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.
168 km from Gunzenhausen to Gunzenhausen, about 3 h 08 of riding. It goes by way of Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12, Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85, Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59 and back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 31 km this is Romantic Road, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
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 Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12.
Along the Wörnitz valley in western Middle Franconia, near the village of Weiltingen, the line of the Raetian Limes cuts across the countryside, and the places where Roman watchtowers once stood are numbered by archaeologists in a dry sequence: WP 13/6, 13/7, and so on. In Raetia, the frontier was not a palisade, as in Upper Germany, but a stone wall about three metres high, and local people called its remains the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall, believing that only the devil could have built something so long and straight. Today, you may see a low bank in a field or a line of trees following the old route, and in some places the foundations of towers have been marked or reconstructed.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 comes up about 24 km into the recorded legs. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85.
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.
about 55 km into the recorded legs you reach Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85. Next is Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59.
The Romans called it the edge of the world they cared about, and in the Rems valley east of Schwäbisch Gmünd you can still trace where they drew the line. A string of watchtower sites, numbered by archaeologists along the stretch between Mögglingen, Heuchlingen and Böbingen, marks the course of the Raetian Limes, the frontier that guarded the province of Raetia in the second and third centuries. Here the frontier was a stone wall, which later locals, puzzled by the long ruined bank, called the Teufelsmauer, the Devil's Wall.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59, about halfway. Next is back through 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 through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 sits at 111 km, about halfway. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 comes up about 144 km into the recorded legs. 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.
Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 closes the day.
Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 → Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 → Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 12/40 to 12/59 → back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 is 29 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 12/69 to 12/85 → back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 is 31 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 13/6 to 13/12 → Watchtowers WP 13/41 to 13/45 is 24 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.