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.
153 km from Konstanz to Konstanz, about 2 h 51 of riding. It goes by way of Sipplingen-Osthafen, Insel Werd and back through Sipplingen-Osthafen. It crosses from Germany into Switzerland - carry ID and check vignette or toll rules. The line favours views over speed.
Expect company on a summer weekend. Early is better than fast. For about 38 km this is Grand Tour of Switzerland, a road with a name of its own and a reason for it.
Konstanz is the German city that sits on Switzerland's lap, so close to the border that the two towns, Konstanz and Kreuzlingen, run into each other with a fence in between. The old town lies on the narrows between the Obersee and the Untersee, the two halves of Lake Constance, where the Rhine leaves the lake, and it has one of the best preserved medieval centres in southern Germany. Its survival has a simple explanation: it was not bombed in the Second World War, partly because of its closeness to neutral Switzerland. In the early fifteenth century, it hosted the Council of Constance, which ended a split in the Catholic Church and condemned the reformer Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415.
Read the complete Wollmatingen-Langenrain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Wollmatingen-Langenrain is where the day begins. Next is Sipplingen-Osthafen.
At Sipplingen the north shore of Lake Constance changes character. The Überlinger See, the long north-western arm of the lake, is hemmed in here by steep molasse cliffs and wooded slopes rising to the Sipplinger Berg, and the village sits on a narrow strip between the hill and the water. Below the surface off the eastern harbour lie the remains of prehistoric pile dwellings, villages of wooden houses built on stilts along the shore some five to six thousand years ago. They are part of the World Heritage site of prehistoric pile dwellings around the Alps.
Read the complete Sipplingen-Osthafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Sipplingen-Osthafen comes up about 38 km into the recorded legs. Next is Insel Werd.
Where the Rhine leaves Lake Constance at Stein am Rhein, a group of small islands sits in the river, connected to the shore by a wooden footbridge, and on the largest, Werd, stands a small chapel surrounded by trees and water. It was here, in 759, that Saint Otmar, the first abbot of St Gallen, died in exile after falling foul of powerful local nobles, and the island has been a place of pilgrimage ever since. Long before Otmar, people lived here too: the islands and the surrounding shores are among the Prehistoric Pile Dwellings around the Alps, a World Heritage site, and excavations have found traces of settlements from the Neolithic onwards.
Read the complete Insel Werd write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
about 76 km into the recorded legs you reach Insel Werd. Next is back through Sipplingen-Osthafen.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Sipplingen-Osthafen write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
back through Sipplingen-Osthafen, late in the day. Next is Wollmatingen-Langenrain.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Wollmatingen-Langenrain write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back at Wollmatingen-Langenrain. That is the ride.
Wollmatingen-Langenrain → Sipplingen-Osthafen is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Sipplingen-Osthafen → Insel Werd is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Insel Werd → back through Sipplingen-Osthafen is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
back through Sipplingen-Osthafen → Wollmatingen-Langenrain is 39 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.