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 Neuchâtel it runs 398 km to Neuchâtel; allow about 6 h 49 of riding. The stops in between: Forêt de la Bettlachstock, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp and back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock. 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.
66 km on Grand Tour of Switzerland.
The south shore of Lake Neuchâtel is a long, soft margin of reeds, shallow water and woodland, and it hides one of the richest archaeological records in Europe. Pointe de Montbec, near the villages along the Fribourg and Vaud shore opposite Neuchâtel, is one of the places where prehistoric lake dwellers built their villages on the water's edge thousands of years ago. Their houses stood on piles driven into the soft lake shore, and when lake levels rose, the remains were sealed under water and mud, preserving wood, textiles, seeds and tools in astonishing detail. The prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps were inscribed by UNESCO in 2011 as a single serial site spanning six countries, and this shore contributes a good number of them.
Read the complete Pointe de Montbec I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pointe de Montbec I is where the day begins. 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.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock comes up about 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut sits on a hill above Ronchamp, at the foot of the Vosges, and it is one of the strangest and most beautiful buildings of the twentieth century. Le Corbusier designed it in the early 1950s and it was consecrated in 1955. The white walls curve and lean, the roof sweeps up like a hull or a hat, and the thick walls are pierced by small deep windows filled with coloured glass. Inside, light falls in coloured pools on the floor, and the whole room feels carved rather than built. There has been a pilgrim chapel on this hill for centuries, and the earlier church was destroyed in the war, which is what led to the commission.
Read the complete Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 199 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. 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, late in the day. Next is Pointe de Montbec I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pointe de Montbec I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Pointe de Montbec I. That is the ride.
Pointe de Montbec I → Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 66 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp is 133 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp → back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock is 132 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock → Pointe de Montbec I is 67 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.