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.
197 km from Murten/Morat to Murten/Morat, about 4 h 10 of riding. The stops in between: Lobsigensee, Forêt de la Bettlachstock, Inkwilersee Insel and back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. The line favours views over speed.
26 km on Grand Tour of Switzerland.
Murten, or Morat as the French speakers call it, is a small walled town on the shore of a lake of the same name, on the language frontier of Switzerland. Its ramparts are among the best preserved in the country, and its main street is lined with arcades and painted fountains. In 1476, it was the site of a decisive battle, when the Swiss Confederates defeated the army of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, and ended his attempt to conquer the region. A stone memorial to the battle, and the legend that a runner carried the news of victory to Fribourg, gave Switzerland a long-lasting patriotic story.
Read the complete Môtier I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Môtier I is where the day begins. Next is Lobsigensee.
Lobsigensee is a tiny lake, barely more than a pond, hidden among fields and woods on a low hill above Aarberg in the Bernese Seeland. It is a nature reserve, ringed with reeds and alder trees, and it is home to frogs, newts, dragonflies and birds. It also hides one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage sites: the remains of Neolithic settlements along its shore. There is nothing visible on the surface, but the quiet, green setting gives a sense of what the landscape might have looked like thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Lobsigensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lobsigensee comes up about 26 km into the recorded legs. Next is Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Above the watchmaking towns of Grenchen and Bettlach, the first chain of the Jura rises like a wall out of the Aare plain, and on its steep southern flank grows the beech forest of the Bettlachstock. In 2021 it became one of the Swiss components of the UNESCO Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of the Carpathians and Other Regions of Europe, a serial site that stretches across the continent to show how beech spread after the last Ice Age. What makes this patch special is that it has been left largely to itself for decades, on slopes so steep and rocky that nobody bothered to log them hard, and so the trees grow old, fall, rot and feed the next generation.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 68 km into the recorded legs you reach Forêt de la Bettlachstock. Next is Inkwilersee Insel.
You could ride past the Inkwilersee a dozen times without noticing it. It is a small, shallow lake tucked into a fold of farmland right on the line between the cantons of Bern and Solothurn, ringed with reeds and alders, with a tiny wooded island near its middle. That island is the reason for the label: beneath its trees and in the mud around it lie traces of prehistoric lakeside settlement, enough to earn the Inkwilersee a place among the Alpine pile-dwelling sites on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Inkwilersee Insel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Inkwilersee Insel, about halfway. Next is back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock sits at 109 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lobsigensee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lobsigensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lobsigensee comes up about 171 km into the recorded legs. Next is Môtier I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Môtier I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Môtier I closes the day.
Môtier I → Lobsigensee is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lobsigensee → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Inkwilersee Insel is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Inkwilersee Insel → back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock → back through Lobsigensee is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lobsigensee → Môtier I is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.