Peter Studer, director of the "have-fun" driving programmes, shows us one of his favourite routes through the Jura featuring many curves and little traffic.

We meet Peter at a gas station in Hägendorf, from where a motorbike paradise opens up from the Teufelsschlucht (Devil's Gorge). The majority of the next 170 km we are in a traffic-poor and also quite curvy area on the way. It is also noteworthy that there are many long sections without passing through the village. We mostly drive on side roads, which are mostly two-lane, sometimes narrower.

The upper Hauenstein follows and soon after a detour to the neighbouring canton of Basel-Landschaft, before we make a short stop at the Pony Ranch in Seewen and return to the canton of Solothurn. Or? "Yes", Peter confirms, "we will cross the cantonal borders here several more times." A little later we even find ourselves in France (don't forget: speed limit now 80 instead of 90 out of town). 

At the lunch stop in Boécourt (again in Switzerland) Peter tells us that an exit to this area was one of the reasons to quit his job in the computer industry: "I joined motorbike drivers from an online forum. I was driving at the back of the road, when my driver in front suddenly drove straight ahead into the crash barrier in a bend". Peter says that the novice, who was lucky in his misfortune, could have made the bend even faster at 30 km/h. "I was able to do a lot more than that. The following winter I built my first slant position trainer because I thought: "You have to show people how much slant position works without any problems ...". 

The next highlight is the impressive Pichoux Gorge and, at the end, the Grenchenberg. From our point of view, the ascent on the narrow road is less memorable than the magnificent view of the Alps.

Text and photos: Dimitri Hüppi
www.moto.ch