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 260 km round trip from Bad Schwalbach - roughly 4 h 12 in the saddle. On the way it passes Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort, Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt and back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Bad Schwalbach is a spa town that never quite lost its nineteenth-century manners: a long, leafy valley, a Kurpark with pavilions, and iron-rich springs that once drew the fashionable from across Europe to take the waters. Just above it, on the high ground of the Taunus, the Roman frontier ran through the forests, and the stretch catalogued as watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 passes within a few kilometres of the town. Here the Upper German Limes followed the ridge, with wooden and later stone towers set at intervals within sight of one another, a palisade in front, and a ditch and bank added later. In the beech woods you can still trace the low line of the bank in places, a quiet scar running through the trees for kilometre after kilometre.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Kaiser Wilhelm II took a personal interest in the Roman frontier, and at the beginning of the twentieth century, he ordered the complete reconstruction of the Saalburg, a Roman fort on the crest of the Taunus near Bad Homburg. The result, with its walls, gates and buildings rebuilt on the original foundations, is the most complete reconstruction of a Roman fort in Germany and houses a museum of Roman life on the frontier. A few kilometres north-east, near Rosbach vor der Höhe, the ruins of the Kapersburg fort lie in the forest, and the watchtowers numbered WP 4/1 to 4/19a, on the section of the Limes running from the Taunus ridge toward the Wetterau, are part of the UNESCO listing of the Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort comes up about 64 km into the recorded legs. Next is Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt.
On a low hill above Darmstadt, at the very end of the nineteenth century, the young Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse decided to gather artists and let them build a new way of living. The Mathildenhöhe became an artists' colony from 1899, and its buildings are some of the best Jugendstil, the German Art Nouveau, anywhere. UNESCO listed the ensemble in 2021. Joseph Maria Olbrich designed most of the first generation, including the exhibition hall and the tall Wedding Tower, with its fingers of brick at the top, finished in 1908 as a gift for the Grand Duke's marriage.
Read the complete Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 132 km into the recorded legs you reach Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just. That is the ride.
Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just → Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt is 68 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt → back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort is 64 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Watchtowers WP 4/1 to 4/19a including fort → Watchtowers WP 2/50 to 2/55 including Just is 64 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.