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.
486 km from Murten/Morat to Murten/Morat, about 7 h 14 of riding. The stops in between: La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle, Stations de Concise, Lavaux and Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 41 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
At about a thousand metres up in the Jura, in a long, high valley where winter arrives early and leaves late, two towns spent two centuries making most of the world's watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle are strange, fascinating places: not pretty old towns, but industrial cities laid out on a grid, with long parallel streets of apartment blocks designed to let maximum light into workshops where generations of craftsmen assembled tiny gears by the window. Their urban planning, built entirely around one industry, is on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stations de Concise.
In the late 1990s, engineers working on a new stretch of railway along the northern shore of Lake Neuchâtel ran into something unexpected near the village of Concise: layer upon layer of prehistoric settlement, preserved in the waterlogged ground. Over several years, archaeologists uncovered thousands of wooden piles, pottery, tools and food remains from villages that had been built and rebuilt on the shore over many centuries in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The site is now part of the World Heritage list of pile dwellings around the Alps, though there is little to see above ground today.
Read the complete Stations de Concise write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Stations de Concise. Next is Lavaux.
From the shore of Lake Geneva the vineyards of Lavaux climb almost vertically, terrace upon terrace, held up by stone walls, to villages perched on the slopes above. Monks from Cistercian abbeys began shaping these hillsides in the Middle Ages, and generations of winegrowers have rebuilt the walls ever since, carrying soil back up when rain washes it down. The result is one of the most striking wine landscapes in the world, stretching about thirty kilometres between Lausanne and Montreux, and listed by UNESCO in 2007. Locals like to say that the vines here enjoy three suns: the one in the sky, its reflection off the lake and the warmth stored in the stone walls.
Read the complete Lavaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lavaux, about halfway. 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 sits at 186 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lavaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lavaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lavaux comes up about 343 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Stations de Concise.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stations de Concise write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 402 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Stations de Concise. Next is back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 486 km.
Môtier I → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Stations de Concise is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stations de Concise → Lavaux is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lavaux → Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman is 96 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman → back through Lavaux is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lavaux → back through Stations de Concise is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stations de Concise → back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Môtier I is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.