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 95 km round trip from Forchtenberg - roughly 1 h 34 in the saddle. The stops in between: Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30, Fort Altheimer Strasse and back through Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Götz von Berlichingen, the knight with the iron hand, was born at Jagsthausen castle in about 1480, and he would probably be amused to know that he is best remembered today for a rude phrase. In Goethe's play about him, Götz tells an imperial messenger exactly what the emperor can do, a line that every German knows. The castle still stands in the village, now a hotel, and in summer the Burgfestspiele, an open-air theatre festival, stages the play in the castle courtyard. Long before Götz, the Romans were here too: a fort stood at Jagsthausen on the line of the Upper Germanic Limes, and in the hills around, a series of watchtowers, numbered by archaeologists as WP 9/2 to 9/13, kept watch along the frontier.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 is where the day begins. Next is Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30.
Osterburken is the place on the German Limes where you really can see the Romans in the town. The fort here sat on the frontier in the Bauland, a hilly farming district between the Odenwald and the Neckar, and the museum in the town houses the remains of the fort baths and a rare relief of the god Mithras, an eastern cult favoured by soldiers, whose followers met in small, dark temples to share a sacred meal. The watchtowers 8/29 and 8/30 stand out in the fields a short distance away, part of the line that ran straight over the hills.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 comes up about 23 km into the recorded legs. Next is Fort Altheimer Strasse.
Walldürn is a small town on the eastern edge of the Odenwald, where the hills of the forest give way to the open plateau of the Bauland, and the Roman frontier ran right through it. The Upper Germanic Limes followed a straight line here, and the town had a fort and a bathhouse, whose remains have been excavated and partly reconstructed. Fort Altheimer Strasse, named after the road where it was found, was one of the smaller installations along the line, part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Fort Altheimer Strasse write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 44 km into the recorded legs you reach Fort Altheimer Strasse. Next is back through Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30, late in the day. Next is Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13. That is the ride.
Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 → Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 → Fort Altheimer Strasse is 21 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fort Altheimer Strasse → back through Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 is 28 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Watchtowers WP 8/29 to 8/30 → Watchtowers WP 9/2* to 9/13 is 23 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.