Travels with Craig and Jeri: Rhine River Cycling Day 2: Cycling in der Schwartzwald

Day 2: Cycling in the Black Forest (der Schwartzwald)

This morning we met the other 20 people on our BakRoads trip in the lobby of the hotel, and were introduced to our trip leaders, Jeremy and Nusa. We took a 45 minute bus trip across the Swiss border to southern Germany , the Black Forest region. This area is known for its spas where the Germans rejuvenate, the backgrounfd for fairy tales (think Hansel and Gretel, Grimm's fairy tales), and Black Forest cake. The Black Forest is so named due to the density of trees making the forest floor very dark. It is a large heavily wooded region of southern Germany bordered by the Rhine in the south and west, and extending about 100 miles northward, and about 30 miles wide.

We arrived at a beautiful guest house hi up on a ridge where we were introduced to our bikes, but not before we were fed for the first, but certainly not the last, time by BackRoads. They didn't get the nickname, "SnackRoads" for nothing!

Our "horse" for the week

Suzanne

Sue

Jeremy's safety briefing

Don

We started our ride with a 3 or 4 mile descent, dropping about 2,000'. The remainder of the morning ride passed through quaint villages and farmland. The riding was flat, for the most part, with the exception of a couple of long hills made a bit tougher by the hot sun. We arrived at our lunch spot still full from breakfast, so several of us decided to do a 15 mile hilly extension before we ate. The restaurant was a beautiful spot with gorgeous rose gardens.

The tension ride turned out to be a bit tricky. We did quite a bit of exploring (another term for "getting lost") along the way. Our first "explore" came in the 1st mile of the ride with our group missing a turn. most of the group turned back, but Jeri and I met up with a couple from Alabama, Scott and Marina, and the 4 of us plodded onward finally finding the route. We made several additional "explores", one of which took us up a huge hill to a dead end. The path was about 100yards down across a field along a gravel path. A nice walk.

The 1st half of the loop was pretty much all climbing in hot sun. When we reached the top of the climb, the wind picked up, and looking over our shoulders we noted a huge black cloud. The rain held, fortunately, until we made it back to the restaurant. Once there, the sky opened up with htunder, lightning, and a brief shower. By the time we finished our lunch, the storm abated, and though it threatened the whole way back to Basel, the rain held off. We were convinced that we had Rick to thank for this since he was the only one with a rain coat.

We made it to our boat docked in Basel next to what appeared to be Switzerland's only metal recycling plant. The Amakristina is a 150 passenger, about 400 foot long river boat.