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.
From Arcisate it runs 397 km to Arcisate; allow about 7 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Valli di Lodano, Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch and back through Valli di Lodano. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 2,350 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 61 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio is where the day begins. Next is Valli di Lodano.
Halfway up the Maggia valley in Ticino, a narrow side valley climbs steeply west from the village of Lodano into a forest that has been left almost untouched for decades. The Valli di Lodano, together with the neighbouring valleys of Busai and Soladino, form a forest reserve in which beech trees grow from the valley floor up to the tree line, and in 2021 they were added to the World Heritage site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, a series of forests spread across eighteen countries. Walking up into the reserve, you pass through old chestnut groves, then into the beech forest, with moss-covered boulders, streams and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valli di Lodano comes up 68 km in. Next is Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch.
No road comes anywhere near. This is a landscape of ice, rock and sky, the first Alpine area to be listed as a World Heritage site, and the riding is all around it rather than through it.
Read the complete Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
135 km in you reach Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch. Next is back through Valli di Lodano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Valli di Lodano, late in the day. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Monte San Giorgio. That is the ride.
Monte San Giorgio → Valli di Lodano is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Valli di Lodano → Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Swiss Alps Jungfrau-Aletsch → back through Valli di Lodano is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Valli di Lodano → Monte San Giorgio is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.