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 Welzheim it runs 184 km to Welzheim; allow about 3 h 02 of riding. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 12/39, Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B, Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a and back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B. 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 32 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Welzheim had not one but two Roman forts, and that alone tells you how seriously the frontier was taken in the Swabian Forest. The larger west fort held a cavalry unit, while the smaller east fort, now an archaeological park on the edge of town, housed an auxiliary infantry detachment. At the east fort the west gate has been rebuilt to its full height, and standing in front of it you get a rare sense of scale that low foundations never give. Around both forts lay the civil settlement, the vicus, with workshops, taverns and homes.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/39.
Iggingen is a small village on the plateau above the Rems valley, a few kilometres east of Schwäbisch Gmünd, and like many villages in this part of Württemberg it has a Roman frontier running through its fields. The site labelled Watchtower WP 12/39 sits on the Raetian Limes, the stone wall that marked the edge of Roman Raetia, and from here the line runs eastwards towards Aalen, the largest Roman cavalry fort north of the Alps, now home to an excellent Limes museum.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/39 comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B.
Out here on the eastern edge of Württemberg, where the Jagst valley widens into rolling farmland below the Ellwangen hills, the Romans drew a line across the map and then built it in stone. The fort at Rainau-Buch, which the ride labels Reinau-B, sat just behind the Raetian Limes, the frontier that ran from the Rhine toward the Danube. What you find today is a grassy rectangle with low reconstructed wall footings, the outline of a bath house, and the traces of the civilian village that grew up outside the gate, where traders, families and off-duty soldiers lived the way garrison towns always do.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B. Next is Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a.
In the fields near Wilburgstetten, in the west of Franconia, a low ridge runs across the landscape, overgrown with grass and bushes. It looks like nothing much, but it is the remains of the Raetian Limes, the stone wall that marked the frontier of the Roman province of Raetia in the second and third centuries. Unlike the Upper German Limes to the north west, which was mostly a palisade and ditch, the Raetian section was eventually built as a continuous stone wall, more than a hundred and sixty kilometres long. Local people later called it the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing it could only have been built by supernatural forces. The section between watchtowers here is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage Site.
Read the complete Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a, about halfway. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 12/39.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/39 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/39 comes up about 151 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim closes the day.
Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim → Watchtowers WP 12/39 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/39 → Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B → Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Limessection between Watchtowers WP 13/5 a → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B → back through Watchtowers WP 12/39 is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/39 → Fort site and civil settlement of Welzheim is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.