CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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 175 km round trip from Wetzikon - roughly 4 h 02 in the saddle. On the way it passes Rorenhaab, Hurden Rosshorn, Winkel and Riedmatt. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 20 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 20 km in. Next is Hurden Rosshorn.
Where Lake Zurich narrows to a waist between Rapperswil and Hurden, a low peninsula runs out from the Schwyz shore, and at its tip, the Rosshorn, the remains of prehistoric lakeside villages lie beneath the shallow water. People lived here in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, in houses built on wooden piles, and they also built some of the earliest known bridges across the narrows. The site is one of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011, a group of sites that has given archaeologists a remarkably detailed view of everyday life thousands of years ago, preserved in the mud of lakes and moors.
Read the complete Hurden Rosshorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
39 km in you reach Hurden Rosshorn. Next is Winkel.
Under the calm surface of Lake Zurich, just off the shore at Erlenbach, lie the remains of villages that people built here more than five thousand years ago. The site called Winkel is one of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a UNESCO site of more than a hundred settlements, and here, as elsewhere on the lake, archaeologists diving in the shallow water have found wooden piles, pottery, tools and food remains preserved in the mud. There is nothing to see from the shore, only the water and the reeds, but it is fascinating to think that the people who farmed and fished here in the Neolithic chose the same sunny slope that, thousands of years later, would become known as the Gold Coast.
Read the complete Winkel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Winkel, about halfway. Next is Riedmatt.
Zug has a reputation as one of the wealthiest places in Switzerland, a small canton of low taxes, glass office blocks and companies registered by the hundred. But beneath the surface, quite literally, lies a much older story. Along the shores of Lake Zug, archaeologists have found the remains of Neolithic and Bronze Age villages built on piles in the shallow water and marshy ground, and Riedmatt, near the border between Steinhausen, Cham and Zug, is one of the sites included in the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage listing. As with most such sites, there is nothing visible on the surface; the remains are preserved in the waterlogged ground.
Read the complete Riedmatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Riedmatt sits at 78 km, about halfway. Next is back through Winkel.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Winkel write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Winkel comes up 98 km in. Next is back through Hurden Rosshorn.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hurden Rosshorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
117 km in you reach back through Hurden Rosshorn. 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.
The route ends here after 175 km.
Robenhausen → Rorenhaab is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rorenhaab → Hurden Rosshorn is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hurden Rosshorn → Winkel is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Winkel → Riedmatt is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Riedmatt → back through Winkel is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Winkel → back through Hurden Rosshorn is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hurden Rosshorn → back through Rorenhaab is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rorenhaab → Robenhausen is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.