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 692 km, Strausberg to Spreenhagen - roughly 11 h 39 in the saddle. On the way it passes Buckow and Schermützelsee, Neuhardenberg palace plain, Oderbruch open-road air and Müncheberg window. It crosses from Germany into Poland - carry ID and check the toll rules.
16 km on Strausberg lakes edge → Buckow and Schermützelsee.
Strausberg has two things you do not often find together: a long, beautiful lake and an extremely unusual railway. The Straussee stretches several kilometres through the town, with a promenade, a small passenger ferry that crosses it in a few minutes, and wooded shores that make you forget that Berlin is just beyond. The little ferry is a pleasure in itself, a cheap and slightly absurd way to cross water.
Read the complete Strausberg lakes edge write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strausberg lakes edge is where the day begins. Next is Buckow and Schermützelsee.
Buckow tends to be remembered for one house. In 1952 the playwright Bertolt Brecht and the actress Helene Weigel acquired a modest villa on the shore of the Schermützelsee, with a garden running down to the water, and used it as a summer retreat until Brecht's death in 1956. It is now a small museum, set among old trees, and the rooms keep a sense of the plain, slightly austere taste of its owners. Brecht wrote the Buckow Elegies here, short poems of great simplicity, looking at the lake and the trees.
Read the complete Buckow and Schermützelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Buckow and Schermützelsee comes up about 16 km into the recorded legs. Next is Neuhardenberg palace plain.
The Oderbruch is a landscape made by a king's order. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Frederick the Great had the marshy valley of the Oder drained and diked, turning a swamp into some of the richest farmland in Prussia, and he invited settlers from across Europe to farm it. The villages that sprang up have a regular layout, with a single long street and a church in the middle, and the fields run in straight lines to a flat horizon.
Read the complete Neuhardenberg palace plain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 34 km into the recorded legs you reach Neuhardenberg palace plain. Next is Oderbruch open-road air.
Open sky is the signature of the Oderbruch, and Letschin sits in the middle of it. This is a polder, a stretch of marshland along the Oder that Frederick the Great had drained in the 1740s and 1750s, moving the river into a new channel and settling farmers from across Europe on the reclaimed land. The result is a flat, fertile plain, crossed by dykes and drainage ditches, with farms laid out in rows and a huge horizon.
Read the complete Oderbruch open-road air write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oderbruch open-road air, early in the day. Next is Müncheberg fuel window.
Müncheberg sits on the old trade road between Berlin and the Oder, the route that later became the Reichsstraße 1, running from Aachen all the way to East Prussia. Today it is the B1, still carrying freight and holidaymakers through the middle of the town, but beyond the main road the town is quiet. About seven thousand people live here, and it is a reliable place for fuel, with stations on the main road and supermarkets within a short distance.
Read the complete Müncheberg fuel window write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Next is Back to Strausberg.
Strausberg is the last proper town before Berlin turns into Brandenburg, and it knows how to be useful. It sits on the shore of a long lake, the Straussee, about thirty kilometres east of the capital, with the S-Bahn running straight in, and about twenty-six thousand people live here. The medieval centre kept a stretch of its town wall and the brick gothic Marienkirche, and the little ferry across the lake, the Strausberg ferry, is one of the nicest short crossings in the region. The town also runs one of the smallest tram networks in Germany, a single line that has served for a century.
Read the complete Strausberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 736 km. Next is Lusatia Lakes and Tagebau Views.
Spreenhagen is a scattered rural municipality south-east of Berlin, where the River Spree winds through forests and meadows between Fürstenwalde and the capital. The villages here are small and quiet, with old churches, farmhouses and modern homes for commuters, and the landscape is a typical Brandenburg mix of pine forests, wet meadows and lakes.
Read the complete High point near Spreenhagen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fill up here — 396 km left and no pump marked after this. Next is Food stop near Letschin.
Frederick the Great stands on a pedestal in Letschin, and the people of the Oderbruch have good reason to remember him. In the mid-eighteenth century, the Prussian king ordered the draining of this vast marshy floodplain of the Oder, a huge engineering project that created new farmland and villages for thousands of settlers. He is said to have declared that he had conquered a province in peace. The landscape today is a flat, fertile plain of fields, ditches and dykes, stretching to the Polish border.
