After a night of anxiety driven shit-show-y-ness I managed to meet up with Thomas, Oli and some other friends outside the small town Irhingen. Not only did I get to catch up with some old friend this vantage point offered my first glimpse of the Backpacking Trans Germany course. These profiles cover about the first 130km.
On the right, 73.6 km 4.76% elevation gain vs. distance. Nice!
And on the left, 53.0 km with 22.47% elevation gain vs. distance. Oof. 3rd steepest segment… on day one. I couldn’t bring myself to taking anymore pictures as my head turned left. Just more mountains.
After some chit-chat, snacks and brekky beers we departed at the crack of noon. The cycling infrastructure in this area is impressive. Even the smallest of towns seemed to be marked with on path signage, making it really easy to keep rolling along without paying so much attention to the route.
Thomas and Oli!
A lot of the days riding looked fairly similar to this with nice forest paths dotted through out as we headed towards Offenburg. We had some elevation gains through the day but nothing major until headed east after getting supplies in Offenburg. Right away we found ourself in vineyard country again but this time heading up some fairly steep climbs. Our destination was one of several lookout towers in the mountains east of Offenburg. Originally we’d planned to stay near an old brick tower but a mistake in the route planning led us to a more modern steel structure. While less visually appealing this did mean we could climb it for sure, offering some spectacular views.
And being that it’s World Cup season, we happily cracked some German themed cans as we watched the match. There was a MASSIVE party down the hill who’s cheering prompted us to pay attention to the match and thanks the substantial delay on the phone we didn’t miss any excitement.
And that pretty much wraps up day one. We hung out around the fire until late drinking wine, eating bread and cheese and telling tales of our recent adventures. Really good catching up with old friends.
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