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 284 km round trip from Schneeberg - roughly 5 h 22 in the saddle. It goes by way of Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works, Dresden Elbe Valley and back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works. Rivers set the line for much of the day.
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 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 66 km into the recorded legs. Next is Dresden Elbe Valley.
Dresden's Elbe valley once held a World Heritage listing and then lost it. Inscribed in 2004 for its blend of Baroque city, river meadows, palaces and vineyards, it was removed from the list in 2009 after the city built the Waldschlösschen bridge across the meadows, a decision that sparked fierce debate. The landscape itself, however, remains beautiful: the river curves through wide green meadows, with the domes and spires of the old town on one side and the villas and vineyards of the Loschwitz slopes on the other.
Read the complete Dresden Elbe Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 140 km into the recorded legs you reach Dresden Elbe Valley. 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 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.
Back at Schneeberg Mining Landscape. That is the ride.
Schneeberg Mining Landscape → Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Dresden Elbe Valley is 74 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Dresden Elbe Valley → back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Grünthal Silver-Copper Liquation Works → Schneeberg Mining Landscape is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.