Rütte and Egolzwil 3

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rütte is where the day begins. Next is Forêt de la Bettlachstock.

2. 2. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Forêt de la Bettlachstock comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Inkwilersee Insel.

3. 3. 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.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 61 km into the recorded legs you reach Inkwilersee Insel. Next is Egolzwil 3.

4. 4. Egolzwil 3

   Archaeologists named a whole Neolithic culture after Egolzwil, a small village in the canton of Lucerne, because the settlements found in the Wauwiler Moos, a former lake turned into peat bog, revealed a way of life older than anything else known in the region at the time. Egolzwil 3, one of these sites, was a village of farmers who lived on the shore of a small lake over six thousand years ago, and it counts as one component of UNESCO's inscription of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The lake was drained in the nineteenth century to create farmland, and the remains were preserved in the wet peat.

   Read the complete Egolzwil 3 write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Egolzwil 3, about halfway. Next is back through Inkwilersee Insel.

5. 5. back through Inkwilersee Insel

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Inkwilersee Insel write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Inkwilersee Insel sits at 118 km, about halfway. Next is back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock.

6. 6. back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Forêt de la Bettlachstock write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Forêt de la Bettlachstock comes up about 191 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rütte.

7. 7. Rütte

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Rütte write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Rütte closes the day.