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 235 km round trip from Schwarzenberg - roughly 4 h 24 in the saddle. The stops in between: Jáchymov Mining Landscape, Marienberg Mining Town, Freiberg Mining Landscape and back through Marienberg Mining Town. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Schwarzenberg, in the western Erzgebirge, is a town of steep streets, slate roofs and a castle and church perched on a rock above the Schwarzwasser river, and the hills around it are riddled with old mine workings. The Rother Berg, the red mountain, takes its name from the iron ore that colours its soil, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border UNESCO site listed in 2019. For eight centuries, miners in these mountains dug for silver, tin, iron, cobalt and later uranium, and their work shaped not only the landscape but the culture of the whole region.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Jáchymov Mining Landscape.
The word dollar comes from this small town in the Ore Mountains. In the early sixteenth century, the silver mines of Jáchymov, then called Joachimsthal, were among the richest in Europe, and the coins minted here were called Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, which became daler and eventually dollar. The town grew rapidly, with thousands of miners, and it is now one component of the World Heritage inscription for the Erzgebirge mining region, shared between the Czech Republic and Germany. Its later history is darker and stranger.
Read the complete Jáchymov Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Jáchymov Mining Landscape comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Marienberg Mining Town.
In 1521 Duke Heinrich of Saxony founded a new town in the Ore Mountains to house miners drawn by recent silver strikes, and he had it laid out on a regular grid around a huge square market place, following Renaissance ideas of the ideal city. Marienberg is the result, and its plan is still clearly visible, with straight streets, the town church, the Zschopau gate and a stretch of town wall. The town is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border World Heritage Site inscribed in 2019, which recognises eight hundred years of mining in these mountains.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Marienberg Mining Town. Next is Freiberg Mining Landscape.
Silver was found near Freiberg in 1168, and within a few decades the town had become one of the richest in Saxony. For eight centuries, miners dug ever deeper into the hills, and the wealth they brought up paid for churches, palaces and the splendours of Dresden. Freiberg's Bergakademie, founded in 1765, is the oldest mining university in the world still operating, and its mineral collection is one of the finest anywhere. The town and its mining landscape are part of the Erzgebirge mining region listed by UNESCO, shared between Germany and the Czech Republic.
Read the complete Freiberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Freiberg Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is back through Marienberg Mining Town.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Marienberg Mining Town write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Marienberg Mining Town sits at 156 km, about halfway. Next is back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Jáchymov Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape comes up about 205 km into the recorded legs. Next is Rother Berg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rother Berg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape closes the day.
Rother Berg Mining Landscape → Jáchymov Mining Landscape is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Jáchymov Mining Landscape → Marienberg Mining Town is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Marienberg Mining Town → Freiberg Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Freiberg Mining Landscape → back through Marienberg Mining Town is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Marienberg Mining Town → back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape is 48 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Jáchymov Mining Landscape → Rother Berg Mining Landscape is 30 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.