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 Buchen in Odenwald it runs 187 km to Buchen in Odenwald; allow about 3 h 19 of riding. The stops in between: Fortlet Lehnenwiesen, Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68, Murrhardt civil settlement northern part and back through Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Holderbusch is a small piece of woodland above the Odenwald plateau, close to Buchen, where the Romans placed a fortlet on the Odenwald Limes about the middle of the second century. This part of the Upper Germanic frontier was, for much of its length, a simple palisade and ditch, running in an astonishingly straight line across hills and valleys from the Main to the Neckar. A fortlet was a small post, a few dozen soldiers behind a bank and ditch, and from here the watchtowers on each side could be reached on foot within minutes. The ground is marked by gentle swellings in the forest floor and a path with explanatory signs, and the walk takes less than half an hour.
Read the complete Fortlet Holderbusch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet Holderbusch is where the day begins. Next is Fortlet Lehnenwiesen.
Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, was born in Jagsthausen around 1480, and he is remembered for a rude phrase he supposedly shouted at an enemy, made famous by Goethe in his play about the knight. Jagsthausen's castle, where Götz grew up, hosts an open-air theatre festival every summer, and the iron hand, a prosthesis he wore after losing his right hand in battle, is displayed there. A few kilometres away, in the fields near Widdern, the fortlet of Lehnenwiesen was a small Roman post on the Upper Germanic Limes, part of the chain of forts and watchtowers that ran through this landscape.
Read the complete Fortlet Lehnenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68.
Between Öhringen and Mainhardt, the Upper German Limes does something a Roman engineer must have been proud of: it runs dead straight for many kilometres, up hill and down dale, ignoring the terrain as if drawn with a ruler on a map. The watchtower sites numbered along this section lie on that line, in the Hohenlohe country of northern Württemberg, between the open farmland around Pfedelbach and the dark wooded hills of the Swabian-Franconian Forest.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 65 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68. Next is Murrhardt civil settlement northern part.
Murrhardt lies in the valley of the Murr, deep in the Swabian-Franconian Forest northeast of Stuttgart, a hilly, densely wooded region of streams, mills and small villages that feels a long way from the industrial heartland just to the west. The Romans built a fort here on the Limes, the frontier that ran through these forests from north to south, and a civil settlement grew up around it. The northern part of that settlement lies under parts of the modern town, and while there is little to see, the town's museum displays Roman finds, and the frontier through these woods is protected by its World Heritage status.
Read the complete Murrhardt civil settlement northern part write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Murrhardt civil settlement northern part, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 sits at 110 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet Lehnenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen comes up about 158 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fortlet Holderbusch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet Holderbusch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet Holderbusch closes the day.
Fortlet Holderbusch → Fortlet Lehnenwiesen is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fortlet Lehnenwiesen → Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 → Murrhardt civil settlement northern part is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Murrhardt civil settlement northern part → back through Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 9/36 to 9/68 → back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fortlet Lehnenwiesen → Fortlet Holderbusch is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.