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.
A 329 km round trip from Hitzkirch - roughly 5 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Kehrsiten, Halbinsel, Sumpf and Hurden Rosshorn. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,250 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 34 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
For about 41 km this is Lake Lucerne Axenstrasse, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Lake Baldegg lies in the Seetal, the lake valley north of Lucerne, a gentle, green landscape of meadows, orchards and woods, with the lake in the middle and the hills rising on either side. Seematte, on the shore near Hitzkirch, is the site of prehistoric lakeside villages, built on piles over the water's edge thousands of years ago, and it was inscribed in the same 2011 listing that covers lakeside villages from France to Slovenia. As with most such sites, there is nothing to see above ground, but the setting is lovely, and standing on the reedy shore you can imagine the wooden houses and dugout canoes.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seematte is where the day begins. Next is Kehrsiten.
Kehrsiten is a small settlement on the southern shore of Lake Lucerne, at the foot of the Bürgenstock, a steep, forested ridge that juts out into the lake, and it feels almost cut off from the rest of Switzerland. A narrow road follows the shore from Stansstad, squeezed between the rocks and the water, and ends here; beyond, the cliffs of the Bürgenstock drop straight into the lake. For most visitors, Kehrsiten is the place where the boat from Lucerne stops and the Bürgenstock funicular begins, climbing steeply through the forest to the resort on top, which has been welcoming guests since the late nineteenth century.
Read the complete Kehrsiten write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kehrsiten comes up about 40 km into the recorded legs. Next is Halbinsel.
At the northern tip of Lake Sempach, near the little town of Sursee in the canton of Lucerne, a small peninsula pushes into the water, and on and around it lie the remains of prehistoric lakeside settlements, part of the World Heritage site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Nothing remains visible above ground, but under the water and in the wet soil of the shore, piles and objects have survived for thousands of years, telling the story of farmers and fishermen who lived here long before the Romans. Today, the shore is a quiet area of reeds, meadows and paths, popular with walkers and cyclists.
Read the complete Halbinsel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 81 km into the recorded legs you reach Halbinsel. Next is Sumpf.
Zug-Sumpf was a Bronze Age village on the northern shore of Lake Zug, near the mouth of the river Lorze between Cham and Steinhausen, and the waterlogged ground preserved wooden floors, posts and objects for over three thousand years. Excavations in the twentieth century recovered pottery, bronze tools and even remains of food, and the site sits on the World Heritage list as part of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Some of the finds are displayed in the museum of prehistory in Zug. Today the site lies under modern buildings and meadows, and only the name, which means swamp, recalls its watery origin.
Read the complete Sumpf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sumpf, about halfway. Next is Hurden Rosshorn.
Where Lake Zurich narrows to a waist between Rapperswil and Hurden, a low peninsula runs out from the Schwyz shore, and at its tip, the Rosshorn, the remains of prehistoric lakeside villages lie beneath the shallow water. People lived here in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, in houses built on wooden piles, and they also built some of the earliest known bridges across the narrows. The site is one of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011, a group of sites that has given archaeologists a remarkably detailed view of everyday life thousands of years ago, preserved in the mud of lakes and moors.
Read the complete Hurden Rosshorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hurden Rosshorn sits at 140 km, about halfway. Next is back through Sumpf.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sumpf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sumpf comes up about 203 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Halbinsel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Halbinsel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 250 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Halbinsel. Next is back through Kehrsiten.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kehrsiten write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kehrsiten, late in the day. Next is Seematte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 329 km.
Seematte → Kehrsiten is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kehrsiten → Halbinsel is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Halbinsel → Sumpf is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sumpf → Hurden Rosshorn is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hurden Rosshorn → back through Sumpf is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sumpf → back through Halbinsel is 47 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Halbinsel → back through Kehrsiten is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kehrsiten → Seematte is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.