Interesting roads on the way to Stuttgart?

MXDave

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Hello Everyone,

I have a work trip to Stuttgart coming up at the end of September. Whilst the rest of the office are flying there, I will be taking my R1200GSA :)
I am based in Gloucester, and will be taking the tunnel into France. I would like to spread the journey there over 2 days (leave early Monday, arrive Tuesday afternoon). Rather than just blatting my way along the European motorways, does anyone have any A roads they can recommend? Otherwise, I will just chuck in "avoid motorways" into the Sat Nav and see what happens...

Cheers :)
Dave
 
This is a route i took this year, whilst heading to Austria. It goes from just outside Cologne to the German/Swiss Border to just South of Stuttgart.

It was a very enjoyable days ride!

 
The B48 south of Kaiserslautern is one of my favourite routes. I try whenever I can to put into my intinary.
 
Does your two days, include the getting from Gloucester and then rolling off the train in Calais? In other words:

When (what time of day) do you enter France and how long do you then have available from that moment to get to Stuttgart, arriving at what time?

The journey, direct, between Calais and Stuttgart is a bit under 500 miles. It’s no lesser distance on A roads. This is roughly the way you’ll need to go:

IMG_6004.jpeg

The upper hand drawn line is one of a couple of possible alternatives:

IMG_6004.jpeg

The hand drawn red line, is another alternative:

IMG_6004.jpeg

I’d suggest you start with the time available (if it’s not two full days from Calais) and definitely a map.

Over to you.

PS Just because you cross the Channel, it does not guarantee anyone “Great A roads, from A to B”.
 
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DJ123 said:
This is a route i took this year, whilst heading to Austria. It goes from just outside Cologne to the German/Swiss Border to just South of Stuttgart.

It was a very enjoyable days ride!

Click to expand...
Thanks for this route - I could do a motorway run up to the start of this one and then follow the fun roads :)
 
Wapping said:
Does your two days, include the getting from Gloucester and then rolling off the train in Calais? In other words:

When (what time of day) do you enter France and how long do you then have available from that moment to get to Stuttgart, arriving at what time?

The journey, direct, between Calais and Stuttgart is a bit under 500 miles. It’s no lesser distance on A roads. This is roughly the way you’ll need to go:

View attachment 345882

The upper hand drawn line is one of a couple of possible alternatives:

View attachment 345884

The hand drawn red line, is another alternative:

View attachment 345889

I’d suggest you start with the time available (if it’s not two full days from Calais) and definitely a map.

Over to you.

PS Just because you cross the Channel, it does not guarantee anyone “Great A roads, from A to B”.
Click to expand...
Thanks Wapping - a lot of effort there!
The two days start when I leave home and I aim to be at the tunnel by 07:00 Monday to miss the worst of the M25 traffic. Was then looking to cover about half the distance in the first day at a nice comfortable pace with an overnight stop. Then complete the journey on Tuesday to arrive in Stuttgart about 15:00.
Was thinking about staying with Neil at AE Aventures again, so was going to use his recommended alternative route for the first day, then creating a route from Spa to Stuttgart for the Tuesday. I will see if I can factor in some of the dark blue and light blue lines that you have suggested :)
 
Thank you for the timings.

My comments on the route suggested in post #2:

A. Ridden as a whole, it possibly works best if you come from the North Sea ports, rather than Calais.

B. You are saying that you’ll now flog over to Aachen / Cologne / Bonn sort of area by motorway, in order to start riding it from the top. Calais to Cologne is a bit over 250 miles. The full route in post #2 is then 355 miles to Stuttgart.

C. It strikes me that you are chucking in a chunk of motorways (when you wanted to ride A roads) and added miles to your overall journey. That it does not match the:

Was then looking to cover about half the distance in the first day at a nice comfortable pace with an overnight stop.
Click to expand...

Is maybe troubling. You are now taking the motorway to all but go out of your way to ride to near enough Cologne.

