Boiling Micky’s piss - Part 3 - Black looks from the forest

Wapping

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The Black Forest (apparently Germany’s warmest and sunniest place) has lots of alternative routes on Tourenfahrer magazine’s website.

This is just the first. As you can see, there is more to it than the B500, though that road is iconic.

https://www.tourenfahrer.de/tour-datenbank/tour/der-sonne-entgegen-863/detail/

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Thanks for these Wapping, you are using lockdown to build up your route library. The southern area of the Forest is outstanding.

The B500 is not what it used to be , too many cameras on it now.
 
Thank you. Yup, I have a big collection of routes, which I have been tidying-up and looking at some more. The whole Covid thing and not going away or even out in any significant way, got me to planning some jaunts for when the world returns to some sort of normal. I was lucky in that I was able to get away last year for a month in August to lap France, all in a year when (if you’d asked me) I thought I had done nothing. Doing nothing now, means I have got to do something useful for the future. I do though wonder how many posts will pop-up when the travel restrictions are lifted, with bods urgently requesting routes for THEIR holidays, which somehow seem to have crept up on them, as if by magic over the past however many months it will be?

The B500 has certainly changed a lot (from an enforcement point of view) over the years, but I guess a lot of other ‘Must do’ places and roads have, too.

I like the German touring magazines, of which Tourenfahrer is but one. I thought I might use the time to pick out some of the most popular areas that bods might visit, to give them some ideas. Not least I hoped to show that, with just a little imagination (mixed in with a bit of effort) it’s possible to create holidays, rather than just post a multi-line request for ‘Great roads, no motorways’ sometimes over a thousand miles in length, on UKGSer.

I liked the route suggestion in the opening post, as (to me at least) it sets the imagination going.

(A) How would I get to Freiburg? Could I fly there and hire a bike, if I was pushed for time and had to start my journey in the north of Scotland or Ireland? Could I truck my bike there and fly down or even drive?

(B) Might it be an idea to find a hotel in the middle, roughly where the purple blob thing is?

(C) How long would I set aside to ride the 600 plus kilometres? The magazine suggests two days. Would I take three or four days, if I wanted to stop, take pictures, lie in bed until 10 AM or take up wild flower pressing?

(D) What lies in the big green area above? How might I find out? If there is anything, how might I join it up?
 
(D) What lies in the big green area above? How might I find out? If there is anything, how might I join it up?

The answer of course is, quite a lot. Ideas to follow, though there are of course plenty on UKGSer (and on the web) already...
 
(A) How would I get to Freiburg?

Just putting the two places into ViaMichelin and asking the software to exclude motorways and toll roads (be careful with the latter as it might sometimes preclude nice tolled passes, that are not motorways) throws up some pretty good routes for the 450 mile A to B journey. Kurviger’s offering is pretty good, too.

“But my mate says, ‘North east France is feckin’ dull’, mate”..... OK, let’s believe him.... The maps show how easy it is to put a motorway section in. Not least, you could put in any old motorway or fast N roads you like, depending on how soon and / or how quickly you want to get to where you are going.
 
Easy to cross the Rhine Valley and whizz around the Vosges as well, kind if trip I might do if limited for time / money this year (likely to be a bit short on both)

Having been up / down the B500 many times over the years I would be happy to go there and not ride it at all (or at least not the section people mean when they say B500, as it runs the whole length of the Forest, but the nptrious bit is the @25 miles or so south of Baden Baden)
 
Having been up / down the B500 many times over the years I would be happy to go there and not ride it at all (or at least not the section people mean when they say B500, as it runs the whole length of the Forest, but the nptrious bit is the @25 miles or so south of Baden Baden)

I'm the same - the best bends were (from memory) just out of Baden Baden; the rest was okay but now it's so 'controlled' it's lost much of its appeal.
 
I have never got the B500. Unless you're doing well over three figures its neither challenging or fun in my book and is a sure fire magnet for camera vans and policing.

