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 317 km round trip from Clausthal-Zellerfeld - roughly 5 h 40 in the saddle. On the way it passes Fagus Factory in Alfeld, St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc, Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey and back through St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc. The line favours views over speed.
Speed drops and stays down. Park rather than crawl through. 28 km through ground somebody thought worth listing. The road passes it rather than bypassing it.
The two belong to the same story. The Upper Harz was one of the great silver and lead mining districts of Europe, and its engineers built an astonishing network of ponds, ditches and tunnels to bring water to the wheels that drove the pumps and hoists. That water system is part of the UNESCO listing, which took in Rammelsberg and Goslar in 1992 and was later extended to cover the Upper Harz. Today the ponds look like natural lakes, and it takes a moment to realise that someone dug every channel by hand.
Read the complete Mines of Rammelsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mines of Rammelsberg is where the day begins. Next is Fagus Factory in Alfeld.
Stand across the railway tracks and look at the Fagus works, and you are looking at one of the buildings where modern architecture started. In 1911 the shoe-last maker Carl Benscheidt hired a young Walter Gropius and his partner Adolf Meyer to design a new factory in Alfeld, in the Leine valley of Lower Saxony. They gave it walls of glass that seem to wrap around the corners with no column to hold them, a radical trick at the time, and the result was so influential that it became a UNESCO site in 2011. The best part: it is still a working factory making shoe lasts, not a museum frozen in place.
Read the complete Fagus Factory in Alfeld write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fagus Factory in Alfeld comes up about 53 km into the recorded legs. Next is St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc.
Hildesheim is a town that was destroyed and put back together. On 22 March 1945, bombers flattened most of the old town, and the cathedral and the church of St Michael were left as burnt shells. After the war, the people rebuilt them, stone by stone, and both are now UNESCO World Heritage, listed in 1985. They are among the finest examples of Ottonian architecture in Europe, from the years around the year 1000.
Read the complete St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 86 km into the recorded legs you reach St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc. Next is Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey.
Corvey sits in a loop of the Weser just outside Höxter, a baroque abbey palace set among meadows with the wooded hills of the Solling and the Weser Uplands closing in around it. The baroque part is handsome but not why people come. Hidden behind it, forming the entrance to the church, is a westwork built between 873 and 885, and it is one of the very few Carolingian buildings in the world still standing more or less as it was built.
Read the complete Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey, about halfway. Next is back through St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc sits at 210 km, about halfway. Next is back through Fagus Factory in Alfeld.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Fagus Factory in Alfeld write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Fagus Factory in Alfeld comes up about 263 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mines of Rammelsberg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Mines of Rammelsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mines of Rammelsberg closes the day.
Mines of Rammelsberg → Fagus Factory in Alfeld is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fagus Factory in Alfeld → St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc → Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Carolingian Westwork and Civitas Corvey → back through St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc is 72 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Churc → back through Fagus Factory in Alfeld is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Fagus Factory in Alfeld → Mines of Rammelsberg is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.