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.
A one-way ride of 435 km, Lindau to Berchtesgaden - roughly 6 h 56 in the saddle. It goes by way of Oberstaufen, Oberjoch, Garmisch Partenkirchen and Walchensee. The highest point is about 1,550 m. Oberjoch is subject to seasonal closure - check it is open before you set off. It crosses from Germany into Austria - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 42 km this is German Alpine Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
49 km on Oberstaufen → Oberjoch.
113 km that neither climbs nor drops much. The road settles into the ground rather than fighting it. This is where a day makes up time without anyone trying. Third and fourth, and very little else.
Check the pass is open before you commit to it.
63 km on Achenpass.
Lindau is an island that behaves like a postcard, and the amusing thing is that it knows it. The old town sits on a small island in the eastern end of Lake Constance, the Bodensee, linked to the mainland by a causeway and a railway embankment, and the harbour at its south side is guarded by two monuments: a tall lighthouse and a stone lion of Bavaria on a pillar. The lighthouse was built in the nineteenth century, and from its top you see the whole lake, with the Austrian and Swiss Alps behind. About twenty-four thousand people live in the municipality, and most of them are on the mainland.
Read the complete Lindau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lindau is where the day begins. Next is Oberstaufen.
Oberstaufen is a spa town with a taste for fasting. Its fame comes from the Schroth cure, a regime of dry days, wet days, wraps and very little food that visitors have been putting up with here for generations, and the place wears its wellness reputation with a certain Bavarian shrug. You see it in the clean flower boxes, the Kneipp-style water basins in the park, and the clinic-like hotels. It is also a proper Allgäu town, and a pleasant one, with about seven thousand people, cow bells in the background, and a brewing tradition that makes the fasting look like a very optional part of life.
Read the complete Oberstaufen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oberstaufen comes up about 42 km into the recorded legs. Next is Oberjoch.
Oberjoch is a village that sits on a saddle, and the saddle belongs to two countries. At 1,178 metres, the pass on the German Alpine Road marks the boundary between the Allgäu in Bavaria and the Tannheimer Valley in Tyrol, and the road crosses it from the town of Hindelang with a steep climb. The pass has a ski resort, a clutch of hotels and a few tidy farmhouses, and it is among the highest villages in Germany.
Read the complete Oberjoch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 91 km into the recorded legs you reach Oberjoch. Nothing on this route is higher. Next is Garmisch Partenkirchen, mostly downhill.
Garmisch-Partenkirchen lies in a wide Alpine valley in Bavaria, close to the Austrian border, with the Wetterstein range rising behind it and the Zugspitze, at 2,962 metres the highest mountain in Germany, standing at the end of the valley. The town is really two, Garmisch and Partenkirchen, joined together for the 1936 Winter Olympics, and each still has its own character. Partenkirchen, the older part, has a Roman history, as it stood on the road across the Alps, and its main street, with painted houses, is the more charming.
Read the complete Garmisch-Partenkirchen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Garmisch Partenkirchen, about halfway. Next is Walchensee.
Walchensee is one of the deepest and clearest alpine lakes in Germany, lying at about eight hundred metres in the Bavarian Pre-Alps, with a surface the colour of turquoise glass on a good day and dark green on a stormy one. The lake is surrounded by forested mountains, with the Herzogstand and the Heimgarten rising to the north, and it has a calm, almost Scandinavian look in the early morning.
Read the complete Walchensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Walchensee sits at 331 km, about halfway. Next is Tegernsee.
Tegernsee is a lake town in the Bavarian foothills, at the eastern edge of the Tegernsee valley, with the lake in front and steep, forested mountains behind. The Benedictine monastery that gave the place its name was founded in the eighth century, and its church and cloister still dominate the shore, though the buildings are now partly a secondary school and partly a brewery tavern, the Bräustüberl, where locals and visitors share long tables and big pretzels in the courtyard. It is a lively place on a sunny afternoon, with a crowd of beer drinkers, cyclists and bikers.
Read the complete Tegernsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Tegernsee comes up about 286 km into the recorded legs. Next is Reit im Winkl.
Reit im Winkl is the snow-sure village at the end of the Chiemgau Alps, a pocket of Bavaria wedged into the corner where Germany meets Austria. At about 700 metres, it sits in a high, green bowl among steep peaks, with the Kaisergebirge, the jagged limestone range of the Tyrolean Kaiser mountains, standing across the border to the south. The snow here is dependable in winter, and the place has produced a number of Olympic skiers.
Read the complete Reit im Winkl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 371 km into the recorded legs you reach Reit im Winkl. Next is Berchtesgaden.
Berchtesgaden sits in the far southeast corner of Germany, in a pocket of Bavaria that pokes into Austria, and the mountains here do not bother to be modest. The Watzmann, at 2,713 metres Germany's second highest mountain, stands above the valley in a long ridge, with the pale wall of the Hochkalter opposite. The town is the end of the German Alpine Road, which runs from Lake Constance, and it feels like the end of the line, with the peaks closing in on all sides. For centuries the local economy rested on salt, and the salt mine, worked since the sixteenth century, is open to visitors who put on miners' clothes and slide down the wooden chutes.
Read the complete Berchtesgaden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Berchtesgaden. That is the ride.
Lindau → Oberstaufen is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oberstaufen → Oberjoch is 49 km. This is the part worth slowing down for - look through the bends and use the pull-offs.
Oberjoch → Garmisch Partenkirchen is 103 km. Brakes and eyes forward; the views are behind the corners, not in them.
Garmisch Partenkirchen → Walchensee is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Walchensee → Tegernsee is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Tegernsee → Reit im Winkl is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Reit im Winkl → Berchtesgaden is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.