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.
373 km from Cham to Cham, about 6 h 03 of riding. The stops in between: Hurden Rosshorn, Egelsee, Konstanz-Hinterhausen and Schreckensee. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It crosses from Switzerland into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
The ride follows Grand Tour of Switzerland for 42 km.
Zug-Sumpf was a Bronze Age village on the northern shore of Lake Zug, near the mouth of the river Lorze between Cham and Steinhausen, and the waterlogged ground preserved wooden floors, posts and objects for over three thousand years. Excavations in the twentieth century recovered pottery, bronze tools and even remains of food, and the site sits on the World Heritage list as part of the prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps. Some of the finds are displayed in the museum of prehistory in Zug. Today the site lies under modern buildings and meadows, and only the name, which means swamp, recalls its watery origin.
Read the complete Sumpf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sumpf is where the day begins. 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 comes up about 37 km into the recorded legs. Next is Egelsee.
There is almost nothing to see at the Egelsee, and that is part of its charm. It is a small, reed-fringed bog lake in the rolling Thurgau countryside between Gachnang and Frauenfeld, and under its peat and mud lie the remains of a Neolithic lakeside settlement, timber piles and floor layers preserved for thousands of years because air never reached them. It is one of the many sites that make up the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps on the UNESCO list, and unlike the reconstructed villages you find elsewhere, this one has been left in the ground on purpose. Archaeologists consider the soggy earth the best museum there is.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 100 km into the recorded legs you reach Egelsee. Next is Konstanz-Hinterhausen.
There is nothing to see at Konstanz-Hinterhausen, and that is precisely the point. Below the surface of Lake Constance, along the shore near the city, lie the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings: wooden posts, floors, pottery and food remains preserved in the mud for thousands of years. They are part of the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a World Heritage site that spans six countries and over a hundred locations. Archaeologists dive to study them, but the rest of us have to make do with the view of the lake and a bit of imagination.
Read the complete Konstanz-Hinterhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Konstanz-Hinterhausen, about halfway. 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 sits at 173 km, about halfway. Next is back through Konstanz-Hinterhausen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Konstanz-Hinterhausen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Konstanz-Hinterhausen comes up about 243 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Egelsee.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Egelsee write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 274 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Egelsee. Next is back through Hurden Rosshorn.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Hurden Rosshorn write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Hurden Rosshorn, late in the day. Next is Sumpf.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sumpf write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 373 km.
Sumpf → Hurden Rosshorn is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Hurden Rosshorn → Egelsee is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Egelsee → Konstanz-Hinterhausen is 42 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Konstanz-Hinterhausen → Schreckensee is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schreckensee → back through Konstanz-Hinterhausen is 51 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Konstanz-Hinterhausen → back through Egelsee is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Egelsee → back through Hurden Rosshorn is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Hurden Rosshorn → Sumpf is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.