Why this ride
A one-way ride of 226 km, Bad Segeberg to Mölln - roughly 7 h in the saddle. It goes by way of Plön lake balcony, Malente forest lanes, Eutin castle roads and Segeberg.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Hamburg · Holstein Switzerland Lakes Sweep + Hamburg · Schaalsee Borderland and Ratzeburg Lakes
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 226 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 14
- Journey
- One way; return travel is separate
Distance and timing basis
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
Scenic road chapters
Malente forest lanes → Eutin castle roads
14 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it — speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 13 km
Schaalsee biosphere edge → Ratzeburg island photo
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 46 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go. Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 45 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Segeberg fuel and exit
Bad Segeberg is known to every German of a certain age for one reason: Karl May. Every summer since the early 1950s, an open-air theatre cut into the side of a hill in the town stages dramas based on the adventure novels of the Saxon writer, with real horses, stunt riders, gunfights and a cast of cowboys and Native American characters in a mock Wild West setting. Hundreds of thousands of people come for it. The setting is an unusual hill, the Kalkberg, a block of gypsum and limestone that rises about ninety metres above the flat land around, and that is itself a rarity in this part of the country.
Read the complete Segeberg fuel and exit write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Segeberg fuel and is where the day begins. Next is Plön lake balcony.
2. Plön lake balcony
Plön has a castle on a hill, and the hill is what makes the town. The big, white, many-windowed building stands on a rise between two lakes, and from its terrace the view runs over the water, the islands and the wooded shore. The castle was built in the seventeenth century as a residence for the dukes of Holstein-Plön, and later served as a Prussian military school, where sons of the Kaiser were among the pupils, and then as a boarding school. It is not open in all parts, but the grounds and the terrace give a fine look at the lake.
Read the complete Plön lake balcony write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Plön lake balcony comes up 45 km in. Next is Malente forest lanes.
3. Malente forest lanes
Away from the cafés and promenades, Malente has another face, and it is made of beech trees. The forests around the town, between the Dieksee and the Kellersee, are among the finest broadleaf woods in Schleswig-Holstein, tall and grey-barked, with a high canopy that turns the light green in summer and copper in autumn. The ground beneath is soft with leaf litter, and the quiet is broken only by woodpeckers, jays and the sound of wind in the crowns.
Read the complete Malente forest lanes write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
90 km in you reach Malente forest lanes. Next is Eutin castle roads.
4. Eutin castle roads
Eutin had its literary moment long before it had a reputation for roses. In the late eighteenth century the little residence town of the prince-bishops of Lübeck became a quiet meeting place for poets and painters, and people spoke of it as the Weimar of the north. Johann Heinrich Voss, who gave Germany its beloved translation of Homer's Odyssey, taught at the Latin school here, and the painter Wilhelm Tischbein, famous for his portrait of Goethe in the Roman countryside, spent his last years in the town and died here in 1829.
Read the complete Eutin castle roads write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Eutin castle roads, about halfway. Next is Back to Segeberg.
5. Back to Segeberg
Bad Segeberg is the town with a limestone hill in the middle of a flat plain, and everything about it follows from that odd fact. The Kalkberg, a lump of gypsum and limestone pushed up by an ancient salt dome, rises sharply from the surrounding fields, and for a thousand years it has been the natural place for a fortress. Dukes and kings built castles on it and fought over it, and the stones of the last one are still scattered about its flanks. Today the hill's chief purpose is theatre: since 1952 the open-air stage at its foot has staged the Karl May Festival every summer, with galloping horses, gunfights and Winnetou, drawing hundreds of thousands of spectators from across Germany.
Read the complete Segeberg write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Finish at Back to Segeberg. That is the ride. Next is Mölln lake town.
6. Mölln lake town
Mölln is the town where Till Eulenspiegel is said to have died, and the town has never let anyone forget it. The medieval trickster, a figure from German folk tales who made fools of everybody he met, is supposedly buried near the church of St Nicolai, and a gravestone with an owl and a mirror is a favourite photograph spot. The tales are of uncertain origin, but the town is proud of the legend, and you will find owls and mirrors on souvenirs, fountains and signs. It gives the little lakeside town a sense of humour that many places lack.
Read the complete Mölln lake town write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
The day opens at Mölln lake town. Next is Zarrentin water stop.
7. Zarrentin water stop
Zarrentin is the kind of lake town where you finish a ride sooner than planned because a bench by the water makes a better argument than the map does. It sits at the southern tip of the Schaalsee, on the Mecklenburg side of a line that for four decades was the most heavily guarded boundary in Europe. Riders coming from Hamburg cross it without noticing, apart from a subtle shift in the roads, which are a little rougher, a little emptier and lined with the tall avenue trees that Mecklenburg does so well.
Read the complete Zarrentin water stop write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
270 km in you reach Zarrentin water stop. Next is Schaalsee biosphere edge.
8. Schaalsee biosphere edge
The edge of a biosphere reserve is not a line on the ground, it is a change in mood. Somewhere around here the farmland of western Mecklenburg stops being merely quiet and starts being protected, and you notice it in small ways: hedgerows left wild, meadows cut late, ponds with frogs in them, and the sight of cranes stalking across a stubble field as if they owned it. Which, for part of the year, they do.
Read the complete Schaalsee biosphere edge write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Schaalsee biosphere edge, late in the day. Next is Ratzeburg island photo.
9. Ratzeburg island photo
Ratzeburg sits on an island, and you notice it only when you ride onto it. The old town lies on a long, narrow strip of land in the middle of the Ratzeburg Lake, joined to the shores by three causeways, and as you come in along one of them the water opens out on both sides, with the cathedral rising ahead like a ship's bridge. Photographers love it, with good reason: from the western shore the whole town hangs on the water, brick and green copper, with the reflection doubling it.
Read the complete Ratzeburg island photo write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Ratzeburg island photo sits at 360 km, late in the day. Next is back to Mölln lake town.
10. back to Mölln lake town
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mölln lake town write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back to Mölln lake town closes the day.
Leg by leg
Segeberg fuel and exit to Plön lake balcony
Segeberg fuel and exit → Plön lake balcony is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Plön lake balcony to Malente forest lanes
Plön lake balcony → Malente forest lanes is 22 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Malente forest lanes to Eutin castle roads
Malente forest lanes → Eutin castle roads is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eutin castle roads to Back to Segeberg
Eutin castle roads → Back to Segeberg is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Segeberg to Mölln lake town
Back to Segeberg → Mölln lake town is 101 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mölln lake town to Zarrentin water stop
Mölln lake town → Zarrentin water stop is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Zarrentin water stop to Schaalsee biosphere edge
Zarrentin water stop → Schaalsee biosphere edge is 14 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schaalsee biosphere edge to Ratzeburg island photo
Schaalsee biosphere edge → Ratzeburg island photo is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ratzeburg island photo to back to Mölln lake town
Ratzeburg island photo → back to Mölln lake town is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.