CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 497 km round trip from Estavayer-le-Lac - roughly 8 h 22 in the saddle. The stops in between: Baie de Clendy, Les Roseaux, Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman and Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For 34 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 64 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
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.
Les Grèves 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 45 km in. Next is Les Roseaux.
Morges sits on the north shore of Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Geneva, with its castle by the harbour and the Alps of Savoy rising across the water. Just east of the town, at a place called Les Roseaux, the reeds, archaeologists found one of the oldest pile dwelling sites on the lake, dating back to the early Bronze Age, and it is part of the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Its remains lie underwater and are not visible, but the name and the shore keep the memory.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
90 km in you reach Les Roseaux. Next is Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman.
On the French shore of Lake Geneva, just across the border from Switzerland, the village of Chens-sur-Léman sits among fields and woods above the water. Along its shoreline, at places such as Tougues and Les Grèves, the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings lie in the shallow water, and they are part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage site. On calm days, when the water is clear and low, it is sometimes possible to see the stumps of ancient wooden piles sticking out of the lakebed, a quiet reminder of the people who lived here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman, about halfway. Next is Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux.
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 sits at 180 km, about halfway. Next is back through Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman comes up 225 km in. Next is back through Les Roseaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
270 km in you reach back through Les Roseaux. 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 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.
The route ends here after 497 km.
Les Grèves → Baie de Clendy is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baie de Clendy → Les Roseaux is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Roseaux → Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman → Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux → back through Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman → back through Les Roseaux is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Roseaux → back through Baie de Clendy is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baie de Clendy → Les Grèves is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.