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 Männedorf it runs 188 km to Männedorf; allow about 4 h 10 of riding. It goes by way of Oterswil / Insel Eielen, Seematte, Egolzwil 3 and back through Seematte. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,150 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 28 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
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 is where the day begins. Next is Oterswil / Insel Eielen.
Lake Zug is the quiet one among the central Swiss lakes, long and slender, with the Rigi rising steeply from its southern end and gentle farmland and orchards rolling down to its northern shores. Around its edges, as around many Alpine lakes, people built villages on the shore in prehistoric times, and the remains of these settlements at places like Oterswil and the little island of Eielen are among the sites of the transnational pile dwelling listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2011. Under water and mud, wooden piles, pottery and tools have survived for thousands of years.
Read the complete Oterswil / Insel Eielen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Oterswil / Insel Eielen comes up about 30 km into the recorded legs. Next is Seematte.
Lake Baldegg lies in the Seetal, the lake valley north of Lucerne, a gentle, green landscape of meadows, orchards and woods, with the lake in the middle and the hills rising on either side. Seematte, on the shore near Hitzkirch, is the site of prehistoric lakeside villages, built on piles over the water's edge thousands of years ago, and it was inscribed in the same 2011 listing that covers lakeside villages from France to Slovenia. As with most such sites, there is nothing to see above ground, but the setting is lovely, and standing on the reedy shore you can imagine the wooden houses and dugout canoes.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 66 km into the recorded legs you reach Seematte. Next is Egolzwil 3.
Archaeologists named a whole Neolithic culture after Egolzwil, a small village in the canton of Lucerne, because the settlements found in the Wauwiler Moos, a former lake turned into peat bog, revealed a way of life older than anything else known in the region at the time. Egolzwil 3, one of these sites, was a village of farmers who lived on the shore of a small lake over six thousand years ago, and it counts as one component of UNESCO's inscription of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. The lake was drained in the nineteenth century to create farmland, and the remains were preserved in the wet peat.
Read the complete Egolzwil 3 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Egolzwil 3, about halfway. Next is back through Seematte.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Seematte sits at 106 km, about halfway. Next is back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Oterswil / Insel Eielen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen comes up about 157 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Rorenhaab closes the day.
Rorenhaab → Oterswil / Insel Eielen is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Oterswil / Insel Eielen → Seematte is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seematte → Egolzwil 3 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Egolzwil 3 → back through Seematte is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Seematte → back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Oterswil / Insel Eielen → Rorenhaab is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.