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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
284 km from Le Locle to Le Locle, about 4 h 54 of riding. It goes by way of Chenevières de Guévaux I, Vingelz / Hafen, Spitz and Old City of Berne. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 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 34 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, 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 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.
Chenevières de Guévaux I comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Vingelz / Hafen.
Biel and Bienne are the same city, one name in German and one in French, and street signs, conversations and even jokes switch between the two languages without anyone noticing. At its western edge, the lakeside district of Vingelz, with its small harbour, has given archaeologists remains of prehistoric pile dwellings in the shallow water of Lake Biel, and the site is one piece of the World Heritage property for pile dwellings around the Alps. The lake, long and narrow, lies at the foot of the Jura mountains, and its shores have been inhabited for thousands of years.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Vingelz / Hafen. 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.
Spitz, about halfway. Next is Old City of Berne.
Bern does not shout. The Swiss capital sits on a sandstone spur in a tight loop of the green Aare, with six kilometres of arcaded streets that let you walk the whole old town in the rain without getting wet. It was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, and legend says he named it after the first animal he killed hunting nearby, a bear. The bears have been the town's mascots ever since, and a few still live in the BärenPark down by the river at the end of the Nydeggbrücke.
Read the complete Old City of Berne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Berne sits at 142 km, 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 comes up about 178 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Vingelz / Hafen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 212 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Vingelz / Hafen. 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, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 284 km.
Le Locle → Chenevières de Guévaux I is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chenevières de Guévaux I → Vingelz / Hafen is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vingelz / Hafen → Spitz is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Spitz → Old City of Berne is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Berne → back through Spitz is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Spitz → back through Vingelz / Hafen is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vingelz / Hafen → back through Chenevières de Guévaux I is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I → Le Locle is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.