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.
A 303 km round trip from Lutry - roughly 4 h 51 in the saddle. The stops in between: Baie de Clendy, Les Grèves, Bahnhof and Les Graviers. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 53 km this is Lavaux Vineyard Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
From the shore of Lake Geneva the vineyards of Lavaux climb almost vertically, terrace upon terrace, held up by stone walls, to villages perched on the slopes above. Monks from Cistercian abbeys began shaping these hillsides in the Middle Ages, and generations of winegrowers have rebuilt the walls ever since, carrying soil back up when rain washes it down. The result is one of the most striking wine landscapes in the world, stretching about thirty kilometres between Lausanne and Montreux, and listed by UNESCO in 2007. Locals like to say that the vines here enjoy three suns: the one in the sky, its reflection off the lake and the warmth stored in the stone walls.
Read the complete Lavaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lavaux is where the day begins. Next is Baie de Clendy.
At the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, just east of Yverdon-les-Bains, the shore curves into a shallow bay fringed with reeds, poplars and a beach where local families swim in summer. Behind it, in a meadow, stands a double row of tall grey stones. These are the menhirs of Clendy, raised by Neolithic farmers more than five thousand years ago and re-erected in the twentieth century after they were found toppled in the ground. Offshore and along the bay lie the remains of lakeside settlements of the same era, part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baie de Clendy comes up about 53 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 89 km into the recorded legs you reach Les Grèves. Next is Bahnhof.
The label says only "Bahnhof", which is a nicely Swiss joke, because the real attraction here is not a station at all but the south shore of Lake Biel between Täuffelen, Gerolfingen and Lüscherz. This is the Seeland, a low, fertile plain between the lakes, and the villages along the shore are surrounded by vegetable fields, orchards and vineyards on the gentle slopes. Like the shores of Lake Neuchâtel to the south, this lake edge was home to prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and several sites around Lake Biel form part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The finds, from pottery to wooden tools, tell of farming communities that lived here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Bahnhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bahnhof, about halfway. 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 sits at 149 km, about halfway. Next is back through Bahnhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bahnhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bahnhof comes up about 185 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 222 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Les Grèves. Next is back through Baie de Clendy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baie de Clendy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Baie de Clendy, late in the day. Next is Lavaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lavaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 303 km.
Lavaux → Baie de Clendy is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baie de Clendy → Les Grèves is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Grèves → Bahnhof is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → Les Graviers is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Graviers → back through Bahnhof is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bahnhof → back through Les Grèves is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Grèves → back through Baie de Clendy is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baie de Clendy → Lavaux is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.