The forest roads off the B500 though ..... Wow! They are just fantastic. I remember a journey (couldn't tell you the road) that was sort of north east of Freiburg in the forest and it was probably the best road Ive ever ridden. Absolutely stunning from a sort of technical perspective and a fun factor. :thumb2

(I seem to remember the town Malterdingen or at least signs to it ?? Somewhere between that and Freiburg .... )
 
The Black Forest (apparently Germany’s warmest and sunniest place)

Not always :D
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The forest roads off the B500 though ..... Wow! They are just fantastic. I remember a journey (couldn't tell you the road) that was sort of north east of Freiburg in the forest and it was probably the best road Ive ever ridden. Absolutely stunning from a sort of technical perspective and a fun factor. :thumb2

(I seem to remember the town Malterdingen or at least signs to it ?? Somewhere between that and Freiburg .... )
Virtually any 'white' road, if you're looking on GoogleMaps, to the west & south & Freiburg is well worth exploring
 
As to sunny.... I went on my HP2 Sport for a week and it pee’ed down solidly. Touring on an HP2 Sport, madness, they call it madness.
 
I've been to the Black Forest twice. Once in May when I got the coldest I've ever been sleeping in a tent; was 20 degrees plus when we arrived late afternoon, but after a nearly sleepless night in the tent there was thick ice on the tent. Not just a nice frosty covering - proper thick ice.

Next visited when we were staying in the Vosges. I've rarely been so hot on a bike in my life.

It's a stunning area for biking and, unlike the UK where there tend to be celebrated roads you have to ride to, virtually any road is fantastic.
 
There are hunners and hunners of nice roads.

I land in Ijmuiden most years and often stop in a wee toon called Bocholt. (Dambuster marker stone nearby). Dams a bit further over.

Then eastwards to Harz or southwards to Austria and/or Belgium.

Nurburgring. Cochem. Grossglockner. It's all out there.

Just join the dots FFS.

2020 plan was a few days in Luxemburg via Spa circuit. Don't think my 2021 re-booked ferry is gonna happen, but who knows.
 
(A) How would I get to Freiburg? Could I fly there and hire a bike, if I was pushed for time and had to start my journey in the north of Scotland or Ireland? Could I truck my bike there and fly down or even drive?

Book bike with overlanders.ie in Ireland. They'll truck it to Memmingen (€650 return, €350 one-way and ride it home.) One-way fight from Dublin - Memmingen with Ryanair is around 30 quid.

Memmingen - Freiburg 130 miles

Thnking of doing this myself when feasible; I have friends in Colmar which is handy enough to Freiburg, so maybe a week on some of your routes then a social week in Colmar.

I turned right out of Memmingen when I did my WW2 thing in Germany in 2019 but would turn left to Freiburg this time
 
That looks like quite a sensibly cunning plan to me. Overlander do the hard work of getting your bike from Ireland (how lucky I am to live in London, close to the Chunnel) and you catch-up with it in Memmingen at leisure.
 
St Marie aux Mines, in France and opposite the Black Forest has some good roads & you can marvel at the nuclear power plant on the Rhine as you cross the Freiburg
 
Thanks, JB.

Top end of the Vosges and indeed, some excellent roads.

I plan on doing something similar for the area, simply as the it joins fairly well with the Black Forest. A good ‘two centre’ holiday.

Here’s a taster which, by chance, is based on St Marie aux Mines...

https://www.tourenfahrer.de/tour-datenbank/tour/ste-marie-aux-mines-184/detail/

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A free translation of the blurb in ‘foreign’....

As you know, taste can be argued about. Whether the cheese of the same name from the village of Munster encourages the traveler to flee or to rest is certainly reserved for the respective palate. Unanimity, on the other hand, is likely to prevail among touring drivers when assessing winding roads. Between our starting point and the villages of Gérardmer, Munster and Ribeauvillé, there should be something for every taste. Here you have to enjoy old acquaintances such as the Col du Bonhomme - but also to discover widely unknown things such as the Col du Châmont or the Défilé du Straiture, the narrow valley of the small Meurthe. In good memory, we also remembered the dreamlike serpentines up to Trois Epis. In the afternoon sun, we fortify ourselves here with coffee and small snacks before returning to our starting point in a curvy rhythm.
 
Marvelous, couple years ago stayed 3 nights near Achern (Pension Williams) then 3 in Colmar

Know the southern BF well, stayed near Waldkirch 10? times over the years, the Williams stay was to "do" the northern BF for a change. Agree with comments re B500, not what it was, but just like every other "must do" road in UK & elsewhere, plenty of great routes nearby
 


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