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.
346 km from Fronreute to Fronreute, about 5 h 34 of riding. On the way it passes Ödenahlen, Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, Lone Valley and Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
This part of the ride is 35 km of Schreckensee → Ödenahlen.
The Schreckensee, the lake of terror, is a disappointingly peaceful place for such a dramatic name. It is a small kettle lake in the moraine country of Upper Swabia, between Ravensburg and Aulendorf, left behind when a block of glacial ice melted at the end of the last Ice Age. Its shores, now partly bog and reed bed, hide the remains of prehistoric settlements, and it is one of the German sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As at most of these sites, nothing is visible on the surface; the timbers and household waste lie preserved underwater and in the peat, waiting for future archaeologists.
Read the complete Schreckensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Schreckensee is where the day begins. Next is Ödenahlen.
The Federsee basin in Upper Swabia is one of those landscapes that hides its importance. It looks like a flat expanse of reeds, wet meadows and woodland around a shrinking lake, but beneath the peat lie dozens of prehistoric settlements, preserved because the bog kept the oxygen out. Ödenahlen is one of these sites, a Neolithic village on the edge of the moor, and the Federsee settlements are part of the UNESCO Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. Wooden floors, house walls, wheels and everyday objects have been excavated here, and some of the oldest wooden wheels in Europe come from this region.
Read the complete Ödenahlen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ödenahlen comes up about 35 km into the recorded legs. Next is Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura.
Forty thousand years ago, someone sitting in a cave above the Ach valley carved a tiny woman out of mammoth ivory, and someone else made a flute from the wing bone of a griffon vulture. Both were found in the Hohle Fels near Schelklingen, a few kilometres from where you are standing, and they rank among the oldest figurative art and musical instruments ever found. The caves of the Ach and Lone valleys were inscribed on the UNESCO list in 2017 as the Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura, and they changed how archaeologists think about the first modern humans in Europe.
Read the complete Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 74 km into the recorded legs you reach Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura. Next is Lone Valley.
The Lone is a small river in the Swabian Jura, east of Ulm, that often vanishes underground in dry weather, slipping into the limestone and leaving its bed empty. Its quiet valley, flanked by wooded slopes and limestone cliffs, holds caves where some of the oldest figurative art in the world was found. In the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave, fragments of a figure carved from mammoth ivory were pieced together into the Lion Man, a being with a human body and a lion's head, around forty thousand years old. In the Vogelherd cave, tiny ivory animals, a horse, a mammoth, a cave lion, emerged from the sediment.
Read the complete Lone Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lone Valley, about halfway. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen.
The largest Roman cavalry fort north of the Alps stood on the site of today's Aalen, in the eastern Swabian Jura. It was home to a regiment of a thousand horsemen, the ala II Flavia, the most prestigious cavalry unit on the Raetian frontier, and its walls enclosed a huge area, with barracks, stables, granaries and a headquarters building. Beside it grew a civilian settlement, with traders, craftsmen and families. Today the site is home to the Limesmuseum Aalen, one of the most important museums of the Roman frontier in Germany, with excavated foundations, reconstructions and a rich collection of finds. It is part of the Upper German-Raetian Limes World Heritage site.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen sits at 169 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lone Valley.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lone Valley write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lone Valley comes up about 220 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 273 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura. Next is back through Ödenahlen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ödenahlen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ödenahlen, late in the day. Next is Schreckensee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schreckensee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 346 km.
Schreckensee → Ödenahlen is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ödenahlen → Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura → Lone Valley is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lone Valley → Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Aalen → back through Lone Valley is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lone Valley → back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura is 53 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Caves and Ice Age Art in the Swabian Jura → back through Ödenahlen is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ödenahlen → Schreckensee is 35 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.