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 260 km to Wachtberg; allow about 3 h 45 of riding. The stops in between: Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at, Dormagen, Krefeld-Gellep and back through Dormagen. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 31 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 Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at.
Clemens August of Bavaria, prince-elector and archbishop of Cologne in the eighteenth century, loved two things above all: hunting with falcons and building in the latest style. At Brühl, just south of Cologne, he created two of the finest rococo buildings in Germany. Augustusburg Palace, his summer residence, has a staircase designed by Balthasar Neumann that is one of the masterpieces of the period, a whirl of marble, stucco and frescoes, and a formal French garden that stretches toward the forest. Falkenlust, a smaller hunting lodge at the end of a long avenue, was built for falconry, with a delightful interior decorated with tiles and lacquerwork. The two castles were listed by UNESCO in 1984.
Read the complete Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dormagen.
Dormagen is not the sort of place that ends up on postcards, and it does not try to be. It is a working town of some sixty thousand on the left bank of the Rhine between Cologne and Düsseldorf, dominated on its northern side by a huge chemical park whose pipes and stacks glow at night. Yet the name itself comes from Roman times: Durnomagus was a fort on the Lower German Limes, the Rhine frontier that UNESCO listed in 2021, and a cavalry unit was stationed here to patrol the river and the road along it.
Read the complete Dormagen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 88 km into the recorded legs you reach Dormagen. Next is Krefeld-Gellep.
Most people pass Krefeld-Gellep without a second thought, because the view is dominated by the harbour of Uerdingen, chemical works and Rhine barges. Yet this is one of the most important Roman and early medieval sites on the Lower Rhine. The Roman fort here was called Gelduba, and it belongs to the Lower German Limes, the frontier along the river that UNESCO recognised in 2021. Tacitus mentions Gelduba in his account of the Batavian revolt of 69 and 70 AD, when legions and rebels fought around the camp, and archaeologists have found traces of that violence in the ground.
Read the complete Krefeld-Gellep write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Krefeld-Gellep, about halfway. Next is back through Dormagen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Dormagen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Dormagen sits at 147 km, about halfway. Next is back through Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at comes up about 214 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 closes the day.
Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 → Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at → Dormagen is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dormagen → Krefeld-Gellep is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Krefeld-Gellep → back through Dormagen is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Dormagen → back through Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Castles of Augustusburg and Falkenlust at → Kottenforst Süd | Wattendorfer Allee 1 is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.