Thinking of planning a trip to Germany, and as always with my holidays, I'd like to do some riding whilst I'm there...

...any areas particularly good for it? Just looking for gravelly / hilly sort of terrain rather than any sick / gnar / extreme shredding (I'm over it! ).

Schwarzwald is lovely, Black Forest. CAKE (Schwarzwaldkirschtorte), nice climate, rolling hills and dense forest, and not to mention the Fnarr bragging rights of staying at Lake Titisee and what could be more German than the village of Furtwangen? Far SW near the Swiss border.

The area that Bombtrack hold their Groundwork event in is easy to get to and nice to ride around.
https://advntr.cc/bombtrack-groundwork-2019/

Cheers both, will have a look at those. Better half seemed quite excited by the Black Forest so that might be a winner.

I'm sure the Black Forest would be lovely. Most bigger rivers have long distance cycle tracks along their length, such as the Weser, Lahn, or the Elbe, depends where you're aiming for. You can ride all the way round Lake Constance.
The Taunus has the Teaser route which is a lot of off road but not gnarly.
https://taunus-bikepacking.com/
The Eiffel is supposed to be beautiful, and I have a contact there if you want it...
There's the Mainfrankengraveller https://www.mainfrankengraveller.de/
And even the Bratwurst race https://m.facebook.com/Bratwurstrace/
Basically, loads....
Bavaria has lots of funny place names, such as Bad Fussing, Bad Kissing, Titmoningen, Petting, etc etc

Enjoy!

Orbit 360 routes,

https://orbit360.cc/gravel-series-2021-routes/

I was in the Black Forest walking the year before last, where I came across the concept of the natural refrigerator: outside a house at the end of a dead end rode at the head of a bucolic valley, there was a small shed with a sign on it. Closer inspection revealed a selection of beers and soft drinks cooled by a small stream running under the shed, and an honesty box. Not sure how widespread this phenomenon is, but it's enough to convince me that it's a pretty civilised place

The Schwartzwald area is a kind of heaven, I love that part of Germany and the Alsace/Vosges area. Have ridden through a few times from the Colmar side of the river and onto Frieburg, up the Schauinsland climb and onto those lovely forest roads. The Vosges is a lovely mix of pine forest and agricultural land, not dissimilar to Wales, the Black Forest is all the Vosges is but quieter. I like how German influence remains in the Alsace part of France. The road and gravel tracks in the area are good, I expect there's some amazing MTB there but not had chance to find out so far.
Edit to add, I'm disappointed never to have found the beer cooler honesty box, but to that. Will look closer next time!

Now you mention that.... This is one I would love to do one day:

https://v2b.bike/

I was there just over 20 years ago when riding my motorbike back from a tour of Tuscany. The Schauinsland road used to be closed to traffic 1 day a week and run as a hillclimb for motorbikes, as usual I got the wrong day and ended up riding down it which was still pretty hairy. The B500 is Germany's version of the NC500 but with added BMW motorräder

There's a good bivi shelter on top of the Schauinsland, a 3-sided hiker shelter. The hotel Schauinsland on my rides to Eurobike

Verena wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:08 pm Bavaria has lots of funny place names, such as Bad Fussing, Bad Kissing, Titmoningen, Petting, etc etc

Enjoy!

When I lived in Germany, I had a flat in the village of Coch for a while

I spent four years over in Germany as a teen, some of the best riding ever, riding the old Panzerweg tracks was good run, can be a bit sketchy at times, lots of woodland all over to camp in and the people are pretty cool, Bikpacking.com have a few routes that might help too

https://bikepacking.com/locations/germany/

There is a guidebook I believe - published over 120 years ago, so might be a bit out of date now. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Men_on_the_Bummel

Verena wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:08 pm You can ride all the way round Lake Constance.

Charlotte lived near Lake Constance. I recall it being a particularly nice place to be.

Richard G wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 2:49 pm

Verena wrote: ↑Wed Jul 21, 2021 8:08 pm You can ride all the way round Lake Constance.

Charlotte lived near Lake Constance. I recall it being a particularly nice place to be.

It's wonderful. My first ever cycling tour - me and my friend Charlotte (!), allowed out for the first time ever to cycle from youth hostel to youth hostel around the lake over 5 days or so.

Then a couple of years later another one in the Vosges with her - very very short and slow as we thought it would be really cool to drink red wine and eat baguette and cheese basically from breakfast onwards in hot sunny weather....

Then nothing for about a hundred years, but hey here I am

Black Forest is brilliant for riding. Loads of climbing on doubletrack one day then follow a cycle path along a river valley the next.

If you can get hold of a copy of Singletrack issue 135, there's an article by Markus Stitz about bikepacking the route of the iron curtain.

thenorthwind wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:47 pm If you can get hold of a copy of Singletrack issue 135, there's an article by Markus Stitz about bikepacking the route of the iron curtain.

Is that the Grezstein trophy route on the tank tracks? I heard it was like 100s of miles of rumble strip

jameso wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:45 pm

thenorthwind wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:47 pm If you can get hold of a copy of Singletrack issue 135, there's an article by Markus Stitz about bikepacking the route of the iron curtain.

Is that the Grezstein trophy route on the tank tracks? I heard it was like 100s of miles of rumble strip

Not sure what Stitz did but the Iron Curtain Cycle Route is Euro Velo long distance route EV13 running from northern Norway to the Black Sea on the Turkish Bulgarian border.

jameso wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:45 pm

thenorthwind wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:47 pm If you can get hold of a copy of Singletrack issue 135, there's an article by Markus Stitz about bikepacking the route of the iron curtain.

Is that the Grezstein trophy route on the tank tracks? I heard it was like 100s of miles of rumble strip

He made his own route, but he does mention avoiding, understandably, a "road" of grooved concrete slabs called the "Kolonnenweg" that runs alongside. Not sure if that's the same thing. He mentions Komoot so perhaps his route is on there.

thenorthwind wrote: ↑Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:45 am

jameso wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 10:45 pm

thenorthwind wrote: ↑Fri Jul 23, 2021 9:47 pm If you can get hold of a copy of Singletrack issue 135, there's an article by Markus Stitz about bikepacking the route of the iron curtain.

Is that the Grezstein trophy route on the tank tracks? I heard it was like 100s of miles of rumble strip

He made his own route, but he does mention avoiding, understandably, a "road" of grooved concrete slabs called the "Kolonnenweg" that runs alongside. Not sure if that's the same thing. He mentions Komoot so perhaps his route is on there.

Sounds like he heard the same things about riding those slabs and it's not the same route / sections.

I was rather stunned when we were in Germany to find that you are expected to cycle on the pavement in towns and cities. I'm so used to getting a row for it here and Germans do everything by the rules so it was a bewildering about-turn for me.

Borderer wrote: ↑Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:42 pm I was rather stunned when we were in Germany to find that you are expected to cycle on the pavement in towns and cities. I'm so used to getting a row for it here and Germans do everything by the rules so it was a bewildering about-turn for me.

Yes, odd isn't it. I found the bike paths having ROW at junctions and driver discipline combined makes it work ok, just a bit slower. I've used main roads at times and only had the odd toot. I think a combo of UK rider road/traffic awareness and Germans generally being far less idiotic drivers than the UK helps.

Annoyingly we wont be going to Germany now as our flights have been cancelled.

Have switched to Croatia. Might do a bit of the Eurovelo 8.