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.
189 km from Olbernhau to Olbernhau, about 3 h 57 of riding. The stops in between: Pöhlberg Mining Landscape, Rother Berg Mining Landscape, Jáchymov Mining Landscape and back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules.
Down in the valley of the Flöha, on the edge of Olbernhau, stands an industrial village that looks almost too neat to be real: slate-roofed workshops, a hammer mill, workers' houses and a stout gatehouse, all enclosed within a wall. This is the Saigerhütte Grünthal, a works that separated silver from copper ore by a technique called liquation, and it is one of the best preserved sites of its kind in Europe. It forms part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, listed by UNESCO in 2019 for both the German and Czech sides of the range.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is where the day begins. Next is Pöhlberg Mining Landscape.
The Pöhlberg is a basalt cone that stands up from the high Ore Mountains like a bump on a bedspread, and Annaberg-Buchholz lies at its feet. Both belong to the Erzgebirge mining region, which UNESCO listed in 2019 after eight centuries of digging for silver, tin, cobalt and later uranium. Annaberg was founded in the 1490s after a silver strike, and for a few decades it was among the richest places in Saxony. The money is still visible in the town's great late-Gothic hall church, St Anne's, whose tall, ribbed interior feels more like a cathedral than a parish church, and whose altar carvings were paid for by miners and mine owners hoping for luck underground.
Read the complete Pöhlberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pöhlberg Mining Landscape comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Schwarzenberg, in the western Erzgebirge, is a town of steep streets, slate roofs and a castle and church perched on a rock above the Schwarzwasser river, and the hills around it are riddled with old mine workings. The Rother Berg, the red mountain, takes its name from the iron ore that colours its soil, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border UNESCO site listed in 2019. For eight centuries, miners in these mountains dug for silver, tin, iron, cobalt and later uranium, and their work shaped not only the landscape but the culture of the whole region.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 66 km into the recorded legs you reach Rother Berg Mining Landscape. Next is Jáchymov Mining Landscape.
The word dollar comes from this small town in the Ore Mountains. In the early sixteenth century, the silver mines of Jáchymov, then called Joachimsthal, were among the richest in Europe, and the coins minted here were called Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, which became daler and eventually dollar. The town grew rapidly, with thousands of miners, and it is now one component of the World Heritage inscription for the Erzgebirge mining region, shared between the Czech Republic and Germany. Its later history is darker and stranger.
Read the complete Jáchymov Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jáchymov Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape sits at 112 km, about halfway. Next is back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pöhlberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape comes up about 153 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works closes the day.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Pöhlberg Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pöhlberg Mining Landscape → Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape → Jáchymov Mining Landscape is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jáchymov Mining Landscape → back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rother Berg Mining Landscape → back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape → Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.