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 288 km round trip from Hüttwilen - roughly 6 h 30 in the saddle. The stops in between: Monastic Island of Reichenau, Bleiche 2-3, Schreckensee and back through Bleiche 2-3. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Water arrives beside the road and stays for 28 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go — slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did.
For about 41 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Out in the Thurgau countryside, between Frauenfeld and the Rhine, a chain of small lakes lies in a glacial hollow: the Nussbaumersee, the Hüttwilersee and the Hasensee, with the wetland of the Seebachtal around them. It is a place of reeds and still water, where herons stand in the shallows and dragonflies hang over the surface. The Nussbaumersee is the biggest of them, a modest lake with a wooded shore, and a footpath circles it.
Read the complete Nussbaumersee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nussbaumersee is where the day begins. Next is Monastic Island of Reichenau.
Reichenau is a flat, green island in the Untersee, the western arm of Lake Constance, connected to the mainland by a long causeway lined with poplars. A wandering bishop named Pirmin founded the monastery here in 724, and over the next centuries it became one of the great centres of learning and art in Europe, famous for its scriptorium and its illuminated manuscripts. The island's three Romanesque churches survive, and UNESCO listed the whole as a World Heritage Site in 2000.
Read the complete Monastic Island of Reichenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Monastic Island of Reichenau comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is Bleiche 2-3.
Arbon sits on the Swiss shore of Lake Constance, in the canton of Thurgau, and just outside the town, on land that was once lake shore, lies one of the most remarkable prehistoric sites in Europe. At Arbon-Bleiche, archaeologists excavated a Neolithic village of wooden houses built on the edge of the lake around 3400 BC. Because the wood was preserved in waterlogged ground, tree rings allowed the village to be dated almost to the year: it was built, lived in for about fifteen years and then destroyed by fire. The finds, from pottery and tools to textiles and food remains, gave a detailed picture of how these early farmers lived, and Arbon counts among the Swiss sites in the Alpine pile-dwelling inscription of 2011. There is nothing to see at the site itself, which is now under buildings and fields; the finds are displayed in the Thurgau archaeological museum in Frauenfeld.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 87 km into the recorded legs you reach Bleiche 2-3. Next is Schreckensee.
The Schreckensee, the lake of terror, is a disappointingly peaceful place for such a dramatic name. It is a small kettle lake in the moraine country of Upper Swabia, between Ravensburg and Aulendorf, left behind when a block of glacial ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Its shores, now partly bog and reed bed, hide the remains of prehistoric settlements, and it is one of the German sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As at most of these sites, nothing is visible on the surface; the timbers and household waste lie preserved underwater and in the peat, waiting for future archaeologists.
Read the complete Schreckensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schreckensee, about halfway. Next is back through Bleiche 2-3.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Bleiche 2-3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Bleiche 2-3 sits at 179 km, about halfway. Next is back through Monastic Island of Reichenau.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Monastic Island of Reichenau write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Monastic Island of Reichenau comes up about 242 km into the recorded legs. Next is Nussbaumersee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Nussbaumersee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Nussbaumersee closes the day.
Nussbaumersee → Monastic Island of Reichenau is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Monastic Island of Reichenau → Bleiche 2-3 is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Bleiche 2-3 → Schreckensee is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schreckensee → back through Bleiche 2-3 is 58 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Bleiche 2-3 → back through Monastic Island of Reichenau is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Monastic Island of Reichenau → Nussbaumersee is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.