CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
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.
Lakes, castles and gentle sweepers east of Hamburg. Out of Glinde and back again: 416 km, roughly 6 h 17 in the saddle. The stops in between: Lauenburg, Schwerin castle sight, Plauer See water stop and Wismar harbour. The line favours views over speed.
42 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.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 83 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.
This one is a boundary rather than a destination: the place where Hamburg stops being a city and the roads become something a rider might enjoy. The east side of the metropolis frays out through Stormarn district, with Stapelfeld just a few kilometres away, and the motorway and the main roads funnel in toward the centre. For a returning rider, it is a moment to take stock, check the fuel and slow down after a long day of countryside.
Read the complete Hamburg east gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hamburg east is where the day begins. Next is Lauenburg.
Lauenburg is where the Elbe stops being a big river and starts being a working waterway with serious ambitions. The town stretches along a steep bank, with the old town clinging to the hill and the lower town, the Elbstrasse, running along the water's edge, and the river below is wide, brown and busy with barges. For centuries this was a toll town, collecting dues from the traffic that moved between Hamburg and the Baltic, and the Elbe-Lübeck canal begins nearby, which once carried salt from Lüneburg to the sea.
Read the complete Lauenburg fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lauenburg is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Schwerin castle sight.
Schwerin castle is a fairy tale in brick and gilt, and it is built on an island. The palace of the Mecklenburg dukes stands on a small island in the Schweriner See, linked to the town by a bridge, with turrets, towers and a golden dome reflected in the water. The present building, a romantic mix of Renaissance and Gothic styles, was built in the middle of the nineteenth century to a design that drew on the French chateaux of the Loire, and it is now the seat of the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. UNESCO listed the castle and its gardens in 2020.
Read the complete Schwerin castle sight write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
149 km in you reach Schwerin castle sight. Next is Plauer See water stop.
Plau am See sits at the western end of the Plauer See, the third-largest lake in Mecklenburg after the Müritz and the Schweriner See, in the heart of the lake district that stretches across the north-east of Germany. The town of nearly six thousand has a small old centre, a harbour, and a lift bridge over the river Elde that is a local landmark, and it is a sensible stop for fuel, ice cream and a swim. Malchow, about fifteen kilometres to the east, has seven thousand people and sits on an island between two lakes, joined to the shore by an old swing bridge.
Read the complete Plauer See water stop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Plauer See water stop, about halfway. Next is Wismar harbour food.
Wismar is the Baltic port that spent a century and a half as a piece of Sweden, and it still shows. Between 1648, when the Peace of Westphalia handed it to the Swedish crown, and 1803, when it was pledged to Mecklenburg, the town was a fortified Swedish outpost, and two stone heads at the harbour entrance, the so-called Swedish Heads, are a reminder of the time.
Read the complete Wismar harbour food write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Food at 299 km, roughly 6 hours into the riding. Next is Lübeck return road.
Lübeck made its fortune from salt and herring. In the Middle Ages, the city on the Trave was the head of the Hanseatic League, the great trading association of North German towns, and its merchants controlled trade across the Baltic and the North Sea. The Holstentor, the brick gate with two round towers that leans slightly under its own weight, was built in the fifteenth century and is the symbol of the city, and the old town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, with Gothic churches, merchants' houses and narrow lanes.
Read the complete Lübeck return road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lübeck return road is where this day stops to eat. Next is Back to Hamburg east.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hamburg east gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to Hamburg east closes the day.
Use Hamburg east gate → Lauenburg fuel gate as clean positioning. Keep it tidy, ignore impatient traffic and save the enthusiasm for the good road ahead. The value here is not drama; it is arriving at the riding section with space, fuel and concentration intact.
This Lauenburg fuel gate → Schwerin castle sight stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Schwerin castle sight → Plauer See water stop is the technical section. Hairpins, gradients and mixed traffic can stack up quickly; use low drama inputs, stay wide of centre lines and expect buses or riders appearing exactly where optimism says they will not.
This Plauer See water stop → Wismar harbour food stretch is for rhythm and scenery. Keep your head up, let the view breathe, and resist turning every open bend into a target. Stop once properly rather than half-stopping everywhere.
Wismar harbour food → Lübeck return road can flow quickly, but only if you keep village limits and junction sightlines sacred. Fast connectors are where rides get untidy when fatigue creeps in.