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 297 km round trip from Schwäbisch Gmünd - roughly 5 h 08 in the saddle. The stops in between: Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B, Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12, Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the and Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 34 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Schwäbisch Gmünd sits in the Rems valley below the Swabian Jura, at the foot of the hill where the Staufer dynasty built their castle, and the Roman frontier ran through the same country. The Upper Germanic Limes crosses the Rems valley near here, and at Freimühle a small fortlet was set on the slope above the river to watch the line, a modest square of earth bank that archaeologists have traced and the town has marked. It is a quiet and easily missed spot, but a nice reminder that the Romans knew a good viewpoint.
Read the complete Fortlet of Freimühle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fortlet of Freimühle is where the day begins. 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.
Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12.
Along the Wörnitz valley in western Middle Franconia, near the village of Weiltingen, the line of the Raetian Limes cuts across the countryside, and the places where Roman watchtowers once stood are numbered by archaeologists in a dry sequence: WP 13/6, 13/7, and so on. In Raetia, the frontier was not a palisade, as in Upper Germany, but a stone wall about three metres high, and local people called its remains the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing that only the devil could have built something so long and straight. Today, you may see a low bank in a field or a line of trees following the old route, and in some places the foundations of towers have been marked or reconstructed.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12. Next is Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the.
Here the frontier changes character. West of the Franconian lakes the Romans built the Raetian Limes not as a palisade but, in its final form, as a stone wall, a metre or so thick and perhaps three high, running across Middle Franconia toward the Danube. Medieval villagers who found its rubble in their fields had no idea who had built it and called it the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, which tells you how thoroughly the empire had been forgotten. The watchtowers numbered in this section sat along that wall in the farmland around Pfofeld and Gunzenhausen, close to where the line crosses the Altmühl valley.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho.
There is nothing to climb at Ruffenhofen, and that is the clever part. The Roman fort here, on gently rising ground above the Wörnitz near Weiltingen and Wittelshofen, has never been rebuilt in stone. Instead, the outline of the walls, gates and the buildings of the settlement around it has been traced across the fields with hedges, trees and mown strips, so the whole place reads like a plan drawn in plants. From the little viewing hill you can see the shape of a garrison that has been underground for seventeen centuries.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho sits at 153 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the comes up about 183 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 223 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12. 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, late in the day. Next is Fortlet of Freimühle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fortlet of Freimühle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 297 km.
Fortlet of Freimühle → Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B → Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 → Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the → Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Ruffenho → back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 14/1 to 14/27 including the → back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Reinau-B → Fortlet of Freimühle is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.