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 279 km round trip from Strasbourg - roughly 3 h 56 in the saddle. It goes by way of Baden-Baden, Aalkisten Pond and back through Baden-Baden. It crosses from France into Germany - carry ID and check the toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 74 km this is Bertha Benz Memorial Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Strasbourg sits where the Rhine, France and Germany come together, and the city has been passed back and forth between them for centuries. It was a free imperial city, then French from 1681, German from 1871 to 1918, French again, German again in the Second World War, and French since 1944. The history is written into the city, in the half-timbered houses of the Petite France quarter with their steep roofs, in the German-built Neustadt and the Palais du Rhin, in the language, Alsatian, which is a Germanic dialect still spoken by older residents, and in the food, with sauerkraut, tarte flambée and Riesling. Today the city is also the seat of the Council of Europe and the European Parliament.
Read the complete Strasbourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Strasbourg is where the day begins. Next is Baden-Baden.
Baden-Baden is so nice they named it twice, as the old joke goes, though the doubling actually comes from distinguishing it from other places called Baden. Romans soaked in its hot springs, and the remains of their baths lie under the old town, but the town's golden age came in the nineteenth century, when European royalty, aristocrats, writers and gamblers flocked here to take the waters, stroll the avenues and lose fortunes at the casino. Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Brahms all spent time here. Baden-Baden is one of the eleven Great Spa Towns of Europe, listed together by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Baden-Baden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Baden-Baden comes up about 65 km into the recorded legs. Next is Aalkisten Pond.
The name sounds like a joke, Eel Boxes, but it is a literal description. The Aalkistensee is another of the ponds that the Cistercian monks of Maulbronn built to hold fish, and a kiste was a wooden box or a pen in which eels were kept alive. The monks needed fish for the many days of the year when meat was forbidden, and a monastery that held land and water could supply its own table and sell the surplus. The Maulbronn system, with its dams, channels and sluices, was a clever piece of hydraulic engineering for the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and it works on the principle of gravity and careful levels.
Read the complete Aalkisten Pond write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 139 km into the recorded legs you reach Aalkisten Pond. Next is back through Baden-Baden.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Baden-Baden write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Baden-Baden, late in the day. Next is Strasbourg.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Strasbourg write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Strasbourg. That is the ride.
Strasbourg → Baden-Baden is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Baden-Baden → Aalkisten Pond is 74 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Aalkisten Pond → back through Baden-Baden is 75 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Baden-Baden → Strasbourg is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.