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.
241 km from Murten/Morat to Murten/Morat, about 3 h 46 of riding. On the way it passes L’Abbaye 2, La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle, Corcelettes Les Violes and back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 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 31 km this is Jura Crest Scenic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
On the southern shore of the Murtensee, just west of the medieval town of Murten, a little point of land juts into the water at Greng, and here, beneath the shallows, archaeologists found the posts of prehistoric lake villages. Greng-Spitz is one of the Swiss sites in the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, and while there is nothing to see but reeds, water and the occasional marker, it is pleasant to know that people lived on this shore some five thousand years ago.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Spitz is where the day begins. Next is L’Abbaye 2.
The north shore of Lake Neuchâtel is a long, gentle slope of vineyards running down to the water, with villages of honey-coloured stone and the Jura rising behind. At Bevaix, on the shore below the village, archaeologists have found traces of prehistoric pile dwellings at a site known as L'Abbaye, named after a medieval priory that once stood nearby. It is one of the Swiss components of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage site. Nothing is visible on the surface; the remains lie underwater or in the lake sediments. But the lakeshore is beautiful, and there is a pleasant path along the water.
Read the complete L’Abbaye 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
L’Abbaye 2 comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
At about a thousand metres up in the Jura, in a long, high valley where winter arrives early and leaves late, two towns spent two centuries making most of the world's watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle are strange, fascinating places: not pretty old towns, but industrial cities laid out on a grid, with long parallel streets of apartment blocks designed to let maximum light into workshops where generations of craftsmen assembled tiny gears by the window. Their urban planning, built entirely around one industry, is on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. Next is Corcelettes Les Violes.
Corcelettes is a little lakeside hamlet just north of Grandson, near the southern tip of Lake Neuchâtel, and Les Violes is the stretch of shallow shore where Bronze Age people built a village of wooden houses on piles, some three thousand years ago. The site was one of the first in the region to attract attention in the nineteenth century, when low water levels after the correction of the Jura waters exposed forests of ancient posts in the mud. It is now listed among the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Corcelettes Les Violes, about halfway. Next is back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle sits at 133 km, about halfway. Next is back through L’Abbaye 2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete L’Abbaye 2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through L’Abbaye 2 comes up about 199 km into the recorded legs. Next is Spitz.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Spitz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Spitz closes the day.
Spitz → L’Abbaye 2 is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
L’Abbaye 2 → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Corcelettes Les Violes is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corcelettes Les Violes → back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 49 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → back through L’Abbaye 2 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through L’Abbaye 2 → Spitz is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.