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 Wetzikon it runs 69 km to Wetzikon; allow about 1 h 35 of riding. The stops in between: Rorenhaab, Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner and back through Rorenhaab. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 950 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 16 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In 1858 a local man named Jakob Messikommer began digging in the peat bog at Robenhausen, on the southern end of the Pfäffikersee in the Zurich Oberland, and he spent decades uncovering a remarkably rich Neolithic pile-dwelling settlement. His finds, from stone axes to woven textiles and charred bread, travelled to museums around the world and helped make Swiss lake dwellings famous. Today Robenhausen is one of the components of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, though what remains lies underground in a protected wetland.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Robenhausen is where the day begins. Next is Rorenhaab.
The winter of 1853 to 1854 was so dry that the water in Lake Zurich fell to an unusually low level, and at Obermeilen, on the eastern shore, villagers extending their land into the lake found rows of wooden piles sticking out of the mud, along with pottery, bone tools and stone axes. The antiquarian Ferdinand Keller studied the finds and concluded that they came from prehistoric villages built on platforms over the water, and his reports launched the pile dwelling craze that swept through Europe in the nineteenth century. Rorenhaab, at Obermeilen, is that very site, and it is part of the pile dwellings around the Alps listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2011.
Read the complete Rorenhaab write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rorenhaab comes up about 19 km into the recorded legs. Next is Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner.
Zürich's lake has been a home for much longer than the city's banks suggest. The names Grosse Stadt and Kleiner Hafner belong to prehistoric settlement sites in the shallows of the Seebecken, the lake basin where the water meets the old town, and they are part of the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Farmers and fishers built villages on stilts here between roughly 4,000 and 800 BC, and the lake mud kept their traces. The site is underwater, so you cannot see it, but you can stand on the Utoquai or the Alpenquai promenade and imagine it.
Read the complete Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 35 km into the recorded legs you reach Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner. Next is back through Rorenhaab.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rorenhaab write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rorenhaab, late in the day. Next is Robenhausen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Robenhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Robenhausen. That is the ride.
Robenhausen → Rorenhaab is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rorenhaab → Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Grosse Stadt Kleiner Hafner → back through Rorenhaab is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rorenhaab → Robenhausen is 19 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.