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.
118 km from Wachtberg to Wachtberg, about 1 h 59 of riding. The stops in between: Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1, Köln-Alteburg and back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 25 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
South of Bonn the land rises into the Kottenforst, a big forest on a low plateau that the archbishops of Cologne once kept as a hunting ground. They cut long straight rides through it, many meeting at star-shaped junctions so that a hunting party could see the quarry and follow it, and the pattern survives. The woods are mostly beech and oak, with a few conifer plantations and damp hollows, and they cover a large part of the area between Bonn, Meckenheim and Wachtberg. The Riesenweg, the Giants' Way, is one of the paths that cross it, a name that suggests something older and bigger than the track you walk on.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg is where the day begins. Next is Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1.
The Kottenforst looks like an ordinary Rhineland woodland of oak, beech and hornbeam, with walkers, joggers and the odd horse rider, but in the second half of the first century and beyond it was a training ground for the Roman army. In clearings of the forest, the legion stationed at Bonna, today's Bonn, built a series of temporary camps as exercises, digging ditches and raising ramparts to practise the rapid construction they would need in the field. The remains of these camps, faint earthworks under the trees, are included in the Lower Germanic Limes, which UNESCO listed in 2021. Am Weissen Stein is one of the northern groups.
Read the complete Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Köln-Alteburg.
The Roman navy is not the first thing most people associate with Cologne, but for almost two centuries the Rhine fleet, the Classis Germanica, had its main base here at Alteburg, just south of the Roman city. The fort sat on a terrace above the river in what is now the leafy district of Marienburg, near Bayenthal, and from here warships patrolled the Rhine, carried supplies and soldiers, and kept watch on the frontier. The site belongs to the Lower Germanic Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2021, though today it lies mostly under villas, streets and gardens, with only traces and information boards to show where it stood.
Read the complete Köln-Alteburg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 59 km into the recorded legs you reach Köln-Alteburg. Next is back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1, late in the day. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg. That is the ride.
Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg → Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 → Köln-Alteburg is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Köln-Alteburg → back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kottenforst Nord | Am Weißen Stein 1 → Kottenforst Süd | Riesenweg is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.