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.
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Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A 156 km round trip from Dormagen - roughly 2 h 51 in the saddle. It goes by way of Cologne Cathedral, Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1, Iversheim and back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 25 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
Dormagen is not the sort of place that ends up on postcards, and it does not try to be. It is a working town of some sixty thousand on the left bank of the Rhine between Cologne and Düsseldorf, dominated on its northern side by a huge chemical park whose pipes and stacks glow at night. Yet the name itself comes from Roman times: Durnomagus was a fort on the Lower German Limes, the Rhine frontier that UNESCO listed in 2021, and a cavalry unit was stationed here to patrol the river and the road along it.
Read the complete Dormagen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dormagen is where the day begins. Next is Cologne Cathedral.
Six hundred and thirty-two years. That is how long it took to finish Cologne Cathedral, from the laying of the foundation stone in 1248 to the completion of the spires in 1880, and when you stand at its foot by the main station it feels as though the building is still growing. The twin towers climb to around 157 metres, black with soot and weather, and for a few years after completion they made it the tallest building in the world.
Read the complete Cologne Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Cologne Cathedral comes up 29 km in. Next is Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1.
The Kottenforst looks like an ordinary Rhineland woodland of oak, beech and hornbeam, with walkers, joggers and the odd horse rider, but in the second half of the first century and beyond it was a training ground for the Roman army. In clearings of the forest, the legion stationed at Bonna, today's Bonn, built a series of temporary camps as exercises, digging ditches and raising ramparts to practise the rapid construction they would need in the field. The remains of these camps, faint earthworks under the trees, are included in the Lower Germanic Limes, which UNESCO listed in 2021. Am Weissen Stein is one of the northern groups.
Read the complete Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
57 km in you reach Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1. Next is Iversheim.
Iversheim is a village in the valley of the Erft, at the northern edge of the Eifel, just downstream from the old spa town of Bad Münstereifel. It is known for one thing: a Roman lime-burning works, one of the best preserved in Europe. The Romans built a series of kilns here to burn limestone from the surrounding hills into quicklime, which was used to make mortar for the forts, towns and roads of the province of Lower Germany. The kilns were worked by detachments of soldiers from the Rhine legions, as inscriptions found on the site show.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iversheim, about halfway. Next is back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 sits at 114 km, about halfway. Next is back through Cologne Cathedral.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Cologne Cathedral write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Cologne Cathedral comes up 143 km in. Next is Dormagen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dormagen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dormagen closes the day.
Dormagen → Cologne Cathedral is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Cologne Cathedral → Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 → Iversheim is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iversheim → back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 → back through Cologne Cathedral is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Cologne Cathedral → Dormagen is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.