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 Nidau it runs 358 km to Nidau; allow about 5 h 27 of riding. It goes by way of Chenevières de Guévaux I, La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle, Stations de Concise and Lavaux. 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 34 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Biel and Bienne are the same city, one name in German and one in French, and street signs, conversations and even jokes switch between the two languages without anyone noticing. At its western edge, the lakeside district of Vingelz, with its small harbour, has given archaeologists remains of prehistoric pile dwellings in the shallow water of Lake Biel, and the site is one piece of the World Heritage property for pile dwellings around the Alps. The lake, long and narrow, lies at the foot of the Jura mountains, and its shores have been inhabited for thousands of years.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vingelz / Hafen is where the day begins. Next is Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Lake Murten is small, shallow and warm, framed on its north side by the vine-covered whale back of Mont Vully. Under its shallows near the Vully shore lie the remains of prehistoric pile-dwelling villages, and Chenevières de Guévaux is one of them, part of the UNESCO site of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Between the Neolithic and the Bronze Age, people built houses on timber posts along lake shores like this one. Waterlogged conditions preserved posts, tools, textiles and food remains for thousands of years, and the finds transformed what we know about early farming communities in Europe.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chenevières de Guévaux I comes up about 34 km into the recorded legs. Next is La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
At about a thousand metres up in the Jura, in a long, high valley where winter arrives early and leaves late, two towns spent two centuries making most of the world's watches. La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle are strange, fascinating places: not pretty old towns, but industrial cities laid out on a grid, with long parallel streets of apartment blocks designed to let maximum light into workshops where generations of craftsmen assembled tiny gears by the window. Their urban planning, built entirely around one industry, is on the World Heritage list.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. 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.
Stations de Concise, about halfway. 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 sits at 162 km, 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 comes up about 241 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 284 km into the recorded legs you reach back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle. Next is back through Chenevières de Guévaux I.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chenevières de Guévaux I write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I, late in the day. Next is Vingelz / Hafen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vingelz / Hafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 358 km.
Vingelz / Hafen → Chenevières de Guévaux I is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Chenevières de Guévaux I → La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → Stations de Concise is 41 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 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Stations de Concise → back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through La Chaux-de-Fonds / Le Locle → back through Chenevières de Guévaux I is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Chenevières de Guévaux I → Vingelz / Hafen is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.