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 314 km round trip from Hartenstein - roughly 6 h 27 in the saddle. The stops in between: Pöhlberg Mining Landscape, Schindlers Werk Smalt Works, Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape and Mědník Hill Mining Landscape. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It suits an unhurried touring pace.
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 Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
In the Erzgebirge, the Ore Mountains of Saxony, a handful of workshops once produced a colour that conquered Europe. Schindlers Werk, at Zschorlau near Aue, was a smalt works, where cobalt ore from the surrounding mines was ground, roasted and fused with sand and potash into a deep blue glass, then milled into pigment. Smalt coloured Dutch tiles, German porcelain and painters' blues, and Saxony held an almost complete monopoly on it for generations. The works was founded in the seventeenth century and has been preserved as a museum.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 84 km into the recorded legs you reach Schindlers Werk Smalt Works. Next is Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape.
Tin, not silver, was the business of Ehrenfriedersdorf. For around eight hundred years miners dug into the Sauberg hill above this small Erzgebirge town for tin ore, and the Ehrenfriedersdorf mining landscape, with its shafts, spoil heaps, ponds and ditches, is one of the components of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region World Heritage Site. The Sauberg visitor mine lets you go underground into galleries worked by generations of miners, and the hard hat, the damp cold and the drip of water make the history very physical.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape, about halfway. Next is Mědník Hill Mining Landscape.
Mědník is a small, steep hill on the Czech side of the Ore Mountains, or Krušné hory, the range that forms the border between Bohemia and Saxony. It rises above the village of Měděnec, whose name, like the hill's, comes from the Czech word for copper. For centuries, miners tunnelled into the hill for copper and iron ore, and the hill is now part of the Erzgebirge/Krušnohoří Mining Region, inscribed by UNESCO in 2019 as a cross-border site.
Read the complete Mědník Hill Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape sits at 142 km, about halfway. Next is back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape comes up about 190 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Schindlers Werk Smalt Works write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 226 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works. 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 314 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 → Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is 32 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape → Mědník Hill Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Mědník Hill Mining Landscape → back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Ehrenfriedersdorf Mining Landscape → back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Schindlers Werk Smalt Works → 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.