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 296 km round trip from Bad Ems - roughly 3 h 49 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP, Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 and back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The most consequential telegram in German history was sent from a spa town on the Lahn. In July 1870, King Wilhelm I of Prussia was taking the waters at Bad Ems when the French ambassador came to ask him to promise that no Hohenzollern prince would ever take the Spanish throne. The king refused politely, and sent a report to Bismarck in Berlin, who edited the text to make it sound like a snub, and published it. The Ems Dispatch, as it is known, helped to provoke France to declare war, and the Franco-Prussian War led to the creation of the German Empire in 1871.
Read the complete Bad Ems write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bad Ems is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP.
On the western side of the Taunus, the hills are lower and the forest gives way more often to farmland, with villages in the folds of the valleys. Idstein, a small town with a remarkable old centre, sits on this side, with Waldems and Glashütten nearby. Through the woods above them ran the Roman frontier, and the stretch of watchtowers numbered WP 3/24 to 3/40 followed the ridges here, part of the Upper Germanic Limes and of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire site.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP comes up about 78 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57.
The Wetterau is the broad, fertile plain north of Frankfurt, between the Taunus and the Vogelsberg, and the Romans considered it so valuable that they bent their frontier around it to include it in the empire. The Limes ran along the northern edge of the plain, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/53 to 4/57, near the town of Lich, stood on this section, part of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes listed by UNESCO in 2005. Like most watchtowers, they survive only as mounds or traces in the fields and forest, but the line of the frontier can be followed on foot or by bicycle.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 149 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP, late in the day. Next is Bad Ems.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bad Ems write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bad Ems. That is the ride.
Bad Ems → Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP → Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 → back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP → Bad Ems is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.