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 229 km round trip from Stein am Rhein - roughly 5 h 43 in the saddle. The stops in between: Wollmatingen-Langenrain, Bleiche 2-3, Schreckensee and back through Bleiche 2-3. 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 24 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.
56 km on Bleiche 2-3 → Schreckensee.
Where the Rhine leaves Lake Constance at Stein am Rhein, a group of small islands sits in the river, connected to the shore by a wooden footbridge, and on the largest, Werd, stands a small chapel surrounded by trees and water. It was here, in 759, that Saint Otmar, the first abbot of St Gallen, died in exile after falling foul of powerful local nobles, and the island has been a place of pilgrimage ever since. Long before Otmar, people lived here too: the islands and the surrounding shores are among the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a World Heritage site, and excavations have found traces of settlements from the Neolithic onwards.
Read the complete Insel Werd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Insel Werd is where the day begins. Next is Wollmatingen-Langenrain.
Konstanz is the German city that sits on Switzerland's lap, so close to the border that the two towns, Konstanz and Kreuzlingen, run into each other with a fence in between. The old town lies on the narrows between the Obersee and the Untersee, the two halves of Lake Constance, where the Rhine leaves the lake, and it has one of the best preserved medieval centres in southern Germany. Its survival has a simple explanation: it was not bombed in the Second World War, partly because of its closeness to neutral Switzerland. In the early fifteenth century, it hosted the Council of Constance, which ended a split in the Catholic Church and condemned the reformer Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415.
Read the complete Wollmatingen-Langenrain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wollmatingen-Langenrain comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bleiche 2-3.
Arbon sits on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance, in the canton of Thurgau, and just outside the town, on land that was once lake shore, lies one of the most remarkable prehistoric sites in Europe. At Arbon-Bleiche, archaeologists excavated a Neolithic village of wooden houses built on the edge of the lake around 3400 BC. Because the wood was preserved in waterlogged ground, tree rings allowed the village to be dated almost to the year: it was built, lived in for about fifteen years and then destroyed by fire. The finds, from pottery and tools to textiles and food remains, gave a detailed picture of how these early farmers lived, and Arbon counts among the Swiss sites in the Alpine pile-dwelling inscription of 2011. There is nothing to see at the site itself, which is now under buildings and fields; the finds are displayed in the Thurgau archaeological museum in Frauenfeld.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 58 km into the recorded legs you reach Bleiche 2-3. 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.
Schreckensee, about halfway. Next is back through Bleiche 2-3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bleiche 2-3 sits at 167 km, about halfway. Next is back through Wollmatingen-Langenrain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wollmatingen-Langenrain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Wollmatingen-Langenrain comes up about 205 km into the recorded legs. Next is Insel Werd.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Insel Werd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Insel Werd closes the day.
Insel Werd → Wollmatingen-Langenrain is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wollmatingen-Langenrain → Bleiche 2-3 is 34 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bleiche 2-3 → Schreckensee is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schreckensee → back through Bleiche 2-3 is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bleiche 2-3 → back through Wollmatingen-Langenrain is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Wollmatingen-Langenrain → Insel Werd is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.