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 179 km round trip from Butzbach - roughly 2 h 31 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73, Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl, Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 and back through Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl. 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 27 km this is German Fairy Tale Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Butzbach sits at the northern edge of the Wetterau, a broad, fertile plain north of Frankfurt, where the Taunus ends and the land opens out into fields of wheat, sugar beet and rapeseed. The Romans prized this land, and their frontier made a long detour around it, swinging east and then south to include the Wetterau within the empire. Near Butzbach, on the Schrenzer hill, they built a small fort, the Kastell Schrenzer, to guard the frontier where it left the Taunus and began its loop around the plain. The fort and the frontier nearby are part of the frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site, and the remains, low earthworks in the woods, can be visited on foot.
Read the complete Fort Schrenzer write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort Schrenzer is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73.
Behind the name is a number system, because the Limes archaeologists gave every watchtower a code. WP means Wachposten, a watchtower, and 4/72 means the seventy-second one on the fourth section of the frontier, the one that crosses the Wetterau. This pair of towers stands in farmland near Hungen, in central Hesse, and the Romans placed them on a gentle rise from which a watchman could see across the open plain and signal to the next tower along the line.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl.
Out here on the eastern rim of the Wetterau, between Altenstadt, Hammersbach and the Büdingen forest, the Roman frontier did something unusual. Having come over the Taunus and swung north around the fertile plain, the Limes turned and ran almost due south towards the Main, enclosing the Wetterau like a hand cupped around something precious. The towers numbered WP 4/82 to 5/8, along with small fortlets, guarded this eastern flank, and their remains lie in fields and woodland edges where only a shallow bank or a marker stone gives them away.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 63 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl. Next is Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16.
Great forts are rare on the Limes; most of the frontier was watchtowers, small timber and later stone posts within sight of each other, each with a handful of men and a fire for signalling. The towers numbered 5/15 and 5/16 stood near Großkrotzenburg, at the point where the land frontier coming down from the Wetterau met the Main, and from here southward the river itself became the border as far as Miltenberg. Little of them remains to see, but the location tells the story: the Romans used water where they could and built palisades only where they had to.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl sits at 108 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 comes up about 149 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort Schrenzer.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort Schrenzer write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort Schrenzer closes the day.
Fort Schrenzer → Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 → Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl → Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 5/15 to 5/16 → back through Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/82 to 5/8 including fortl → back through Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/72 to 4/73 → Fort Schrenzer is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.