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 210 km round trip from Erlach - roughly 3 h 03 in the saddle. The stops in between: Les Graviers, Stations de Concise, Lavaux and back through Stations de Concise. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 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 23 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Erlach sits at the south-western tip of Lake Biel, a little Bernese town of one steep street climbing to a castle, with vineyards on the slope behind and reed beds and beaches along the shore below. The flat ground by the water, the Strandboden, is where archaeologists have found traces of prehistoric lakeside villages, part of the network of pile dwelling sites around the Alps inscribed by UNESCO in 2011. Five or six thousand years ago farmers built their houses here on posts at the water's edge, and the waterlogged mud preserved timbers, tools, seeds and even textiles in astonishing detail.
Read the complete Strandboden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strandboden is where the day begins. Next is Les Graviers.
Auvernier is a wine village with its feet in the water. Its old stone houses, cellars and narrow lanes climb from the shore of Lake Neuchâtel into vineyards, and the lake bed just off its little harbour holds the remains of prehistoric villages. Les Graviers is one of the sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, where archaeologists have found the traces of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlements, with wooden piles, tools, pottery and food remains preserved in the lake mud. Many of the finds from the region are displayed at the Laténium, a superb archaeology museum by the lake at Hauterive, on the other side of Neuchâtel.
Read the complete Les Graviers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Graviers comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Stations de Concise.
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.
about 43 km into the recorded legs you reach Stations de Concise. Next is Lavaux.
From the shore of Lake Geneva the vineyards of Lavaux climb almost vertically, terrace upon terrace, held up by stone walls, to villages perched on the slopes above. Monks from Cistercian abbeys began shaping these hillsides in the Middle Ages, and generations of winegrowers have rebuilt the walls ever since, carrying soil back up when rain washes it down. The result is one of the most striking wine landscapes in the world, stretching about thirty kilometres between Lausanne and Montreux, and listed by UNESCO in 2007. Locals like to say that the vines here enjoy three suns: the one in the sky, its reflection off the lake and the warmth stored in the stone walls.
Read the complete Lavaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lavaux, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Stations de Concise sits at 139 km, about halfway. Next is back through Les Graviers.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Graviers write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Graviers comes up about 186 km into the recorded legs. Next is Strandboden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Strandboden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strandboden closes the day.
Strandboden → Les Graviers is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Graviers → Stations de Concise is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Stations de Concise → Lavaux is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lavaux → back through Stations de Concise is 59 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stations de Concise → back through Les Graviers is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Graviers → Strandboden is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.