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 243 km round trip from Ellwangen - roughly 4 h 14 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49, Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz and back through Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49. 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 62 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
In the forests near Ellwangen the Roman frontier changes character. Here the Upper Germanic Limes, with its timber palisade and ditch, meets the Raetian Limes, which the Romans eventually built as a stone wall, and the stretch of watchtowers numbered 12/69 to 12/85 runs through the farmland and woods east of the Jagst. Archaeologists number the towers with slashes and digits, which makes them sound like spare parts, but each one was a small stone or timber post with a few soldiers watching the border, passing signals along the line. Together they form part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49.
The numbers here, 13/46 to 13/49, belong to a surveyor's grid, but the line they follow is the old Raetian frontier, which the Romans built across Bavaria in the second century. East of the town of Gunzenhausen it was turned from a simple timber palisade into a proper stone wall, a rarity in the Roman north. The locals later called this wall the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, because they could not imagine human hands had built something so straight and so long. Folk stories said that the devil had built it overnight, and that he had run out of time just before dawn.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 comes up about 62 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz.
Above the village of Pfünz, on a spur of white Jura limestone looking down into the Altmühl valley, the Romans built a fort they called Vetoniana. Today a reconstructed gate and a stretch of wall stand on the hilltop, and from up there you understand the choice at once: the valley floor curls below you, the river meanders slowly, and anyone moving along it would have been seen hours before they arrived.
Read the complete Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 122 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85. That is the ride.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 is 62 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 → Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site and civil settlement of Pfünz → back through Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/46 to 13/49 → Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 61 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.