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.
An 87 km round trip from Gunzenhausen - roughly 1 h 36 in the saddle. On the way it passes fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh, Fort site of Oberhochstatt and back through fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
South of Gunzenhausen the old frontier of the Roman Empire ran across the countryside in a ruler-straight line, and the numbered watchtowers are the markers for that line. This is the Raetian Limes, the stretch that, from the second century onward, was built from timber and then stone to protect the province of Raetia from the Germanic tribes to the north. The numbers 13/41 to 13/45 simply describe a cluster of tower sites on the surveyor's map. Most of them have been reduced by farming and time to low mounds and gentle banks in the fields, so what you actually find is landscape rather than masonry.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 is where the day begins. Next is fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh.
The Romans called it Iciniacum, and for a century and a half it was home to a cavalry unit guarding the Raetian frontier in what is now Middle Franconia. The fort at Theilenhofen, near Gunzenhausen in Bavaria, lay just behind the Limes, the frontier wall that here was built of stone, running across the landscape from the Danube toward the Main. Today there is little above ground, but information panels by the site and the line of the fort traced in the fields help visitors picture it. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire, the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes, listed by UNESCO in 2005.
Read the complete fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh comes up about 20 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort site of Oberhochstatt.
Not every Roman fort on the frontier was a great stone fortress. Some were small, temporary or quickly abandoned, and the fort site of Oberhochstatt, on the high plateau above Weißenburg in Bavaria, seems to have been one of these, a modest garrison post on the Raetian Limes. There is little to see today beyond a field, perhaps an information board and the outline of the defences in the grass. But the landscape around is full of Roman history, and the town of Weißenburg, a short ride away, is one of the best places in Germany to experience it.
Read the complete Fort site of Oberhochstatt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 40 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort site of Oberhochstatt. Next is back through fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45. That is the ride.
Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 → fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh → Fort site of Oberhochstatt is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort site of Oberhochstatt → back through fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh is 27 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through fort site and civil settlement of Theilenh → Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.