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 Cevio it runs 318 km to Cevio; allow about 6 h 04 of riding. The stops in between: Monte San Giorgio, Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari and back through Monte San Giorgio. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,850 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Italy - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 87 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Halfway up the Maggia valley in Ticino, a narrow side valley climbs steeply west from the village of Lodano into a forest that has been left almost untouched for decades. The Valli di Lodano, together with the neighbouring valleys of Busai and Soladino, form a forest reserve in which beech trees grow from the valley floor up to the tree line, and in 2021 they were added to the World Heritage site of the Ancient and Primeval Beech Forests of Europe, a series of forests spread across eighteen countries. Walking up into the reserve, you pass through old chestnut groves, then into the beech forest, with moss-covered boulders, streams and the sound of falling water everywhere.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Valli di Lodano is where the day begins. Next is Monte San Giorgio.
Monte San Giorgio is a wooded, pyramid-shaped mountain on the shores of Lake Lugano, straddling the border between Switzerland and Italy. To the eye, it is a pleasant green hill with villages on its slopes. To palaeontologists, it is one of the most important fossil sites in the world. About two hundred and forty million years ago, during the Middle Triassic, this area was a tropical lagoon, and its sediments preserved an extraordinary range of marine reptiles, fish, invertebrates and plants. The mountain was added to the UNESCO list in 2003 on the Swiss side, and in 2010 on the Italian side.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monte San Giorgio comes up about 87 km into the recorded legs. Next is Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari.
Most people who come to Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan are here for one painting, and they are right to be. On the wall of the old refectory of the Dominican convent, Leonardo da Vinci painted the Last Supper in the 1490s for Duke Ludovico Sforza, and despite his experimental technique, which began to fail almost at once, despite centuries of damage and despite a bomb that destroyed much of the building in 1943, the painting survives. The wall was protected with sandbags, and the long restoration completed in 1999 revealed colours and faces that had been hidden for centuries.
Read the complete Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 159 km into the recorded legs you reach Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari. Next is back through Monte San Giorgio.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monte San Giorgio write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monte San Giorgio, late in the day. Next is Valli di Lodano.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Valli di Lodano write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Valli di Lodano. That is the ride.
Valli di Lodano → Monte San Giorgio is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monte San Giorgio → Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Church and Dominican Convent of Santa Mari → back through Monte San Giorgio is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Monte San Giorgio → Valli di Lodano is 87 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.