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 403 km round trip from Walldürn - roughly 6 h 35 in the saddle. The stops in between: Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau, Building remains south of the watchtower W, Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch and Lone Valley. It follows river valleys.
Walldürn is a small town on the eastern edge of the Odenwald, where the hills of the forest give way to the open plateau of the Bauland, and the Roman frontier ran right through it. The Upper Germanic Limes followed a straight line here, and the town had a fort and a bathhouse, whose remains have been excavated and partly reconstructed. Fort Altheimer Strasse, named after the road where it was found, was one of the smaller installations along the line, part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Fort Altheimer Strasse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort Altheimer Strasse is where the day begins. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau.
Jagsthausen is a village of around fifteen hundred people in the Jagst valley of northern Württemberg, and it punches far above its weight in history. The Romans built a fort here on the Upper German-Raetian Limes, with a civilian settlement and a bath house, part of the UNESCO-listed frontier. But the village is better known for a later resident: Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, who was born in the castle here around 1480. He lost his right hand in battle and had a mechanical one made, led peasants in the war of 1525, and became the hero of a play by Goethe that contains a famously rude line that Germans still quote.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Building remains south of the watchtower W.
Mainhardt sits high in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, between Heilbronn and Schwäbisch Hall, on a wooded plateau that the Romans chose for one of the forts guarding their frontier. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes runs through here on its long, ruler-straight stretch heading south towards Welzheim, and along it stood watchtowers every few hundred metres, with small buildings nearby for the soldiers who manned them. The remains south of one of these towers are modest, low foundations in a clearing or under the forest floor, but they are part of the World Heritage frontier that runs for more than five hundred kilometres across Germany. The village has a small Roman museum that explains the fort and its garrison.
Read the complete Building remains south of the watchtower W write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Building remains south of the watchtower W. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.
Lorch, in the Rems valley east of Stuttgart, sits on a historic seam. Just outside town, the Upper German Limes, which ran as a palisade and ditch from the Rhine, met the Raetian Limes, the stone wall running east to the Danube, and the Romans built a fort here to watch over that junction and the valley road. The fort lay beneath what is now the old town centre, and its outline, together with traces of the civilian settlement that grew around it, is marked in places in the streets. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site, and a reconstructed watchtower stands on a hill nearby.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch, about halfway. Next is Lone Valley.
The Lone is a small river in the Swabian Jura, east of Ulm, that often vanishes underground in dry weather, slipping into the limestone and leaving its bed empty. Its quiet valley, flanked by wooded slopes and limestone cliffs, holds caves where some of the oldest figurative art in the world was found. In the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave, fragments of a figure carved from mammoth ivory were pieced together into the Lion Man, a being with a human body and a lion's head, around forty thousand years old. In the Vogelherd cave, tiny ivory animals, a horse, a mammoth, a cave lion, emerged from the sediment.
Read the complete Lone Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lone Valley sits at 177 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch comes up about 279 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Building remains south of the watchtower W.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Building remains south of the watchtower W write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 329 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Building remains south of the watchtower W. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau, late in the day. Next is Fort Altheimer Strasse.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort Altheimer Strasse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 403 km.
Fort Altheimer Strasse → Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau → Building remains south of the watchtower W is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Building remains south of the watchtower W → Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch → Lone Valley is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lone Valley → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch is 78 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Lorsch → back through Building remains south of the watchtower W is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Building remains south of the watchtower W → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Jagsthau → Fort Altheimer Strasse is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.