CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. 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.
From Hartenstein it runs 275 km to Hartenstein; allow about 4 h 56 of riding. It goes by way of Karlovy Vary, Žatec and back through Karlovy Vary. It crosses from Germany into Czechia - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
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 Karlovy Vary.
Legend has it that Emperor Charles IV was out hunting in the forests of western Bohemia in the fourteenth century when a stag he was chasing, or in some versions one of his hounds, fell into a pool of scalding water, and that is how the hot springs of Karlovy Vary were found. Whatever the truth, the town that grew up around them bears his name, Karlsbad in German, and by the nineteenth century it had become one of the most fashionable spas in Europe, visited by tsars, composers, poets and the cream of European society. In 2021, it became part of the UNESCO listing of the Great Spa Towns of Europe.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Karlovy Vary comes up 65 km in. 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.
130 km in you reach Žatec. Next is back through Karlovy Vary.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Karlovy Vary write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Karlovy Vary, 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.
Back at Uranium Mining Landscape. That is the ride.
Uranium Mining Landscape → Karlovy Vary is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Karlovy Vary → Žatec is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Žatec → back through Karlovy Vary is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Karlovy Vary → Uranium Mining Landscape is 65 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.