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.
From Idstein it runs 296 km to Idstein; allow about 3 h 45 of riding. On the way it passes Watchtower WP 1/73, Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof and back through Watchtower WP 1/73. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Idstein sits in a bowl of the Taunus hills north of Wiesbaden, and its centre is among the best-kept half-timbered towns in Hesse. The Killinger House, a tall timber-framed building with elaborate carving, is the showpiece, and the Witches' Tower, a stone remnant of the old castle, stands above the old town as a reminder of a darker chapter. The Roman Limes passes through the hills just to the north, and Watchtower 3/23 is one of many positions on the ridge, part of the line that ran for about five hundred kilometres across Germany.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 3/23 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtower WP 1/73.
The Roman frontier in Germany starts at the Rhine near Rheinbrohl and climbs into the hills of the Westerwald, and Watchtower WP 1/73, near Hillscheid, belongs to that first stretch. The numbers tell you where you are: section one, tower seventy-three. All that survives is a low mound in the woods, but in the second and third centuries it was a stone tower with a view over the frontier line and, behind it, the palisade and ditch that ran across the landscape. The Upper Germanic-Raetian Limes has been part of the UNESCO Frontiers of the Roman Empire since 2005, and this is where it all begins.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtower WP 1/73 comes up about 60 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 138 km into the recorded legs you reach Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof. Next is back through Watchtower WP 1/73.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtower WP 1/73 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtower WP 1/73, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 3/23.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 3/23 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Watchtowers WP 3/23. That is the ride.
Watchtowers WP 3/23 → Watchtower WP 1/73 is 60 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtower WP 1/73 → Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Kottenforst Süd | Heiderhof → back through Watchtower WP 1/73 is 78 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Watchtower WP 1/73 → Watchtowers WP 3/23 is 79 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.