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.
298 km from Saint-Aubin-Sauges to Saint-Aubin-Sauges, about 4 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Les Roseaux, Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux and back through Les Roseaux. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 79 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Under the shallow water off Port-Conty lie the remains of villages that were built on stilts more than five thousand years ago, and you will see none of them from the shore. The site, near Saint-Aubin-Sauges on the north-western side of Lake Neuchâtel, is one of the many locations in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Archaeologists have found posts, tools, pottery and remains of food preserved in the lake mud, painting a picture of Neolithic and Bronze Age communities who farmed, fished and built their houses along the water's edge.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Port-Conty is where the day begins. Next is Les Roseaux.
Morges sits on the north shore of Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Geneva, with its castle by the harbour and the Alps of Savoy rising across the water. Just east of the town, at a place called Les Roseaux, the reeds, archaeologists found one of the oldest pile dwelling sites on the lake, dating back to the early Bronze Age, and it is part of the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Its remains lie underwater and are not visible, but the name and the shore keep the memory.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Roseaux comes up about 54 km into the recorded legs. Next is Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux.
The Jura plateau behind Clairvaux-les-Lacs is a country of limestone, cows and lakes, and the Grand Lac de Clairvaux is the largest of the lakes that give the town its name. Prehistoric people lived on its shore on pilings, in villages that rose and fell for centuries, and the waterlogged mud preserved their wood and tools. The sites on Clairvaux's lakes are among the pile-dwelling places inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2011. The lake today is a quiet blue sheet, ringed by reeds and low wooded hills, with a beach where families swim in July.
Read the complete Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 148 km into the recorded legs you reach Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux. Next is back through Les Roseaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Roseaux, late in the day. Next is Port-Conty.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Port-Conty write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Port-Conty. That is the ride.
Port-Conty → Les Roseaux is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Roseaux → Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Le Grand Lac de Clairvaux → back through Les Roseaux is 94 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Les Roseaux → Port-Conty is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.