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.
281 km from Clairvaux-les-Lacs to Clairvaux-les-Lacs, about 4 h 51 of riding. It goes by way of Bourg, Le Crêt de Chatillon and back through Bourg. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from France into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 62 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
The Jura plateau behind Clairvaux-les-Lacs is a country of limestone, cows and lakes, and the Grand Lac de Clairvaux is the largest of the lakes that give the town its name. Prehistoric people lived on its shore on pilings, in villages that rose and fell for centuries, and the waterlogged mud preserved their wood and tools. The sites on Clairvaux's lakes are among the pile-dwelling places inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2011. The lake today is a quiet blue sheet, ringed by reeds and low wooded hills, with a beach where families swim in July.
Read the complete Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux is where the day begins. Next is Bourg.
Geneva's lake shore is not the only place where Switzerland feels close at hand, and the stretch north of the city, around Versoix, is one of the quietest. Versoix itself is a calm, lakeside town with a little harbour, a long promenade and a medieval-looking centre, and it is easy to forget how close the French border is.
Read the complete Bourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bourg comes up about 80 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Crêt de Chatillon.
The Crêt de Châtillon is the summit of the Semnoz, the long wooded mountain that rises above the western shore of Lake Annecy, and from the top, at around 1,700 metres, the view on a clear day is one of the finest in the French Alps: the whole lake below, the Bauges and the Aravis around, and, to the east, Mont Blanc in all its glory. Sites with names like Châtillon and Les Mongets along this shore preserve the remains of villages built on the edge of the lake thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Le Crêt de Chatillon write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 141 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Crêt de Chatillon. Next is back through Bourg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bourg, late in the day. Next is Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux. That is the ride.
Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux → Bourg is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bourg → Le Crêt de Chatillon is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Crêt de Chatillon → back through Bourg is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bourg → Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux is 80 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.