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 283 km round trip from Zschorlau - roughly 5 h 26 in the saddle. On the way it passes Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works, The Red Tower of Death and back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. A steady touring day rather than a sprint.
In the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains of Saxony, a handful of workshops once produced a colour that conquered Europe. Schindlers Werk, at Zschorlau near Aue, was a smalt works, where cobalt ore from the surrounding mines was ground, roasted and fused with sand and potash into a deep blue glass, then milled into pigment. Smalt coloured Dutch tiles, German porcelain and painters' blues, and Saxony held an almost complete monopoly on it for generations. The works was founded in the seventeenth century and has been preserved as a museum.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is where the day begins. Next is Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works.
Down in the valley of the Flöha, on the edge of Olbernhau, stands an industrial village that looks almost too neat to be real: slate-roofed workshops, a hammer mill, workers' houses and a stout gatehouse, all enclosed within a wall. This is the Saigerhütte Grünthal, a works that separated silver from copper ore by a technique called liquation, and it is one of the best preserved sites of its kind in Europe. It forms part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, listed by UNESCO in 2019 for both the German and Czech sides of the range.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Red Tower of Death.
The name sounds like a horror film, and the reality was grim enough. In the 1950s, the communist government of Czechoslovakia sent tens of thousands of political prisoners to labour camps in the Jáchymov region to mine uranium for the Soviet nuclear programme. In a red brick building near Ostrov, known as the Red Tower of Death, prisoners crushed and sorted uranium ore by hand, without protection, exposed to dust and radiation. Many died or suffered lasting illness. The building is now a memorial, part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage listing, and a powerful reminder of the human cost of the Cold War.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach The Red Tower of Death. Next is back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works, late in the day. Next is Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Schindlers Werk Smalt Works. That is the ride.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 65 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → The Red Tower of Death is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Red Tower of Death → back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 69 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.