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 347 km round trip from Schneeberg - roughly 6 h 45 in the saddle. On the way it passes Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, Marienberg Mining Town, Freiberg Mining Landscape and Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Schneeberg is a mining town high in the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains, which divide Saxony from Bohemia, and its history is written in silver, cobalt and uranium. A silver rush in the late fifteenth century made the town rich, and the church of St. Wolfgang, a huge Gothic hall church with a Cranach altarpiece, was the proud result. Later the miners found cobalt, which was used to colour glass and porcelain a deep blue, and Saxony became the world's main supplier of that pigment. In the twentieth century came the Wismut company, a Soviet-German enterprise that mined uranium on a massive scale in the nearby valleys, leaving scars and also the radon spa at Bad Schlema. UNESCO listed the Erzgebirge mining region, including Schneeberg, in 2019.
Read the complete Schneeberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schneeberg Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region.
The word dollar comes from these hills. In the early sixteenth century, a silver rush at Joachimsthal, today's Jáchymov, made the town one of the largest in Bohemia, and the coins minted there, the Joachimsthaler, shortened to thaler, gave their name to currencies around the world. The Erzgebirge, or Krušné hory, the Ore Mountains on the Czech-German border, were mined for silver, tin, cobalt, iron and finally uranium for eight centuries, and the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region was inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2019.
Read the complete Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region comes up about 40 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 90 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 Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape.
Altenberg lives with a hole in the ground, and is proud of it. The Pinge, a huge funnel of collapsed workings beside the town, opened up in 1620 when old tin mine tunnels caved in, and later collapses widened it into the crater you can look into today. Tin was the reason for everything here: the town grew around the mines in the fifteenth century, and the Zinnwald workings a few kilometres up the ridge, right on the Czech border, kept digging into modern times. The whole district is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, a UNESCO listing shared between Saxony and Bohemia.
Read the complete Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape sits at 173 km, about halfway. Next is back through Freiberg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Freiberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Freiberg Mining Landscape comes up about 218 km into the recorded legs. 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.
about 257 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Marienberg Mining Town. Next is back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, late in the day. Next is Schneeberg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schneeberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 347 km.
Schneeberg Mining Landscape → Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region → 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 → Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape is 44 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Altenberg-Zinnwald Mining Landscape → back through Freiberg Mining Landscape is 45 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through 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 Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region → Schneeberg Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.