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.
264 km from Arbon to Arbon, about 4 h 50 of riding. It goes by way of Bodman-Schachen / Löchle, Siedlung Forschner and back through Bodman-Schachen / Löchle. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 60 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Arbon sits on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance, in the canton of Thurgau, and just outside the town, on land that was once lake shore, lies one of the most remarkable prehistoric sites in Europe. At Arbon-Bleiche, archaeologists excavated a Neolithic village of wooden houses built on the edge of the lake around 3400 BC. Because the wood was preserved in waterlogged ground, tree rings allowed the village to be dated almost to the year: it was built, lived in for about fifteen years and then destroyed by fire. The finds, from pottery and tools to textiles and food remains, gave a detailed picture of how these early farmers lived, and Arbon counts among the Swiss sites in the Alpine pile-dwelling inscription of 2011. There is nothing to see at the site itself, which is now under buildings and fields; the finds are displayed in the Thurgau archaeological museum in Frauenfeld.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bleiche 2-3 is where the day begins. Next is Bodman-Schachen / Löchle.
Lake Constance takes its German name, Bodensee, from this village. Bodman, at the western tip of the Überlinger See arm of the lake, was the site of a royal palace in the early Middle Ages, and the name of the place spread to the water. Below the village, in the shallows at Schachen and Löchle, lie the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, part of the transnational World Heritage Site of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, inscribed in 2011.
Read the complete Bodman-Schachen / Löchle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Bodman-Schachen / Löchle comes up about 60 km into the recorded legs. Next is Siedlung Forschner.
Long before the Federsee became a moor, it was a lake with villages along its edge, and the villagers built on wet ground. In the Bronze Age, people here set their houses on timber platforms and foundations at the water's edge, and as the lake slowly silted up, the waterlogged peat sealed their remains. Wooden posts, tools and pottery survived in astonishing condition. The Siedlung Forschner, named for the farmer on whose land it lay, is one of the excavated settlements, and it belongs to the group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011.
Read the complete Siedlung Forschner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 131 km into the recorded legs you reach Siedlung Forschner. Next is back through Bodman-Schachen / Löchle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bodman-Schachen / Löchle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bodman-Schachen / Löchle, late in the day. Next is Bleiche 2-3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Bleiche 2-3. That is the ride.
Bleiche 2-3 → Bodman-Schachen / Löchle is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bodman-Schachen / Löchle → Siedlung Forschner is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Siedlung Forschner → back through Bodman-Schachen / Löchle is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Bodman-Schachen / Löchle → Bleiche 2-3 is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.