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. On the way it passes 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. 26 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The Kottenforst is a big, flat-topped wooded ridge south-west of Bonn, an island of oak and hornbeam in a landscape of fields and commuter towns. It was a hunting forest of the Electors of Cologne, and the straight avenues that cut through it, still named Allee, were laid out in the eighteenth century so that a hunting party could ride after game, or follow falcons, in a precise geometric pattern. Elector Clemens August, who built the Augustusburg palace at Brühl and the little hunting lodge of Falkenlust beside it, loved heron hunting with falcons, and the avenues were part of that grand and slightly absurd game.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 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 | Wattendorfer Allee 1.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1. That is the ride.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 → 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 | Wattendorfer Allee 1 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.