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 Le Locle it runs 227 km to Le Locle; allow about 3 h 35 of riding. It goes by way of Port-Conty, Chenevières de Guévaux I, Bahnhof and back through Chenevières de Guévaux I. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 40 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Le Locle, high in the Swiss Jura near the French border, is a town built for making watches. After a series of fires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was rebuilt on a grid of parallel streets, with houses and workshops designed to let maximum light into the rooms where watchmakers worked at their benches. The town, with neighbouring La Chaux-de-Fonds, was listed by UNESCO in 2009 as an example of urban planning shaped entirely by a single industry. Tissot was founded here in 1853, Zenith in 1865, and many smaller firms continue the tradition. Daniel JeanRichard, a goldsmith who is said to have founded the Jura watch industry, worked here in the eighteenth century.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Le Locle is where the day begins. Next is Port-Conty.
Under the shallow water off Port-Conty lie the remains of villages that were built on stilts more than five thousand years ago, and you will see none of them from the shore. The site, near Saint-Aubin-Sauges on the north-western side of Lake Neuchâtel, is one of the many locations in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Archaeologists have found posts, tools, pottery and remains of food preserved in the lake mud, painting a picture of Neolithic and Bronze Age communities who farmed, fished and built their houses along the water's edge.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Port-Conty comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Lake Murten is small, shallow and warm, framed on its north side by the vine-covered whale back of Mont Vully. Under its shallows near the Vully shore lie the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and Chenevières de Guévaux is one of them, part of the UNESCO site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, people built houses on timber posts along lake shores like this one. Waterlogged conditions preserved posts, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years, and the finds transformed what we know about early farming communities in Europe.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Chenevières de Guévaux I. 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 back through Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through Port-Conty.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Port-Conty comes up about 179 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Le Locle closes the day.
Le Locle → Port-Conty is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Port-Conty → Chenevières de Guévaux I is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chenevières de Guévaux I → Bahnhof is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bahnhof → back through Chenevières de Guévaux I is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I → back through Port-Conty is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Port-Conty → Le Locle is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.