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 337 km round trip from Bad Ems - roughly 6 h 24 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24, Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof, Iversheim and Köln-Praetorium. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 36 km this is Moselle Wine Route, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Bad Ems is the sort of town that makes you straighten your collar. It lies in the narrow, wooded valley of the Lahn river, where hot springs have been used since Roman times, and in the nineteenth century it became one of the great spa towns of Europe. Kings, tsars and writers came to take the waters, among them Kaiser Wilhelm I, who was at Ems in July 1870 when a diplomatic telegram was edited by Bismarck and helped trigger the Franco-Prussian War. The Kurhaus, the colonnades and the grand hotels along the river still show what the town was like in those days.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24.
The Upper German-Raetian Limes began at the Rhine, at Rheinbrohl, and climbed into the hills on the east bank, and towers WP 1/23 and 1/24, near the wine village of Leutesdorf, are among the first along its route. They are now marked by foundations or mounds in the forest above the river, and they are part of the World Heritage listing. From here the frontier ran for more than five hundred kilometres to the Danube, and it is fascinating to stand at the very beginning of such an enormous undertaking.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 comes up about 36 km into the recorded legs. Next is Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
There is very little to see at first glance here, which is exactly what makes the place oddly moving. South of Bonn, in the edge of the Kottenforst near the Heiderhof quarter of Bad Godesberg and the town of Wachtberg, the forest floor hides the faint outlines of Roman practice camps. Legionaries stationed at the fortress of Bonna on the Rhine marched out here to train at the hard, boring work that won the empire its wars: digging ditches, throwing up earth ramparts and laying out a camp to the standard plan in a few hours. A handful of these training camps in the Kottenforst are part of the Lower German Limes, the Roman frontier along the Rhine recognised by UNESCO in 2021.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 79 km into the recorded legs you reach Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is Iversheim.
Iversheim is a village in the valley of the Erft, at the northern edge of the Eifel, just downstream from the old spa town of Bad Münstereifel. It is known for one thing: a Roman lime-burning works, one of the best preserved in Europe. The Romans built a series of kilns here to burn limestone from the surrounding hills into quicklime, which was used to make mortar for the forts, towns and roads of the province of Lower Germany. The kilns were worked by detachments of soldiers from the Rhine legions, as inscriptions found on the site show.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Iversheim, about halfway. Next is Köln-Praetorium.
Under Cologne's town hall there is a Roman palace, and you can walk through it. The Praetorium was the residence of the governor of the province of Lower Germany, a large building complex on the edge of the Rhine that dates from the first century and grew over the next few hundred years. The city, called Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium, was founded in the first century AD and named for Agrippina, the mother of the emperor Nero, who was born in a camp nearby. The remains of the palace were found during rebuilding after the Second World War, and the cellars and corridors are now open as an archaeological site.
Read the complete Köln-Praetorium write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Köln-Praetorium sits at 167 km, about halfway. Next is back through Iversheim.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Iversheim write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Iversheim comes up about 221 km into the recorded legs. Next is back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 258 km into the recorded legs you reach back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 337 km.
Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92 → Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 → Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → Iversheim is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Iversheim → Köln-Praetorium is 50 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Köln-Praetorium → back through Iversheim is 55 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Iversheim → back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → back through Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 is 43 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 1/23 to 1/24 → Watchtowers WP 1/89 to 1/92 is 37 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.