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 410 km round trip from Hartenstein - roughly 7 h 27 in the saddle. It goes by way of Pöhlberg Mining Landscape, The Red Tower of Death, Žatec and Krupka Mining Landscape. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Look at this landscape and you would never guess what was under it. The land south of Lößnitz and around Bad Schlema is green, pretty and slightly hilly, a foothill of the Ore Mountains with small towns, orchards and the Zwickauer Mulde river slipping through. But between 1946 and 1990 this was the heart of the Wismut mining company, a Soviet-German enterprise that dug uranium on a huge scale for the Soviet atomic programme. East Germany became one of the world's largest uranium producers, and the work left deep shafts, tall spoil heaps and a population who knew what their work was for and rarely spoke about it.
Read the complete Uranium Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Uranium Mining Landscape is where the day begins. Next is Pöhlberg Mining Landscape.
The Pöhlberg is a basalt cone that stands up from the high Ore Mountains like a bump on a bedspread, and Annaberg-Buchholz lies at its feet. Both belong to the Erzgebirge mining region, which UNESCO listed in 2019 after eight centuries of digging for silver, tin, cobalt and later uranium. Annaberg was founded in the 1490s after a silver strike, and for a few decades it was among the richest places in Saxony. The money is still visible in the town's great late-Gothic hall church, St Anne's, whose tall, ribbed interior feels more like a cathedral than a parish church, and whose altar carvings were paid for by miners and mine owners hoping for luck underground.
Read the complete Pöhlberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Pöhlberg Mining Landscape comes up about 46 km into the recorded legs. Next is The Red Tower of Death.
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.
about 87 km into the recorded legs you reach The Red Tower of Death. Next is Žatec.
The smell gives Žatec away in late summer. The fields around this small town in northwestern Bohemia are planted with hops, tall green vines climbing up wires on wooden poles, and when harvest comes in August, the air fills with their resinous, slightly bitter scent. Saaz hops, named after the German form of the town's name, have been prized by brewers for centuries for their fine aroma, and they are a key ingredient in Czech pilsner lagers. In 2023, UNESCO inscribed Žatec and the Landscape of Saaz Hops, recognising the town's hop warehouses, drying kilns, packing houses and the surrounding hop gardens as a unique agricultural and industrial heritage.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Žatec, about halfway. Next is Krupka Mining Landscape.
Krupka is a hillside mining town stuck to the foot of the Ore Mountains, and it wears its history quietly. The town sits a short climb above the plain near Teplice and Ústí nad Labem in the north of Bohemia, with the ridge of the Krušné hory rising behind. Tin was dug here for a very long time, and the shafts and spoil heaps scattered around the slopes are what UNESCO recognised in 2019 when it listed the Ore Mountains mining region, a landscape shared with Saxony on the German side. Marienberg, on the far side of the border, belongs to the same story.
Read the complete Krupka Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Krupka Mining Landscape sits at 192 km, about halfway. Next is back through Žatec.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Žatec write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Žatec comes up about 260 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through 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.
about 323 km into the recorded legs you reach back through The Red Tower of Death. Next is back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Pöhlberg Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape, late in the day. Next is Uranium Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Uranium Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 410 km.
Uranium Mining Landscape → Pöhlberg Mining Landscape is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Pöhlberg Mining Landscape → The Red Tower of Death is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
The Red Tower of Death → Žatec is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Žatec → Krupka Mining Landscape is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Krupka Mining Landscape → back through Žatec is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Žatec → back through The Red Tower of Death is 63 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through The Red Tower of Death → back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape is 41 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Pöhlberg Mining Landscape → Uranium Mining Landscape is 46 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.