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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 341 km round trip from Rapperswil - roughly 5 h 53 in the saddle. The stops in between: Sumpf, Riesi, Inkwilersee Insel and Old City of Berne. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Emmental Panorama Road for 43 km.
Students at the technical university in Rapperswil study engineering on a lakeside campus, and beneath the shoreline in front of their buildings lie the remains of villages that people built on piles thousands of years ago. The site, named after the old Technikum, as the college was long known, is one of the prehistoric pile dwelling sites around Lake Zurich included in the UNESCO listing of 2011. Nothing is visible, but the idea that this shore has been home to people for so long gives a different perspective to a stroll along the promenade.
Read the complete Technikum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Technikum is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Riesi.
Riesi is a stretch of shoreline at the northern end of the Hallwilersee, a long, narrow lake in the Aargau Seetal, between the villages of Seengen and Boniswil. It is a peaceful place of reeds, meadows and walking paths, and below the water and in the marshy ground lie the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling settlements, part of the World Heritage list of such sites around the Alps.
Read the complete Riesi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 70 km into the recorded legs you reach Riesi. Next is Inkwilersee Insel.
You could ride past the Inkwilersee a dozen times without noticing it. It is a small, shallow lake tucked into a fold of farmland right on the line between the cantons of Bern and Solothurn, ringed with reeds and alders, with a tiny wooded island near its middle. That island is the reason for the label: beneath its trees and in the mud around it lie traces of prehistoric lakeside settlement, enough to earn the Inkwilersee a place among the Alpine pile-dwelling sites on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete Inkwilersee Insel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Inkwilersee Insel, about halfway. Next is Old City of Berne.
Bern does not shout. The Swiss capital sits on a sandstone spur in a tight loop of the green Aare, with six kilometres of arcaded streets that let you walk the whole old town in the rain without getting wet. It was founded in 1191 by Duke Berthold V of Zähringen, and legend says he named it after the first animal he killed hunting nearby, a bear. The bears have been the town's mascots ever since, and a few still live in the BärenPark down by the river at the end of the Nydeggbrücke.
Read the complete Old City of Berne write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Old City of Berne sits at 171 km, about halfway. Next is back through Inkwilersee Insel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Inkwilersee Insel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Inkwilersee Insel comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Riesi.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Riesi write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 272 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Riesi. 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, late in the day. Next is Technikum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Technikum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 341 km.
Technikum → Sumpf is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sumpf → Riesi is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Riesi → Inkwilersee Insel is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Inkwilersee Insel → Old City of Berne is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Old City of Berne → back through Inkwilersee Insel is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Inkwilersee Insel → back through Riesi is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Riesi → back through Sumpf is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sumpf → Technikum is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.