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.
507 km from Cevio to Cevio, about 8 h 44 of riding. It goes by way of Castel Grande, Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, Chateau de Sasso Corbaro and Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor. 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. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 39 km this is Ticino Lakes and Valleys Route, 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 Castel Grande.
Coming down from the Gotthard or the San Bernardino, the Ticino valley narrows into a bottleneck at Bellinzona, and right in the middle of it, on a rocky hill above the old town, sits Castel Grande. Its two square towers and long crenellated walls are the oldest and largest of the three castles of Bellinzona, which together with the defensive wall across the valley make up a World Heritage site.
Read the complete Castel Grande write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castel Grande comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
On the western shore of Lake Como, above the village of Ossuccio and facing the little Isola Comacina, a cobbled path climbs the hillside through olive groves and woods, past fourteen small chapels, to a sanctuary at the top. This is the Sacro Monte of Ossuccio, one of nine sacred mountains in Piedmont and Lombardy listed together by UNESCO. Built in the seventeenth century, the chapels illustrate the Mysteries of the Rosary with life-size terracotta and plaster figures arranged in dramatic scenes, each one a small piece of theatre.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 108 km into the recorded legs you reach Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. Next is Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Bellinzona sits at the point where the valleys of the southern Alps converge before opening towards Lake Maggiore and Italy, and whoever held it controlled the routes over the Gotthard, the Lukmanier and the San Bernardino passes. In the fifteenth century the Dukes of Milan built a formidable system of defences here: three castles and a wall that ran across the whole valley floor. Castelgrande, on a rocky hill above the old town, Montebello, on the slope above it, and Sasso Corbaro, highest of all on a wooded spur, together form a World Heritage site. Sasso Corbaro was built in 1479, in a matter of months, after the Swiss Confederates defeated the Milanese at the Battle of Giornico, a short way up the Leventina valley, and the Duke wanted to plug the gap in his defences.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro, about halfway. Next is Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor.
The Madonna of Succour sits above Ossuccio, on the western shore of Lake Como, about halfway between Como and Menaggio. A cobbled path climbs through the village with fourteen small chapels along it, each holding painted terracotta figures that act out a scene from the life of Mary, and at the top there is a sanctuary with a terrace and a view across the water. It is one of the Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy, a group of hillside devotional complexes that UNESCO listed together in 2003. These were built in the Counter-Reformation as walkable theology: you could not read, so you walked and looked. The Ossuccio chapels date from the seventeenth century, and the little island you see below the slope is the Isola Comacina, the only island on the lake, with its own long and rather stormy history.
Read the complete Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor sits at 146 km, about halfway. Next is back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chateau de Sasso Corbaro write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro comes up about 324 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 396 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy. Next is back through Castel Grande.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castel Grande write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castel Grande, 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.
The route ends here after 507 km.
Valli di Lodano → Castel Grande is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castel Grande → Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sacro Monte della Beata Vergine del Soccor → back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chateau de Sasso Corbaro → back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy → back through Castel Grande is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castel Grande → Valli di Lodano is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.