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.
398 km from Ehrenfriedersdorf to Ehrenfriedersdorf, about 7 h 05 of riding. The stops in between: Schindlers Werk Smalt Works, Jáchymov Mining Landscape, Žatec and Krupka Mining Landscape. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Tin, not silver, was the business of Ehrenfriedersdorf. For around eight hundred years miners dug into the Sauberg hill above this small Erzgebirge town for tin ore, and the Ehrenfriedersdorf mining landscape, with its shafts, spoil heaps, ponds and ditches, is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage Site. The Sauberg visitor mine lets you go underground into galleries worked by generations of miners, and the hard hat, the damp cold and the drip of water make the history very physical.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
In the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains of Saxony, a handful of workshops once produced a colour that conquered Europe. Schindlers Werk, at Zschorlau near Aue, was a smalt works, where cobalt ore from the surrounding mines was ground, roasted and fused with sand and potash into a deep blue glass, then milled into pigment. Smalt coloured Dutch tiles, German porcelain and painters' blues, and Saxony held an almost complete monopoly on it for generations. The works was founded in the seventeenth century and has been preserved as a museum.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Jáchymov Mining Landscape.
The word dollar comes from this small town in the Ore Mountains. In the early sixteenth century, the silver mines of Jáchymov, then called Joachimsthal, were among the richest in Europe, and the coins minted here were called Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, which became daler and eventually dollar. The town grew rapidly, with thousands of miners, and it is now one component of the World Heritage inscription for the Erzgebirge mining region, shared between the Czech Republic and Germany. Its later history is darker and stranger.
Read the complete Jáchymov Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Jáchymov Mining Landscape. Next is Žatec.
The smell gives Žatec away in late summer. The fields around this small town in northwestern Bohemia are planted with hops, tall green vines climbing up wires on wooden poles, and when harvest comes in August, the air fills with their resinous, slightly bitter scent. Saaz hops, named after the German form of the town's name, have been prized by brewers for centuries for their fine aroma, and they are a key ingredient in Czech pilsner lagers. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops, recognising the town's hop warehouses, drying kilns, packing houses and the surrounding hop gardens as a unique agricultural and industrial heritage.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Žatec, about halfway. Next is Krupka Mining Landscape.
Krupka is a hillside mining town stuck to the foot of the Ore Mountains, and it wears its history quietly. The town sits a short climb above the plain near Teplice and Ústí nad Labem in the north of Bohemia, with the ridge of the Krušné hory rising behind. Tin was dug here for a very long time, and the shafts and spoil heaps scattered around the slopes are what UNESCO recognised in 2019 when it listed the Ore Mountains mining region, a landscape shared with Saxony on the German side. Marienberg, on the far side of the border, belongs to the same story.
Read the complete Krupka Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Krupka Mining Landscape sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Žatec.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Žatec comes up about 256 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jáchymov Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 325 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape. Next is back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works, late in the day. Next is Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 398 km.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape → Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Jáchymov Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jáchymov Mining Landscape → Žatec is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Žatec → Krupka Mining Landscape is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Krupka Mining Landscape → back through Žatec is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Žatec → back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape is 69 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape → back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.