CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Greifensee it runs 159 km to Greifensee; allow about 3 h 25 of riding. It goes by way of Vorder Au, Technikum, Rorenhaab and Hurden Rosshorn. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For 17 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
The Greifensee lies just east of Zurich, a shallow, quiet lake of about six kilometres in length, framed by reeds, meadows and the gentle hills of the Zurich Oberland. Its shores are largely protected, and there is no road running right along the water, which keeps it remarkably calm for a lake so close to Switzerland's biggest city. At Storen-Wildsberg near the village of Greifensee, the remains of a prehistoric settlement lie under the water and in the shoreline sediments, one of the Swiss sites in the UNESCO listing of Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps. As with all of them, it is the ground itself that is protected; there is nothing to see except the reeds and the water.
Read the complete Storen-Wildsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Storen-Wildsberg is where the day begins. Next is Vorder Au.
The Au peninsula pokes out into Lake Zurich like a green thumb, and at its tip, Vorder Au, the shallow water hides traces of villages built on piles thousands of years ago. It is one of the Swiss sites in the UNESCO listing of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps, though as with most of them, the archaeology lies under the lake bed and is protected rather than displayed. What you see is a wooded little hill with a castle-like house, vineyards running down to the water, reed beds and a small harbour.
Read the complete Vorder Au write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vorder Au comes up 17 km in. Next is Technikum.
Students at the technical university in Rapperswil study engineering on a lakeside campus, and beneath the shoreline in front of their buildings lie the remains of villages that people built on piles thousands of years ago. The site, named after the old Technikum, as the college was long known, is one of the prehistoric pile dwelling sites around Lake Zurich included in the UNESCO listing of 2011. Nothing is visible, but the idea that this shore has been home to people for so long gives a different perspective to a stroll along the promenade.
Read the complete Technikum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
34 km in you reach Technikum. Next is Rorenhaab.
The winter of 1853 to 1854 was so dry that the water in Lake Zurich fell to an unusually low level, and at Obermeilen, on the eastern shore, villagers extending their land into the lake found rows of wooden piles sticking out of the mud, along with pottery, bone tools and stone axes. The antiquarian Ferdinand Keller studied the finds and concluded that they came from prehistoric villages built on platforms over the water, and his reports launched the pile dwelling craze that swept through Europe in the nineteenth century. Rorenhaab, at Obermeilen, is that very site, and it is part of the pile dwellings around the Alps listing inscribed by UNESCO in 2011.
Read the complete Rorenhaab write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rorenhaab, about halfway. Next is Hurden Rosshorn.
Where Lake Zurich narrows to a waist between Rapperswil and Hurden, a low peninsula runs out from the Schwyz shore, and at its tip, the Rosshorn, the remains of prehistoric lakeside villages lie beneath the shallow water. People lived here in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages, in houses built on wooden piles, and they also built some of the earliest known bridges across the narrows. The site is one of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps that UNESCO listed in 2011, a group of sites that has given archaeologists a remarkably detailed view of everyday life thousands of years ago, preserved in the mud of lakes and moors.
Read the complete Hurden Rosshorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Hurden Rosshorn sits at 68 km, about halfway. Next is back through Rorenhaab.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Rorenhaab write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Rorenhaab comes up 85 km in. Next is back through Technikum.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Technikum write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
102 km in you reach back through Technikum. Next is back through Vorder Au.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Vorder Au write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Vorder Au, late in the day. Next is Storen-Wildsberg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Storen-Wildsberg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 159 km.
Storen-Wildsberg → Vorder Au is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Vorder Au → Technikum is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Technikum → Rorenhaab is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rorenhaab → Hurden Rosshorn is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hurden Rosshorn → back through Rorenhaab is 16 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Rorenhaab → back through Technikum is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Technikum → back through Vorder Au is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Vorder Au → Storen-Wildsberg is 17 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.