Germany: Mountain ranges in the Central Black Forest - Almost like in the Alps: Road bike tours in the Black Forest

Sometimes standing still is better than riding: Leaning the bike against an old, gnarled tree, letting the climb be a climb for a moment and instead of the whirring of the chain and the clacking of the gears, all you can hear is the buzzing of flies buzzing around, the distant tinkling of cowbells and the rustling of the wind in the deep green treetops all around. "I enjoy moments like this," says Ingmar Kerschberger from Freiburg, who accompanies me on my road bike through the central Black Forest for two days.

Before setting off early in the morning, Kerschberger had enthused: "There's a real network of small, fine side roads here." And that you can spend hours travelling along beautiful and lonely routes. Throughout the morning, he had chased us up steep climbs until our legs were burning and down long, fast descents. "On these side routes that lead from farm to farm," says the man from Freiburg, "you get to see a Black Forest that many tourists who are only interested in sausage salad, cuckoo clocks and Bollenhüte hats don't get to see."

It goes like this: First, we roll along a winding side road through the secluded Wildgutachtal valley as if in a frenzy. And shortly afterwards we meet an old farmer whose facial skin is as furrowed as the surrounding mountains. He carries a huge wooden rake in his robust paws and a cigar stump in the corner of his mouth. A few metres further on, the whole extended family is working a steep slope with scythes. Mowing is still done by hand. "You can't get there with a machine", says the old man - "do kumsch nit noa", he says in his broad Alemannic dialect.

Almost like L'Alpe d'Huez

But road bikes are the best way to reach the secluded valleys with their steep mountain sides, which are covered in a mosaic of willows, but mostly in a dense, shaggy forest coat. Every now and then, a small farmstead clings to the steep face or crouches on the banks of the swirling Wildgutach. The Central Black Forest begins a few kilometres north of Freiburg im Breisgau and extends northwards to Renchtal and Kniebis. Several river valleys cut through the region, with the highest mountains reaching over 1,200 metres in height. No wonder Ingmar Kerschberger and many other road cyclists from Freiburg love to train here.

You can download the full travel report and GPS data for these tours below:

- Tour 1: Always up and down (113 kilometres, 2,400 metres in altitude, max. 17% gradient)
The Rohrhardsberg near Schonach is probably the most beautiful cul-de-sac in the Central Black Forest - and the steepest. The route then takes you along lonely and steep tarmac roads through the lovely Prechtal, Elztal, Kinzigtal and Gutachtal valleys back to the mountain ranges near Furtwangen.

- Tour 2: Kandel and Wildgutach (122 kilometres, 2,500 metres in altitude, maximum gradient of 19%)
After the descent through the gorge-like Wildgutach Gorge into the Elz Valley, the longest, toughest and most winding climb in the region follows up the Kandel. In an arc via St. Peter and St. Märgen - where further metres in altitude are gained. Resting? Not until the finish.

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