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.
70 km one way from Thusis - plan on about 1 h 06 of riding. The stops in between: Splugen and San Bernardino Pass. The highest point is about 2,100 m. San Bernardino Pass is open in summer only - check it is open before you set off. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
For about 27 km this is Passo dello Spluga, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
20 km on Passo dello Spluga.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Thusis is a gateway town, and it knows its job well. It sits where the Hinterrhein, the young Rhine, comes out of the gorge of the Viamala and into the wide, orchard-lined valley of the Domleschg, and from here roads and railway lines fan out into the Graubünden mountains: south over the Splügen and San Bernardino passes, east through the Schin gorge toward the Albula and Davos. At about seven hundred metres in altitude, it is a fairly low base for such high terrain, and that makes it a useful place to be at the start of a mountain day.
Read the complete Thusis write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Thusis is where the day begins. Next is Splugen.
Splügen is where the Rhine, still a young and rather modest river, runs through the high Rheinwald valley in Graubünden, and the village has been a waystation for as long as people have wanted to get over the Alps. Two passes leave from here: the Splügen itself, 2,113 metres, which drops to Italy and the Valle San Giacomo, and the San Bernardino, 2,066 metres, which heads south into Ticino. Choosing between them at the village fountain is one of the nicer decisions in the Alps.
Read the complete Splugen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Splügen comes up about 27 km into the recorded legs. Next is San Bernardino Pass.
The San Bernardino Pass is a high, bare saddle at 2,066 metres on the Swiss side of the Alps, and it is one of the oldest crossings between the Rhine valley and Italy. Travellers, muleteers and armies have used it since Roman times, and the pass is named, according to local tradition, after the Franciscan preacher Bernardino of Siena, who is said to have crossed it in the fifteenth century. It sits in the canton of Graubünden, between the German-speaking village of Hinterrhein, where the Rhine begins, and the Italian-speaking valley of Mesolcina, which drops south toward Bellinzona.
Read the complete San Bernardino Pass write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 47 km into the recorded legs you reach San Bernardino Pass. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Mesocco, mostly downhill.
Mesocco is a valley village of about thirteen hundred people on the southern side of the San Bernardino, in the Misox, the Italian-speaking arm of Graubünden that opens toward Bellinzona and Lake Maggiore. At nearly eight hundred metres it is the last place of any size before the road climbs to the pass, and it is the right place for a breakfast or a late lunch, with a handful of simple restaurants and cafés serving polenta, cheese, local salami and chestnut dishes, and a small stretch of fuel and shops.
Read the complete Mesocco food reset write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mesocco closes the day.
Thusis → Splugen is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Splügen → San Bernardino Pass is 20 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
San Bernardino Pass → Mesocco is 23 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.