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 Wachtberg it runs 173 km to Wachtberg; allow about 3 h 30 of riding. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2, Watchtower WP 1/51, Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 and back through Watchtower WP 1/51. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 32 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
There is very little to see at first glance here, which is exactly what makes the place oddly moving. South of Bonn, in the edge of the Kottenforst near the Heiderhof quarter of Bad Godesberg and the town of Wachtberg, the forest floor hides the faint outlines of Roman practice camps. Legionaries stationed at the fortress of Bonna on the Rhine marched out here to train at the hard, boring work that won the empire its wars: digging ditches, throwing up earth ramparts and laying out a camp to the standard plan in a few hours. A handful of these training camps in the Kottenforst are part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2.
This is where it all begins, or ends, depending on which way you are walking. At Rheinbrohl, on the east bank of the Rhine between Bonn and Koblenz, the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes left the river and struck out across country, running more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube near Regensburg. The first watchtowers, numbered 1/1 and 1/2, stood here near the river, and the line can be followed into the hills from the edge of the village. The whole frontier is part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire, and Rheinbrohl has a modern museum, the RömerWelt, which brings the frontier to life with reconstructions, exhibits and hands-on activities.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtower WP 1/51.
The Upper Germanic Limes does not start with a bang. Near Bendorf, on the slopes where the Westerwald drops toward the Rhine at the Neuwied basin, it is a matter of reading the woods: a low bank here, a shallow ditch there, and the spot where a Roman watchtower once stood, numbered by archaeologists as WP 1/51. The towers were placed within sight of each other, timber at first and later stone, so that a signal could pass along the frontier faster than any rider. Standing here among the beech trees you are close to the northern end of a border that ran more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/51 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtower WP 1/51. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6.
WP 2/5 and 2/6 sound like spare parts, but they are the numbers archaeologists gave to two watchtower positions on the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, the fortified frontier Rome drew across southern Germany. Here, in the hills above the Lahn near Bad Ems, the line ran up from the Rhine and over the high ground, and every few hundred metres a tower stood with a view to the next. Today most of what survives are low mounds, traces of the bank and ditch, and in some places a reconstructed tower to give you scale. The whole frontier became part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire in 2005.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtower WP 1/51.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/51 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 1/51 sits at 108 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 comes up about 145 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof closes the day.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 → Watchtower WP 1/51 is 26 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 1/51 → Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 2/5 to 2/6 → back through Watchtower WP 1/51 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtower WP 1/51 → back through Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/1 to 1/2 → Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.