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 223 km round trip from Zürich - roughly 3 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Robenhausen, Egelsee, Hornstaad-Hörnle and back through Egelsee. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For about 30 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it — expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
40 km on Grand Tour of Switzerland.
Zürich's lake has been a home for much longer than the city's banks suggest. The names Grosse Stadt and Kleiner Hafner belong to prehistoric settlement sites in the shallows of the Seebecken, the lake basin where the water meets the old town, and they are part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Farmers and fishers built villages on stilts here between roughly 4,000 and 800 BC, and the lake mud kept their traces. The site is underwater, so you cannot see it, but you can stand on the Utoquai or the Alpenquai promenade and imagine it.
Read the complete Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner is where the day begins. Next is Robenhausen.
In 1858 a local man named Jakob Messikommer began digging in the peat bog at Robenhausen, on the southern end of the Pfäffikersee in the Zurich Oberland, and he spent decades uncovering a remarkably rich Neolithic pile-dwelling settlement. His finds, from stone axes to woven textiles and charred bread, travelled to museums around the world and helped make Swiss lake dwellings famous. Today Robenhausen is one of the components of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, though what remains lies underground in a protected wetland.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Robenhausen comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Egelsee.
There is almost nothing to see at the Egelsee, and that is part of its charm. It is a small, reed-fringed bog lake in the rolling Thurgau countryside between Gachnang and Frauenfeld, and under its peat and mud lie the remains of a Neolithic lakeside settlement, timber piles and floor layers preserved for thousands of years because air never reached them. It is one of the many sites that make up the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps on the UNESCO list, and unlike the reconstructed villages you find elsewhere, this one has been left in the ground on purpose. Archaeologists consider the soggy earth the best museum there is.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 78 km into the recorded legs you reach Egelsee. Next is Hornstaad-Hörnle.
On the Höri peninsula, the long finger of land that pokes into the Untersee arm of Lake Constance, the shallow water off the point of Hornstaad hides the remains of a village burned some six thousand years ago. Hornstaad-Hörnle is one of the most important Neolithic sites in the region: the settlement was destroyed by fire, and the charred remains, sealed in lake mud, preserved an extraordinary record of daily life, including food, textiles, tools and house timbers, which dendrochronology has dated with great precision. It is part of the World Heritage inscription of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, and finds from the site are displayed in museums around the lake.
Read the complete Hornstaad-Hörnle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hornstaad-Hörnle, about halfway. Next is back through Egelsee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Egelsee sits at 113 km, about halfway. Next is back through Robenhausen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Robenhausen comes up about 195 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner closes the day.
Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner → Robenhausen is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Robenhausen → Egelsee is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Egelsee → Hornstaad-Hörnle is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hornstaad-Hörnle → back through Egelsee is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Egelsee → back through Robenhausen is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Robenhausen → Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.