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 390 km round trip from Yverdon-les-Bains - roughly 6 h 13 in the saddle. The stops in between: Rütte, Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp and back through Rütte. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 55 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the late 1990s, engineers working on a new stretch of railway along the northern shore of Lake Neuchâtel ran into something unexpected near the village of Concise: layer upon layer of prehistoric settlement, preserved in the waterlogged ground. Over several years, archaeologists uncovered thousands of wooden piles, pottery, tools and food remains from villages that had been built and rebuilt on the shore over many centuries in the Neolithic and Bronze Age. The site is now part of the World Heritage list of pile dwellings around the Alps, though there is little to see above ground today.
Read the complete Stations de Concise write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Stations de Concise is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 55 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp.
Notre-Dame-du-Haut sits on a hill above Ronchamp, at the foot of the Vosges, and it is one of the strangest and most beautiful buildings of the twentieth century. Le Corbusier designed it in the early 1950s and it was consecrated in 1955. The white walls curve and lean, the roof sweeps up like a hull or a hat, and the thick walls are pierced by small deep windows filled with coloured glass. Inside, light falls in coloured pools on the floor, and the whole room feels carved rather than built. There has been a pilgrim chapel on this hill for centuries, and the earlier church was destroyed in the war, which is what led to the commission.
Read the complete Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 208 km into the recorded legs you reach Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp. Next is back through Rütte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rütte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rütte, late in the day. Next is Stations de Concise.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Stations de Concise write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Stations de Concise. That is the ride.
Stations de Concise → Rütte is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rütte → Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp is 153 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Chapelle Notre-Dame-du-Haut de Ronchamp → back through Rütte is 126 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Rütte → Stations de Concise is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.