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.
93 km one way from Chur - plan on about 1 h 22 of riding. The climb of the day is San Bernardino pass road. It tops out at 2,066 m. San Bernardino Pass is open in summer only - check it is open before you set off. The passes are the reason to go.
The ground tilts up and stays tilted for 146 km. 1473 m of it, taken steadily rather than in one wall — a steady rhythm suits this better than bursts. The height arrives whether you hurry or not.
The last of the trees go and the road runs out onto open ground. The summit sits at 2066 m, and what surrounds it is rock, weather and distance. Cold comes early up here and stays late. Ride it with something in reserve: the summit is not the end of the work, only the middle of it.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
Chur likes to say that it is the oldest town in Switzerland, and the evidence is on its side. People have lived on this spot, where the Plessur river meets the Rhine valley, for around five thousand years, and the Romans put a settlement here, and a bishop's seat followed in late antiquity. Today the city, with about thirty-two thousand people, is the capital of Graubünden, the biggest canton in the country, and the gateway to the great passes and valleys of the east.
Read the complete Chur fuel and status gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Chur fuel and status is where the day begins. Next is San Bernardino pass road, climbing 1473 m.
Before the tunnel, everyone went over the top. The San Bernardino pass, at 2,066 metres, links the upper Rhine valley of Graubünden with Ticino, and has done for centuries, when mule trains carried goods between the north and the south. Since the opening of the road tunnel in 1967, most traffic goes underneath, and the old road is left for those who prefer the view.
Read the complete San Bernardino pass road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
You top out at 2066 m here. The road climbs 1473 m on the way up to it, steadily. Reckon on about 10 °C colder than the valley, and more in the wind. Nothing on this route is higher. At this height the road is a summer one: snow gates can stay shut into June and shut again in October. 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.
The route ends here after 93 km. You lose 1276 m on the way down to it, steadily.
Chur fuel and status gate → San Bernardino pass road climbs about 1473 m in 70 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
San Bernardino pass road → Mesocco food reset drops about 1276 m over 23 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.