Riding Abroad

Last weekend was a bit of an adventure. For the first time I took my bike away with me for bit of riding in a whole other country. This meant a long drive to the west of Germany to bring the bike along, and a week or so prior to the trip scouring a map of the area to find a likely route.

Germany has a well established network of mountain bike trails that seem to be marked on the Kompass brand of maps, but what you can’t tell from the UK, with just a map, what the trails are like. This is partly just a lack of experience on my part, and an unfamiliar map, with no reference point. Anyway, I planned out a route that looked likely and included a handy high point to aim for.

The outcome was a ride that certainly didn’t lack in off-road time, but was overall perhaps not as fun as you might hope. The majority of the ride was forest fire-road, so fast, occasionally fun, and with some brutal uphills that had me dripping sweat in the humid forest.

There were hints of what might be there, with occasional narrower and rougher sections and a diversion off the track at one point left over form a recent race, and I’m so sure there are cheeky trails in the woods that would just need time and a bit of local knowledge to track down. You can’t fault the German commitment to outdoor sports, including mountain biking, with such an extensive network of beautifully signed trails. It’s almost as if this area of Germany hit the mountain bike wave before it got as fun as the British trail centres show it can be.

In some ways this makes mountain biking in the area on the obvious trails closer to a form of road biking than the short sharp fun filled trails that dominate the newer UK scene.

Back with a UK focus, have a look at a review of where Froome is in preparation for Saturday’s Tour de France start, and where he’s come from. I’ll be honest, it made me like him a little more.

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