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 210 km round trip from Rapperswil - roughly 3 h 38 in the saddle. On the way it passes Storen-Wildsberg, Riedmatt, Seematte and back through Riedmatt. The stored terrain estimate reaches about 1,200 m; a measured road-elevation profile is not available. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
For about 52 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.
The ride follows Riedmatt → Seematte for 28 km.
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.
Technikum is where the day begins. Next is Storen-Wildsberg.
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 comes up about 25 km into the recorded legs. Next is Riedmatt.
Zug has a reputation as one of the wealthiest places in Switzerland, a small canton of low taxes, glass office blocks and companies registered by the hundred. But beneath the surface, quite literally, lies a much older story. Along the shores of Lake Zug, archaeologists have found the remains of Neolithic and Bronze Age villages built on piles in the shallow water and marshy ground, and Riedmatt, near the border between Steinhausen, Cham and Zug, is one of the sites included in the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps World Heritage listing. As with most such sites, there is nothing visible on the surface; the remains are preserved in the waterlogged ground.
Read the complete Riedmatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 77 km into the recorded legs you reach Riedmatt. Next is Seematte.
Lake Baldegg lies in the Seetal, the lake valley north of Lucerne, a gentle, green landscape of meadows, orchards and woods, with the lake in the middle and the hills rising on either side. Seematte, on the shore near Hitzkirch, is the site of prehistoric lakeside villages, built on piles over the water's edge thousands of years ago, and it was inscribed in the same 2011 listing that covers lakeside villages from France to Slovenia. As with most such sites, there is nothing to see above ground, but the setting is lovely, and standing on the reedy shore you can imagine the wooden houses and dugout canoes.
Read the complete Seematte write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Seematte, about halfway. Next is back through Riedmatt.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Riedmatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Riedmatt sits at 111 km, about halfway. Next is back through 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.
back through Storen-Wildsberg comes up about 185 km into the recorded legs. Next is 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.
Technikum closes the day.
Technikum → Storen-Wildsberg is 25 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Storen-Wildsberg → Riedmatt is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Riedmatt → Seematte is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Seematte → back through Riedmatt is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Riedmatt → back through Storen-Wildsberg is 52 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Storen-Wildsberg → Technikum is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.