A road ride on a mix of public roads and cycle paths to the Gauß Turm atop the Hoher Hagen overlooking Göttingen.

The tower is named after Göttingen based Carl Friedrich Gauß (1777-1855) and it commemorates his work with mathematics to calculate the size of the Kingdom of Hannover. He used three high datum points (triangle) to make a land survey, one was the Hoher Hagen, the other the Brocken mountain in the Harz and Großer Inselsberg a mountain in the Thuringian Forest.

From this work he influenced mathematics greatly and his points of measurement can be found across the area. We visited the Gauß Meridian Stein in September 2019 – he is also commemorated for making the first radio signal, and was a statistician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist.

The original Gauß Turm was erected in 1909 and was a favourite tourist attraction drawing people from all over, but this tower was built over a deposit of Basalt which was mined, and this undermined the tower leading to it collapsing in 1963!

The new tower was built in 1964 and repairs had to be made soon after when cracks appeared almost from top to bottom caused by construction defects.

Although the tower has two restaurants one with a roof top view it never caught the imagination as did the original and a Gauß Museum was closed because of issues with humidity.

The Gauß Turm serves as communication/TV tower and it needs a big dose of TLC.

The Ride
We rode from Gö along cyclepaths and car free roads via Settmarshausen to Dransfeld. With the meteorological spring having started I rode my road bike for the first time and thankfully it was sunny and dry although a wee bit nippy especially on a few long but still glorious descents.

The climb up from the L559 road to the tower is very cool being serpentine in nature and not that steep.

Garmin Connect: https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/6367559217
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/4883988768