Within three days Tigger has turned from a filthy-looking backstreet tabby into a shiny predator ready to hunt for more mileage. The service is done, the new tyres are fitted and loads of dirty laundry have been washed. The weathergods are favouring central and northern Europe at the moment, so I have drawn a onethousand km long initial line into my GPS that will traverse the land of Switzerlands northern neighbour. Takeoff is planned for tomorrow morning...
The weather is great this morning when I set out at 1000 hours north towards the German border. I am riding for hours right through the heart of the Black Forest. It is sparsely populated, but on occasions you find places swarming with tourists, like in below video sample the town of Triberg. Wolfach however, which I pass 20 minutes later, is much nicer. But the main attraction from my point of view are these endlessly winding open roads:
After this great start into the trip I head over the
Rhine at
Karlsruhe. The crossing is a known bottleneck, because
some morons for many years now successfully prevent a second river bridge being built - and the existing one is slowly
crumbling under traffic load and old age.
I end the days shortly afterwards at
Pleisweiler-Oberhofen.
When I was in Britain last month I found the lobby-work of the bikers there rather impressive; motorbikers pay no road or bridge tolls, have designated parking spaces at every supermarket and can use bus lanes within the cities. The German lobby groups appear to be less effective. Here is what motorbikers get in Germany surprisingly often:
That sign states that motorbikes are not allowed to use this road on Saturdays, Sundays and public bank holidays. The road itself is so narrow that I'd right away would propose to ban anyone with more than two wheels forever from using it. I have no idea what this nonsense is supposed to mean, but, alas, today is Friday.
However, the weather is absolutely perfect again, and the Palatinate Forest I am biking this morning is ideal Tigger-country. After a quick spree on the motorway to avoid the busy Kaiserslautern area I find myself immediately on the next brilliant road system; I am now traversing the Hunsrück hill range. All these areas plus the Taunus hills which I reach after a scenic ferry crossing over the Rhine are as unknown outside of Germany as the British inland waterway system is outside the UK.
I end the day after 400 km at the small town of Glashütten in Hesse in the middle of the Taunus hills.
Start is at 0930 today and first Tigger and me tackle the remainder of the Taunus. Shortly after another
of those hardly known German gems appears on the horizon; the
Rhön hill range. And right after that the
Thuringian Forest followed seamlessly by the
Franconian Forest.
As it is a bit overcast today (and with 15 to 18
degrees also a bit cooler than yesterday) I have not done any
pictures, so unfortunately no pics today here.
Some of the roads in Hesse are atrocious and a lot of roads are completely closed as they have been neglected for so long
that nothing short of a complete rebuild can fix their desolate condition. What a relief the arrival in
Thuringia is; immediately the roads are immaculate, as this area is part of the former East Germany. For years
all the money not invested on the roads in the West was pumped eastwards, resulting in much better roads in the
east.
Tigger has suffered another outage; one of my two HID gas discharge headlights has packed up. They are supposed to last 2000 hours, but this one already gave up after approximately 1200 hours. Luckily I have a spare unit on board (given that you can't buy them at a petrol station and mine being a design of my own), so after arriving at a hotel in Wurzbach a bit earlier than usual I replace the broken unit.
Today the Ore Mountains
range lies ahead. 200 km of curves and hills, and even with droves of tourists around the roads
are empty and a bliss to bike. That today is Sunday (which means no trucks are allowed on the roads) is an added bonus.
Having now reached Saxony
I notice that here not all roads are new. Some are really horrible and I wonder whether they were
last mended under the rule of
Honecker,
Ulbricht or
Hitler.
What has happened in Saxony with all those billions drained out
of the West?
The day ends at the village of Roedern near
Radeburg.
The next mountain range on my list is the
Harz range. These hills are about 150 km to the north-west of my current
location, so I have an early start at 0900 hours and head into that direction using mostly major roads. But frustrating
as some of these Saxony roads were yesterday, today these main roads are full of roadworks and contraflows and closed
railway crossings - in the first hour I manage to bike only 30 km. That's ridiculous.
But things improve after that and by 1400 hours I am biking the Harz mountains. Here is a short video that will give you
an idea about what type of roads to expect here:
After eight hours of great biking and perfect weather I end the day at the tiny hamlet of Fürstenhagen near Göttingen.
My destination for the next three days is the Sauerland. You have never heard of it? Well, it is the largest county in Westphalia, but has only a population density of 140 souls per square kilometre. The average for Westphalia is 530 - so you get my drift? Nice roads, lots of hills and sparsely populated. This is biker country. And because the area is so large I have reserved three days to bike various trips through the scenic area. Here is a video showing you a few scenes from it.
The name "Sauerland" literally translates as "sour land", and the inhabitants are known to be a bit sourdough indeed. They say that here the women are still women and the men are still animals, but if you watch the video or have a look at the picture below of the Aabach reservoir near Bad Wünnenberg then you can see that these people live in a splendid country for biking.
After all those days with perfect weather the heat is coming. Today about 28 degrees are expected, tomorrow 35 and the day after
the German met service expects to see the highest temperatures ever recorded in history. I don't mind being a bit hot while biking,
but these guys are talking about 38 degrees and more. That is no good for biking, so I am heading south back to the Alps.
And that in spite of the 28 degrees predicted I have over 30 degrees near Karlsruhe is not a good omen either.
The ride is quite pleasant and ends after 370 km near
Neuenbürg on the
Enz river.
To use as much of the cool morning air as possible I set out before 9 am today. And what a treat these early morning sunriser roads here in the Black Forest are. Here is a video sequence shot near Calw
That video clearly shows what motorbike riding is all about - at least from my point of view. After another 250 km ride I am back in Switzerland at 1400 hours.
Below is the usual map with my GPS tracklog and some trip markers.