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 Maulbronn it runs 419 km to Maulbronn; allow about 7 h 08 of riding. On the way it passes Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung, Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim, Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura and Ödenahlen. The line favours views over speed.
Maulbronn is a small town in the folded country where the Kraichgau meets the Stromberg hills, and its Cistercian monastery is the best-preserved medieval monastery north of the Alps. The Hamberg ditch belongs to a very different part of the story, the hydrology that kept the monks fed and powered. The Cistercians were famous engineers, and at Maulbronn they dug ditches, built dams and shaped ponds so that the water supply could drive mills, fill fish ponds and flush drains. Parts of this system still survive in the surrounding woods, and UNESCO included the monastery and its water works in the 1993 listing.
Read the complete Hamberg Ditch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hamberg Ditch is where the day begins. Next is Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung.
In 1927, on a hillside overlooking Stuttgart, a group of the most radical architects in Europe built an entire housing estate in a few months as an exhibition of what modern living could look like. The Weissenhof Estate, organised by the Deutscher Werkbund under the direction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, brought together Le Corbusier, Walter Gropius, Hans Scharoun, J.J.P. Oud and others, and their flat-roofed, white-walled houses became a manifesto for the International Style.
Read the complete Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung comes up about 41 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim-.
Welzheim sits up in the Swabian-Franconian Forest, a rolling upland of spruce, beech, deep stream valleys and old sawmills east of Stuttgart, and the Romans chose it for the same reason the forest still feels remote today: it was the edge. The Upper German-Raetian Limes ran dead straight through these woods, and Welzheim had not one fort but two, an east and a west fort, with a civilian settlement of traders, craftsmen and soldiers' families packed around them. The east fort has a reconstructed gate and a small archaeological park that gives you a good sense of scale, and the whole frontier line is part of a UNESCO site.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 86 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim-. Next is Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura.
Forty thousand years ago, someone sitting in a cave above the Ach valley carved a tiny woman out of mammoth ivory, and someone else made a flute from the wing bone of a griffon vulture. Both were found in the Hohle Fels near Schelklingen, a few kilometres from where you are standing, and they rank among the oldest figurative art and musical instruments ever found. The caves of the Ach and Lone valleys were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2017 as the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, and they changed how archaeologists think about the first modern humans in Europe.
Read the complete Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, about halfway. Next is Ödenahlen.
The Federsee basin in Upper Swabia is one of those landscapes that hides its importance. It looks like a flat expanse of reeds, wet meadows and woodland around a shrinking lake, but beneath the peat lie dozens of prehistoric settlements, preserved because the bog kept the oxygen out. Ödenahlen is one of these sites, a Neolithic village on the edge of the moor, and the Federsee settlements are part of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Wooden floors, house walls, wheels and everyday objects have been excavated here, and some of the oldest wooden wheels in Europe come from this region.
Read the complete Ödenahlen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ödenahlen sits at 207 km, about halfway. Next is back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura comes up about 247 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim-.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 333 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim-. Next is back through Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung, late in the day. Next is Hamberg Ditch.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hamberg Ditch write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 419 km.
Hamberg Ditch → Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung → Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- → Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura is 82 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura → Ödenahlen is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ödenahlen → back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura → back through Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Fort site and civil settlement of Welheim- → back through Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Maisons de la Weissenhof-Siedlung → Hamberg Ditch is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.