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.
265 km from Bad Schussenried to Bad Schussenried, about 4 h 15 of riding. The stops in between: Schreckensee, Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen, Wangen-Hinterhorn and back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. The line favours views over speed.
The ride follows Siedlung Forschner → Schreckensee for 28 km.
For about 63 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it. Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast.
Long before the Federsee became a moor, it was a lake with villages along its edge, and the villagers built on wet ground. In the Bronze Age, people here set their houses on timber platforms and foundations at the water's edge, and as the lake slowly silted up, the waterlogged peat sealed their remains. Wooden posts, tools and pottery survived in astonishing condition. The Siedlung Forschner, named for the farmer on whose land it lay, is one of the excavated settlements, and it belongs to the group of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011.
Read the complete Siedlung Forschner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Siedlung Forschner is where the day begins. Next is Schreckensee.
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 comes up about 28 km into the recorded legs. Next is Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen.
Unteruhldingen is where most people first meet the prehistoric lake dwellers of the Alps, thanks to the Pfahlbaumuseum, an open-air museum of reconstructed houses on stilts standing in the shallow water of Lake Constance. It started in the 1920s and has been adding houses ever since, and walking along the wooden walkways between thatched huts gives you a vivid idea of village life thousands of years ago. The real archaeological sites, like Stollenwiesen just offshore, lie underwater, a series of settlements preserved in lake mud and listed by UNESCO in 2011 as part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 71 km into the recorded legs you reach Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen. Next is Wangen-Hinterhorn.
When the water of the Untersee, the western arm of Lake Constance, was unusually low in the winter of 1853 to 1854, people around the Swiss and German shores noticed wooden posts sticking out of the mud. They were the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, villages built on the lakeshore thousands of years ago, and the find sparked a wave of research and a craze for lake-dwelling romance across Europe. Wangen, on the German shore of the Untersee, was one of the first sites studied, and Wangen-Hinterhorn belongs to the World Heritage inscription for prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, though there is nothing to see above the water.
Read the complete Wangen-Hinterhorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wangen-Hinterhorn, about halfway. Next is back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen sits at 132 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Schreckensee comes up about 239 km into the recorded legs. Next is Siedlung Forschner.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Siedlung Forschner write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Siedlung Forschner closes the day.
Siedlung Forschner → Schreckensee is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schreckensee → Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen → Wangen-Hinterhorn is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Wangen-Hinterhorn → back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Unteruhldingen-Stollenwiesen → back through Schreckensee is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Schreckensee → Siedlung Forschner is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.