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 Gorgier it runs 139 km to Gorgier; allow about 2 h 14 of riding. It goes by way of Corcelettes Les Violes, Le Locle and back through Corcelettes Les Violes. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 16 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Around the shores of Lake Neuchâtel, the water level once sat lower than it does now, and prehistoric farmers built villages on pilings along the edge. Les Argilliez, near Gorgier on the northwest shore, preserves traces of one of them. The wet mud at the bottom of the lake kept wood, textiles and tools in astonishing condition, which is why the pile dwellings around the Alps were inscribed by UNESCO in 2011. There is little to see above the waterline, but the idea of a village standing on stilts in these waters, with the Jura mountains behind it, is a strong one.
Read the complete Les Argilliez write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Argilliez is where the day begins. Next is Corcelettes Les Violes.
Corcelettes is a little lakeside hamlet just north of Grandson, near the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, and Les Violes is the stretch of shallow shore where Bronze Age people built a village of wooden houses on piles, some three thousand years ago. The site was one of the first in the region to attract attention in the nineteenth century, when low water levels after the correction of the Jura waters exposed forests of ancient posts in the mud. It is now listed among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corcelettes Les Violes comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Locle.
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.
about 72 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Locle. Next is back through Corcelettes Les Violes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Corcelettes Les Violes, late in the day. Next is Les Argilliez.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Argilliez write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Les Argilliez. That is the ride.
Les Argilliez → Corcelettes Les Violes is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corcelettes Les Violes → Le Locle is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Locle → back through Corcelettes Les Violes is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Corcelettes Les Violes → Les Argilliez is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.