D. You’d maybe do better by looking at the hand drawn red line in post #4 and maybe joining post #2’s route at around point 9 or 10, if you want to follow the suggestion in post #3.
 
I usually blat from Calais to Frankfurt/Cologne on the Motorway when heading that direction. To get to the good roads in decent time, rather than navigating between all the big roads through the North of France.
 
Arriving at the Chunnel at 07:00 means, after say 30 minutes to check in and get on the train, means a train at say 07:30 or 08:30 French time. Allow 45 minutes for the journey (by the time to doors of the train open and your wheels start rolling) ie. 09:15 local time. Me? I wouldn’t then start by motorwaying to Aachen / Cologne / Bonn, if I really wanted to go to Stuttgart, on A roads, in two days, starting with a ‘nice comfortable pace’.

I’d maybe consider something like this:


It starts with the motorway for about an hour and 20, to get you to Cambrai. You can do it by avoiding the motorway too, by taking roughly the purple line from Calais to Cambrai, Then across country to say, Metz (sort of area) for an overnight stop. That is about 280 miles, of which about 100 was the opening stretch to Cambrai. Compare that to the 250 miles of motorway from Calais to roughly Cologne, you might have been considering… at least it’s in near enough the right direction, compared with:

IMG_6005.jpeg

Metz’ish to Stuttgart is then a bit under 200 miles on some OK roads on day two. Roughly it’s the route to Baden-Baden and the top of the Black Forest from Calais, so it’s reasonably well trodden.

But hey, it’s your jaunt….. some bods seem to like motorways to Cologne from Calais…. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that the real purpose of the jaunt is to get to Stuttgart for an event through work.

:beerjug:
 
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Riding main roads in Germany can be a pain as a lot go through every town/village en route and so eat up the time.

I would get down to Heidelberg and then take the road alongside the Neckar river to Neckarsulm and on to Heilbronn and then down to Stuttgart. Used to be a lovely surface.
 
If you want to mix in Heidelberg, move the line in post #10 upwards, after about Charleville-Mézières. Take the motorways to cross the Rhine, as it all gets very congested west to east, coming from Luxembourg / France.
 
We had a pretty rubbish journey back through Germany in May, on our way up to the Ruhr dam. East of Stuttgart was very industrial and when you did find bendy roads there were 50kmh limits.
I bought some Michelin maps of Germany but didn't get to plan a decisive route, so we ended up winging it. I'm selling them now as I can't see me going back.
 
Dirty Ming said:
East of Stuttgart was very industrial
Click to expand...

He won’t be coming from the east of Stuttgart from Calais…. Unless he is very lost. From Calais, most of his journey, will be through France / Luxembourg….. unless he goes to Cologne, that is. Then he’ll be coming at Stuttgart from the north’ ish.

PS Be sure not to start your advert for the maps of Germany with: “I am selling these maps of Germany, as the place is shite and I’m never going back”.
 
Thanks everyone for your replies - lots of really good information and ideas. I can do some planning over the weekend, confirm the routes and look to book the crossings and the overnight B&B's :)
@Wapping and @DJ123 - how do you get the My Route apps embedded in the posts? Would be great to know so I can share my routes afterwards with any comments on the trip :)
 
MXDave said:
Thanks everyone for your replies - lots of really good information and ideas. I can do some planning over the weekend, confirm the routes and look to book the crossings and the overnight B&B's :)
@Wapping and @DJ123 - how do you get the My Route apps embedded in the posts? Would be great to know so I can share my routes afterwards with any comments on the trip :)
Click to expand...

when you make it public with the option to share - copy the link and paste it here. It seems to embed itself into the post.
 
scooter paul said:
The B48 south of Kaiserslautern is one of my favourite routes. I try whenever I can to put into my intinary.
Click to expand...
Its one of mine too, was closed due to a bike v bike last time we tried to ride it ,27 june with helicopter in attendance. Hope it ended well.
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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