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 222 km round trip from Zürich - roughly 3 h 28 in the saddle. The stops in between: Robenhausen, Egelsee, Hornstaad-Hörnle and back through Egelsee. 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.
For about 29 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
This part of the ride is 40 km of Grand Tour of Switzerland.
Zurich's lakefront is one of the most pleasant urban shorelines in Europe, and the Alpenquai, in the district of Enge, is a stretch of it where the city opens up to views across the water to the Alps. On a clear day, especially when the föhn blows from the south, the peaks of the Glarus Alps seem close enough to touch. Under the water off this shore, archaeologists have found the remains of prehistoric villages built on piles along the lake edge, and several of Zurich's shore sites were inscribed in 2011 among the prehistoric pile dwellings of the Alpine lakes. You will see nothing of them from the promenade; they lie in the mud of the lake bed, preserved by the water.
Read the complete Enge Alpenquai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Enge Alpenquai is where the day begins. Next is Robenhausen.
In 1858 a local man named Jakob Messikommer began digging in the peat bog at Robenhausen, on the southern end of the Pfäffikersee in the Zurich Oberland, and he spent decades uncovering a remarkably rich Neolithic pile-dwelling settlement. His finds, from stone axes to woven textiles and charred bread, travelled to museums around the world and helped make Swiss lake dwellings famous. Today Robenhausen is one of the components of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, though what remains lies underground in a protected wetland.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Robenhausen comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Egelsee.
There is almost nothing to see at the Egelsee, and that is part of its charm. It is a small, reed-fringed bog lake in the rolling Thurgau countryside between Gachnang and Frauenfeld, and under its peat and mud lie the remains of a Neolithic lakeside settlement, timber piles and floor layers preserved for thousands of years because air never reached them. It is one of the many sites that make up the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps on the UNESCO list, and unlike the reconstructed villages you find elsewhere, this one has been left in the ground on purpose. Archaeologists consider the soggy earth the best museum there is.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Egelsee. Next is Hornstaad-Hörnle.
On the Höri peninsula, the long finger of land that pokes into the Untersee arm of Lake Constance, the shallow water off the point of Hornstaad hides the remains of a village burned some six thousand years ago. Hornstaad-Hörnle is one of the most important Neolithic sites in the region: the settlement was destroyed by fire, and the charred remains, sealed in lake mud, preserved an extraordinary record of daily life, including food, textiles, tools and house timbers, which dendrochronology has dated with great precision. It is part of the World Heritage inscription of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, and finds from the site are displayed in museums around the lake.
Read the complete Hornstaad-Hörnle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hornstaad-Hörnle, about halfway. Next is back through Egelsee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Egelsee sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Robenhausen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Robenhausen comes up about 194 km into the recorded legs. Next is Enge Alpenquai.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Enge Alpenquai write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Enge Alpenquai closes the day.
Enge Alpenquai → Robenhausen is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Robenhausen → Egelsee is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Egelsee → Hornstaad-Hörnle is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hornstaad-Hörnle → back through Egelsee is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Egelsee → back through Robenhausen is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Robenhausen → Enge Alpenquai is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.