Bargen, in the Seeland of canton Bern, is where most of the rides on this site start and finish: about 560 of them geo-match to this area, from 2011 to 2025. Flat farmland, three lakes and the Jura wall above them. Six of those rides are written up in full below.
This isn't a place I visited once. For years Bargen was home, and the lakes, the vineyards and the Chasseral ridge were the everyday rides: a quick spin round the fields, the full lap of Lake Biel, coffee in Erlach, or the big day up the mountain. Roughly 489 of my rides cluster tightly round Bargen itself, with about 70 more spread over the villages nearby.
Bargen is a village of about 1,050 people in the Seeland district of the canton of Bern, at 448m, first mentioned in 1228. It was part of the lordship of Aarberg and came under Bern in 1375. It sits on the very flat, fertile land of the Grosses Moos, with the Aare–Hagneck canal forming its northern edge, and a Roman road from Aventicum (Avenches) to Petinesca once ran close by. The village church of St Mary is Romanesque-Gothic.
The Seeland, the "land of lakes", is the region at the south-eastern foot of the Jura that holds the three lakes of Biel, Neuchâtel and Murten. Until the 19th century much of it was marsh. The Jura water corrections diverted the Aare into Lake Biel at Hagneck in 1878 and lowered the lakes, and the drained bogs of the Grosses Moos became some of the best farmland in the country: it's one of the most important vegetable-growing regions in Switzerland. For cycling that means two things. Most of it is flat, with long straight farm tracks and canal paths that suit a gravel bike perfectly. And whenever you want hills, the Jura is right there on the other side of the lake.
The lake rides are fast and flat: Lake Biel, Lake Murten and the Erlach loop all come in at 50 to 65km with only a few hundred metres of climbing, averaging 23 to 24km/h. They're the rides I did when I just wanted to be out, and nearly all of them stop in Erlach for a coffee by the water.
The hills are a different matter. Chasseral from Bargen is 101km and 1,451m, and from Le Landeron I climbed nearly 3,000m in a day. Zug, a proper day trip away, packs 1,404m into 55km. Between them they cover everything this part of Switzerland does well: lakes, vineyards, farm tracks and one long Jura climb with a view over all of it.