Read the complete Food stop near Letschin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Somewhere to get off the bike, about 213 km into the recorded legs. Next is High point near Chorin.
Chorin Abbey rises out of the trees like a red brick cathedral that someone forgot to finish. Cistercian monks founded it in the thirteenth century as part of the German settlement of Brandenburg, and its towering west front is one of the finest examples of north German brick Gothic. After the Reformation it fell into ruin, and the Prussian architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel was among those who campaigned to save it in the nineteenth century. Today it hosts a well-known summer concert season and has a gentle, almost romantic air.
Read the complete High point near Chorin write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
High point near Chorin sits at 453 km, about halfway. Next is Scenic stretch near Gransee.
Gransee is one of the best-kept medieval towns in Brandenburg, still enclosed by almost the full ring of its brick walls, with gate towers and defensive turrets. In the middle stands the great brick Gothic church of St Mary, and on the market square a curious cast-iron monument designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel marks the spot where the coffin of Queen Louise of Prussia rested overnight in 1810 on its way to Berlin. Louise was hugely popular, and her early death caused national mourning.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Gransee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Gransee comes up about 343 km into the recorded legs. Next is Berlin motorcycle escapes return.
In August 1896, on a hill called the Gollenberg near the village of Stölln, a few kilometres south-east of the point, Otto Lilienthal lost control of his glider, fell about fifteen metres, and died of his injuries the next day. He had made hundreds of flights from these slopes, and his experiments laid the groundwork for the Wright brothers. Nearly a century later, in 1989, an Interflug Ilyushin airliner was landed on the grassy meadow at the foot of the same hill as a tribute, and it is still there, a strange and wonderful sight in the open countryside, now a small museum.
Read the complete Near Breddin, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 413 km into the recorded legs you reach Berlin motorcycle escapes return. Next is Photo stop near Golzow.
South of Brandenburg an der Havel the land breaks into a quiet patchwork of pine forest, heath, small lakes and farm villages, the transition between the Havel lowlands and the Fläming hills. Golzow is one of those villages, a cluster of farmhouses and a church where you will rarely see more than a few cars. It is the sort of place where you stop because it is peaceful rather than because of any particular attraction.
Read the complete Photo stop near Golzow write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Photo stop near Golzow, late in the day. Next is Lusatia Lakes and Tagebau Views checkpoint 8.
Buch, on the far northern edge of Berlin, is a district shaped by medicine. In the early twentieth century, the city architect Ludwig Hoffmann built a series of large hospital complexes here, in a park-like setting outside the crowded city, and Buch has been a centre of hospitals and medical research ever since. Today it is home to the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine and a cluster of biotech companies, as well as a large hospital campus, and the old Hoffmann buildings, with their red-brick and stone façades, are still impressive.
Read the complete Near Buch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lusatia Lakes and Tagebau Views checkpoint 8 closes the day. Next is Back to Lusatia Lakes.
Here the forest begins to close in on Berlin. Grünheide, a village of about seven and a half thousand, sits between the Peetzsee and the Werlsee, and its streets run among tall pines. It has become better known in recent years because the electric car maker Tesla opened a large factory in the forest on the edge of town in 2022.
Read the complete Lusatia Lakes write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Lusatia Lakes. That is the ride.
Strausberg lakes edge → Buckow and Schermützelsee is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Buckow and Schermützelsee → Neuhardenberg palace plain is 18 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Neuhardenberg palace plain → Oderbruch open-road air is 12 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oderbruch open-road air → Müncheberg fuel window is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Müncheberg fuel window → Back to Strausberg is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Strausberg → Fuel stop in Spreenhagen is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Spreenhagen → Food stop near Letschin is 76 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Food stop near Letschin → High point near Chorin is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Chorin → Scenic stretch near Gransee is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Scenic stretch near Gransee → Near Breddin, on the way back is 70 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop near Golzow → Near Buch is 133 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.