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.
359 km from Ostrov to Ostrov, about 6 h 48 of riding. It goes by way of Buchholz Mining Landscape, Eibenstock Mining Landscape, Lauta Mining Landscape and Freiberg Mining Landscape. It crosses from Czechia into Germany - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
The name sounds like a horror film, and the reality was grim enough. In the 1950s, the communist government of Czechoslovakia sent tens of thousands of political prisoners to labour camps in the Jáchymov region to mine uranium for the Soviet nuclear programme. In a red brick building near Ostrov, known as the Red Tower of Death, prisoners crushed and sorted uranium ore by hand, without protection, exposed to dust and radiation. Many died or suffered lasting illness. The building is now a memorial, part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage listing, and a powerful reminder of the human cost of the Cold War.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The Red Tower of Death is where the day begins. Next is Buchholz Mining Landscape.
The twin towns of Annaberg and Buchholz grew from silver. In the late fifteenth century a strike in the Ore Mountains set off a rush, and Annaberg was founded as a mining town with remarkable speed, while neighbouring Buchholz joined it later to form the double-barrelled name you see on the signs. The wealth shows in the St Annen church, a vast late-Gothic hall with a soaring vault, which stands over the market square like a promise made by men who suddenly had money. The wider mining landscape was inscribed by UNESCO in 2019, with its counterpart across the border in Jáchymov, where silver coins were once minted that gave the world the word thaler, and eventually the dollar.
Read the complete Buchholz Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Buchholz Mining Landscape comes up about 39 km into the recorded legs. Next is Eibenstock Mining Landscape.
Eibenstock sits high in the western Erzgebirge, at about six hundred metres above the sea, in a country of spruce forests and cold, clear streams. It owes its origins to tin: miners worked the tin deposits here from the Middle Ages, and the mining landscape around the town, with old spoil heaps, shafts and water channels, is part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, which UNESCO recognised in 2019. Today, the traces are quiet, softened by moss and birch.
Read the complete Eibenstock Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 82 km into the recorded legs you reach Eibenstock Mining Landscape. Next is Lauta Mining Landscape.
Marienberg was laid out in 1521 as a planned silver town, with a vast square market place and streets set in a grid, an idea of urban order that was new in this part of Europe. Lauta, today a district of Marienberg, lies among the old mine workings, spoil heaps and shafts that fed that wealth, and it is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, the cross-border World Heritage Site shared by Saxony and the Czech Republic and inscribed in 2019.
Read the complete Lauta Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Lauta Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is Freiberg Mining Landscape.
Silver was found near Freiberg in 1168, and within a few decades the town had become one of the richest in Saxony. For eight centuries, miners dug ever deeper into the hills, and the wealth they brought up paid for churches, palaces and the splendours of Dresden. Freiberg's Bergakademie, founded in 1765, is the oldest mining university in the world still operating, and its mineral collection is one of the finest anywhere. The town and its mining landscape are part of the Erzgebirge mining region listed by UNESCO, shared between Germany and the Czech Republic.
Read the complete Freiberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Freiberg Mining Landscape sits at 173 km, about halfway. Next is back through Lauta Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Lauta Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Lauta Mining Landscape comes up about 219 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Eibenstock Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Eibenstock Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 281 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Eibenstock Mining Landscape. Next is back through Buchholz Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Buchholz Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Buchholz Mining Landscape, late in the day. Next is The Red Tower of Death.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete The Red Tower of Death write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 359 km.
The Red Tower of Death → Buchholz Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Buchholz Mining Landscape → Eibenstock Mining Landscape is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Eibenstock Mining Landscape → Lauta Mining Landscape is 56 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Lauta Mining Landscape → Freiberg Mining Landscape is 40 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Freiberg Mining Landscape → back through Lauta Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Lauta Mining Landscape → back through Eibenstock Mining Landscape is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Eibenstock Mining Landscape → back through Buchholz Mining Landscape is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Buchholz Mining Landscape → The Red Tower of Death is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.