[Closed] Mountain biking in Germany

I'm a complete Teutophile, and had long scorned the accepted wisdom that Germans are really into fire roads.
Then I sadly concluded that there is a lot of truth in it.

We spend a lot of time in the Frankenjura, and have searched out the biking.

There's a nice loop from Pegnitz, and a nice Downhill trail at Ochsenkppf ski centre, and nice bits on Schneeberg, but in general it was just a frustrating nothingness.

Visited some supposed trail centre in the Fraenkische and it was dire. Fire road hell.

Will watch this threadcwith interest as well probably end up there again next summer.

Supposed to be a lot of good trails around Freiberg although not ridden there
Winterberg bike park is fun and if you go on a weekday you can get a lot of runs in with the chairlift whipping you back to the top!

I’ve heard the Hartz Mountains are good for MTB, but don’t have 1st-hand experience.

Where I live is close to Schluchsee and Titisee, there is a lot to ride here and interesting trails. These are walking routes but we ride them. Feldberg and Todnau also have good riding as does the area around Blauen.

Rhineland Pfalz, well we have had good riding there on grit and sandstone trails with castles and forests...

Heidelberg and Frieburg are good, Munstertal also.

Trailforks doesn't have much showing, in fact none in my area of Baden Wurtemburg. I just use maps and ride footpaths TBH.

The number of full tricked out enduro bikes on fire trails is a little comical.

Harz mountains look very promising and people do ride singletrack there. Not too far from the UK and also some nice spa towns and steam trains etc. We've done overnights there and talked to some local mtbers.

Also Autostadt at Wolfsburg in that area if kids are into cars. There is a bikeable fire road all around Nurburgring perimeter.

Got a friend in Marburg - he says there is some good riding around there.

We have ridden signposted mtb stuff in Pfalz and Alpstadt (where they do the world cup xc) but it was mostly dull fire road.

The number of full tricked out enduro bikes on fire trails is a little comical

Maybe best to follow them and find where they are riding.

There are loads of trails round here in Darmstadt, but there are "doubletrack" laws about where you are allowed to ride in lots of Germany, in this area going off piste is largely tolerated but the trails aren't advertised you need local knowledge.

A mate just recommended Arosa-Lenzerheide in Switzerland, I might take a look. He said it was the best mtb area he has ever been to.

Thank you all for the input. I will continue to do some research

Years ago I took a German chap that worked in one of my teams to Afan.

He struggled to get his head around riding on singletrack and got off an ran down most of the descents 🙂

Why not go to a country with more a more 'established' scene, France?

The Swiss have a lot of single track - Lenzeheide, Grindelwald, Flims Laax etc- but it's in Switzerland.
The Germanys do like prepared cycle paths and fire roads - there are single track in the Eifel and around the Nurburgring, The Black Forest must have loads - and there are some bike parks - but you will need to google those

This is a good place to start for Switzeland riding.

https://www.herbert.bike/de/herbert-touren

The Bahntours include accommodation, uplift, map at a bikehotel and are really good packages.

But its Switzerland and a little spendy but the riding is sublime.

The issue is the 2m rule. Unless it’s in a bike park or a designated cycle path, anything less than 2m wide is verboten. So anything worth riding.
Forest tracks over 2m wide are also verboten.

Our local tourist board in Austria recently posted an Intagram advertisement saying the area had over 300km of cycle routes.
I pointed out that there is actually on 6km of singletrack, didn’t get a response.

The Black Forest must have loads

if anyone finds them, please let me know. I've been going for years and have concluded that it's basically Austria, squashed. Miles and miles of boring cycleways you could drive a bus down. The trees are pretty, trails are ZZZzzzz ZZZzzzz.

Harz is pretty, rains A LOT. Think there's gondola uplift at Braunlage. We went there motorbiking, couldn't see the hills because of the fog, couldn't ride the roads because of the rain. Campsite owner took pity on us and let us cower in a caravan. Watched ducks swimming around my bike.
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Our local tourist board in Austria recently posted an Intagram advertisement saying the area had over 300km of cycle routes.
I pointed out that there is actually on 6km of singletrack, didn’t get a response.

