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.
From Erlach it runs 423 km to Erlach; allow about 6 h 29 of riding. The stops in between: Le Locle, Corcelettes Les Violes, Les Roseaux and Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,000 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into France - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. 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 43 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 Le Locle.
Le Locle, high in the Swiss Jura near the French border, is a town built for making watches. After a series of fires in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was rebuilt on a grid of parallel streets, with houses and workshops designed to let maximum light into the rooms where watchmakers worked at their benches. The town, with neighbouring La Chaux-de-Fonds, was listed by UNESCO in 2009 as an example of urban planning shaped entirely by a single industry. Tissot was founded here in 1853, Zenith in 1865, and many smaller firms continue the tradition. Daniel JeanRichard, a goldsmith who is said to have founded the Jura watch industry, worked here in the eighteenth century.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Le Locle comes up about 43 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 95 km into the recorded legs you reach Corcelettes Les Violes. Next is Les Roseaux.
Morges sits on the north shore of Lake Geneva between Lausanne and Geneva, with its castle by the harbour and the Alps of Savoy rising across the water. Just east of the town, at a place called Les Roseaux, the reeds, archaeologists found one of the oldest pile dwelling sites on the lake, dating back to the early Bronze Age, and it is part of the UNESCO group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Its remains lie underwater and are not visible, but the name and the shore keep the memory.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Les Roseaux, about halfway. Next is Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman.
On the French shore of Lake Geneva, just across the border from Switzerland, the village of Chens-sur-Léman sits among fields and woods above the water. Along its shoreline, at places such as Tougues and Les Grèves, the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings lie in the shallow water, and they are part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage site. On calm days, when the water is clear and low, it is sometimes possible to see the stumps of ancient wooden piles sticking out of the lakebed, a quiet reminder of the people who lived here thousands of years ago.
Read the complete Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman sits at 162 km, about halfway. Next is back through Les Roseaux.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Les Roseaux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Les Roseaux comes up about 277 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Corcelettes Les Violes.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Corcelettes Les Violes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 322 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Corcelettes Les Violes. Next is back through Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Le Locle, late in the day. 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.
The route ends here after 423 km.
Strandboden → Le Locle is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Le Locle → Corcelettes Les Violes is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Corcelettes Les Violes → Les Roseaux is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Les Roseaux → Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Littoral de Chens-sur-Léman → back through Les Roseaux is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Les Roseaux → back through Corcelettes Les Violes is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Corcelettes Les Violes → back through Le Locle is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Le Locle → Strandboden is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.