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 328 km round trip from Zürich - roughly 4 h 58 in the saddle. On the way it passes Hornstaad-Hörnle, Schreckensee and back through Hornstaad-Hörnle. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
For about 71 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.
This part of the ride is 94 km of Hornstaad-Hörnle → Schreckensee.
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 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 comes up about 71 km into the recorded legs. Next is Schreckensee.
The Schreckensee, the lake of terror, is a disappointingly peaceful place for such a dramatic name. It is a small kettle lake in the moraine country of Upper Swabia, between Ravensburg and Aulendorf, left behind when a block of glacial ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Its shores, now partly bog and reed bed, hide the remains of prehistoric settlements, and it is one of the German sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As at most of these sites, nothing is visible on the surface; the timbers and household waste lie preserved underwater and in the peat, waiting for future archaeologists.
Read the complete Schreckensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 165 km into the recorded legs you reach Schreckensee. Next is back through Hornstaad-Hörnle.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hornstaad-Hörnle write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hornstaad-Hörnle, late in the day. 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.
Back at Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner. That is the ride.
Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner → Hornstaad-Hörnle is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Hornstaad-Hörnle → Schreckensee is 94 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schreckensee → back through Hornstaad-Hörnle is 92 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hornstaad-Hörnle → Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner is 71 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.