Yep. Had the same in Saalbach Hinterglemm when we went years ago. I'd got the maps before hand and was absolutely wetting myself about the 500km of blue, red and black trails marked on the map.
Two days into the holiday I had a flabbergasted conversation with a local about whether the constant stream of construction HGVs coming up and down the fire road were in fact on the designated awesome red route. They were.

Still makes me ****ing angry to this day. Godawful.

Still had a great week as it was dirt cheap and the kids first alps mtb trip, but if we'd done it after Tignes, 3 Valleys or Finale then I'd have been absolutely livid.

Troutie organized a weeks riding holiday in Germany about 10 years ago & we stayed about 20km south of Stuttgart.

We did some good singletrack riding around Schönaich &  HERE guided by one of the park rangers.

We also rode in the Black forest but as above, there wasn't much decent singletrack.

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Thank you so much for this tun of information. A good mtb friend, who I used to ride around the Surrey Hills and do trips to Wales with (so he knows my riding), he recommended Arosa-Lenzerheide, he lives nearby. He said Arosa-Lenzerheidewas amazing and it looks it.

I am not fireroads, and I am not full armour and crazy jumps. I have road cycled all over France, and have a good friend living in Les 2 Alpes, mtb'wise that is not for me (or my wife and 10 years olds). From what I have gathered France is just this.

Thats why I thought Germany, and me and kids love sausages right 😉

Sausages will have to wait ...

The issue is the 2m rule.

Depends on which Bundesland one is in.

In Hessen my understanding was that they wanted to make it that cyclists could only ride on a forest path traversible by a landrover, but in the end it was changed to something more along the lines of any path installed by the landowner or by the land manager is OK (for cyclists, walkers and horses), and that all users should get on.

The landmanagers try to claim there are other rules that are laws but I think that's cos the hunting crowd trump everyone.

Either way there is singletrack, but unless you're local, you probably won't find it amongst the 1 million km of fireroad, and if you do, you won't know if it's one of the accepted cheeky routes, an acceptable hiking trail or a verboten illegal trail (stay well clear of them on bank holidays cos the red socks will be out in force apprehending offenders and forcing them to give their details to be fined).

Some of the official routes might be 99% fire road, and others 50% fireroad (mostly up) and a decent chunk of flowtrail maintained by the local clubs. Again you won't know which is which unless you know a local, or just happen to chance upon a Youtube of someone doing that flowtrail section. And certainly around here trail building could be as little as putting some branches down at the edge of the trail as a guide, going down with a leaf blower and getting some locals to ride a line in. Certainly not UK style with material wheel-barrowed in and compacted. But then it'll also be shut from Nov-Mar due to avoid erosion.

Interesting. I think Germany sounds 'too risky' for our mtb' biased holiday. Even at 8 years old my boys were doing full days in the saddle in Afan in November. 5m wide fireroad sounds dull, dull, dull. I guess there is always Scotland?

Hot_Fiat and thegeneralist, I really feel for you. When my kids were small we found a great place in Greece to take them and just went back year after year as we concerned that we would get it wrong going somewhere else. Our one Family holiday a year with small kids this could be a disaster.

Thank you so much for the advice. Off to Wales now for a week and have a free pass for three days of riding in Brachfa and Afan 🙂

Can I suggest Morzine? The greens up towards Avoriaz are really nice, there's loads of other stuff to do, even had my 6 & 8 year olds riding with my 3yr old on my shotgun on the green at les gets. I reckon the trail from Les Gets - Morzine is doable too. If Z wasn't on the shotgun the blues (to some extent - NOT morzine-les gets from the top of pleney!) would be fine.

Hey Chaka Khan bfw

No need. It was a great holiday at the time. Especially given that the half board hotel with free lift pass was significantly cheaper than just the lift pass!

Nonetheless, the Austrians do have a serious problem understanding what XC mtb actually is, which is worth letting the op know about.

Austrians do have a serious problem understanding what XC mtb actually is, which is worth letting the op know about.

I think they do get it, most of the problem as I understand it, is the law holds the landowner liable if you have an accident, so to mitigate this MTB is simply forbidden to protect the landowners without addressing the access without liability issue.