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.
226 km from Neuchâtel to Neuchâtel, about 4 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Dorfstation, La Chaux-de-Fonds, Rütte and back through La Chaux-de-Fonds. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 900 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 about 23 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Dorfstation.
The south shore of Lake Biel is a gentle place of reeds, vineyards on the far bank and farmland stretching back towards the Seeland plain, and at Lüscherz, one of the small lakeside villages, the remains of a prehistoric pile-dwelling settlement lie in the shallows. Dorfstation, as the site is known, is part of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, inscribed in 2011. Neolithic and Bronze Age farmers built their houses on wooden piles along the shore, and the waterlogged ground preserved timbers, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dorfstation comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds.
La Chaux-de-Fonds sits at nearly a thousand metres in the Swiss Jura, on a high, windswept plateau where the winters are long and cold, and it should not really exist. There is no river, no great harbour and no easy farmland, but the people who settled here in the seventeenth century turned to making clocks in their farmhouses during the winter, and the town became the world's capital of watchmaking. After a great fire in 1794, it was rebuilt on a grid pattern, with wide, straight streets that allowed light to reach the workshops and homes, and with the long, high windows that watchmakers needed. That orderly plan is why it is listed by UNESCO, together with its neighbour Le Locle.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach La Chaux-de-Fonds. Next is Rütte.
Rütte sits on the gentle southern slope above Lake Biel, a scatter of farms and orchards between the village of Bellmund and the lakeshore, with the long blue ridge of the Jura filling the view across the water. Nidau and the city of Biel are a few minutes away, yet up here it feels thoroughly rural: cows, cherry trees, a sharp smell of cut grass in early summer and the clank of a tractor somewhere below.
Read the complete Rütte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rütte, about halfway. Next is back through La Chaux-de-Fonds.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds sits at 129 km, about halfway. Next is back through Dorfstation.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dorfstation write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dorfstation comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Pointe de Montbec I closes the day.
Pointe de Montbec I → Dorfstation is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dorfstation → La Chaux-de-Fonds is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Chaux-de-Fonds → Rütte is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rütte → back through La Chaux-de-Fonds is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds → back through Dorfstation is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dorfstation → Pointe de Montbec I is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.