Saunerie.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Saunerie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at La Saunerie. That is the ride.
La Saunerie → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp is 133 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp → back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 132 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock → La Saunerie is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.