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: planning record, not independently verified geometry.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distances and riding times are planning figures. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A tidy inland loop when the Baltic coast is too windy. The best part sits around Westensee shore, Rendsburg canal view, Bredenbek forest road, while Nortorf coffee stop keeps the day practical instead of turning it into a fuel or food hunt. Check the OSM map, Google preview and GPX checkpoint order before departure; they use the same waypoint sequence. Ride it with legal pull-offs, patience through villages and enough daylight to stop without rushing.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 37 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.
57 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.
The Westensee lies a short way west of Kiel, a long, branched lake set in rolling country of fields, woods and low glacial hills. It is the biggest lake in the area, and around it lies a nature park that is roughly shaped like a lung between the city, the Kiel Canal and the Eider lowlands. The shore is a mixture of reed beds, small beaches, boat jetties and wooded banks, and the sense of calm after the city traffic comes quickly.
Read the complete Westensee shore write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Westensee shore sits at 0 km, early in the day. Next is Nortorf coffee stop.
Nortorf will not make anyone's list of great European destinations, and it does not pretend to. It is a farming town of about six thousand people in the middle of Holstein, set on the edge of the Geest, the sandy, gently rolling ridge of central Schleswig-Holstein, halfway between Neumünster and Rendsburg. Its job, in a riding day, is a useful one: a place to fill the tank, get a decent breakfast, and set off along quiet back roads.
Read the complete Nortorf fuel gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nortorf coffee stop is where this day stops to eat. Next is Rendsburg canal view.
The Kiel Canal is the busiest artificial waterway in the world, measured by the number of ships, and in Rendsburg you can see why. The town sits right on its bank, and ships glide silently through the middle of the landscape, appearing over the fields like something out of a dream. Opened in 1895 as the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, it cuts across the neck of the Jutland peninsula, linking the North Sea and the Baltic and saving vessels a long and stormy voyage around Denmark.
Read the complete Rendsburg canal view write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 94 km into the recorded legs you reach Rendsburg canal view. Next is Bredenbek forest road.
Between Kiel and Rendsburg the land has a gentle rumple, and the woods near Bredenbek are among its better parts. The forest is mixed, beech and oak with patches of spruce, and it sits in the middle of an agricultural area where large fields are divided by Knicks and farm tracks. Here the roads are narrow, quiet and well shaded, a world away from the roar of the nearby motorway.
Read the complete Bredenbek forest road write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bredenbek forest road, about halfway at 18 m.
Kiel start to Westensee shore is the transfer part of the road trip. Keep the route loaded, check local signs, and ride it for line, view and timing rather than speed. Use legal pull-offs for photos and keep the villages quiet.
Westensee shore to Nortorf coffee stop is the forest part of the road trip. Keep the route loaded, check local signs, and ride it for line, view and timing rather than speed. Use legal pull-offs for photos and keep the villages quiet.
Rendsburg canal view to Bredenbek forest road is the scenic part of the road trip. Keep the route loaded, check local signs, and ride it for line, view and timing rather than speed. Use legal pull-offs for photos and keep the villages quiet.