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.
From Arzbach it runs 286 km to Arzbach; allow about 3 h 37 of riding. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP, Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 and back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Arzbach sits a few kilometres north of the Lahn, in the wooded Westerwald hills behind Bad Ems, and it is one of those places where the Roman Empire left a mark you have to squint to see. The fort and its civil settlement belonged to the Upper German-Raetian frontier, the Limes, which ran for hundreds of kilometres from the Rhine near Rheinbrohl all the way to the Danube. Here it was a ditch, a rampart and a timber palisade, studded with watchtowers within sight of one another. Nothing grand survives above ground in the village itself. What you get is the lie of the land: a ridge chosen because a sentry could see from it, and a settlement that grew beside the soldiers because soldiers need bread, boots and beer.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP.
On the western side of the Taunus, the hills are lower and the forest gives way more often to farmland, with villages in the folds of the valleys. Idstein, a small town with a remarkable old centre, sits on this side, with Waldems and Glashütten nearby. Through the woods above them ran the Roman frontier, and the stretch of watchtowers numbered WP 3/24 to 3/40 followed the ridges here, part of the Upper Germanic Limes and of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire site.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP comes up about 73 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57.
The Wetterau is the broad, fertile plain north of Frankfurt, between the Taunus and the Vogelsberg, and the Romans considered it so valuable that they bent their frontier around it to include it in the empire. The Limes ran along the northern edge of the plain, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/53 to 4/57, near the town of Lich, stood on this section, part of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes listed by UNESCO in 2005. Like most watchtowers, they survive only as mounds or traces in the fields and forest, but the line of the frontier can be followed on foot or by bicycle.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 144 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP, late in the day. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach. That is the ride.
Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach → Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP is 73 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP → Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 is 71 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/53 to 4/57 → back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP is 72 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 3/24 to 3/40Watchtowers WP → Fort site and civil settlement of Arzbach is 70 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.