According to Wikepedia, Anne of Cleves was born in Dusseldorf: Anne of Cleves - Wikipedia https://share.google/Kz6j9KYvDF0CXHkFo
The German Motorcycle Route - 2026
- Thread starter Wapping
- Start date
Indeed she was. As far as I can make out, she then grew up in Cleve. It’s all pretty inexact. It’ll be good enough for me
I think I have now (near enough) got all the UNESCO sites marked out. I need to tidy it up a bit, changing some of the names, so I can hopefully remember what they are.
Not surprisingly, lots of them are within striking distance of one of the four routes. I’d like to see as many of them as possible, irrespective of what they are. A couple I had to compromise over, as they cover a region. For instance, the ‘Roman Limes’ is a string of recreated forts, which were strung out all along the northern boundary of the Empire. Likewise, the ‘Ancient Beechwoods’ and the ‘Industrial Mining Heritage Region’. I have got my Michelin Green Guide and a copy of the Rough Guide to Germany, which should come in handy. Likewise, Google Maps should pinpoint me, as and when I get close.
As I plan to do the trip on my 450 Himalayan, this might come in handy:
locate-us.royalenfield.com
Other than the tidying-up and finding at least some sensibly placed hotels, I think I have enough of a plan roughed out. I am thinking about a few ‘hub towns’ and probably throwing in the cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin. Then doing some reading over the winter.
Book’wise, besides the guides, I have chosen five to read:
Germania, by Simon Winder
Iron & Blood; A Military History of German-speaking Peoples Since 1500, by Peter Wilson
Beyond The Wall: East Germany 1949-1990, by Katja Hoyer
The Sortest History of Germany, by James Hawes
They all get good reviews.
Having them in iBooks makes it handy, too:
Not surprisingly, lots of them are within striking distance of one of the four routes. I’d like to see as many of them as possible, irrespective of what they are. A couple I had to compromise over, as they cover a region. For instance, the ‘Roman Limes’ is a string of recreated forts, which were strung out all along the northern boundary of the Empire. Likewise, the ‘Ancient Beechwoods’ and the ‘Industrial Mining Heritage Region’. I have got my Michelin Green Guide and a copy of the Rough Guide to Germany, which should come in handy. Likewise, Google Maps should pinpoint me, as and when I get close.
As I plan to do the trip on my 450 Himalayan, this might come in handy:
List of Royal Enfield Motorcycle Dealers & Showrooms | Royal Enfield Germany
Find out the list of Royal Enfield motorcycles dealers in Germany. Visit our website to know more details about the dealers location & contact details.
Other than the tidying-up and finding at least some sensibly placed hotels, I think I have enough of a plan roughed out. I am thinking about a few ‘hub towns’ and probably throwing in the cities of Cologne, Hamburg, Bremen and Berlin. Then doing some reading over the winter.
Book’wise, besides the guides, I have chosen five to read:
Germania, by Simon Winder
Iron & Blood; A Military History of German-speaking Peoples Since 1500, by Peter Wilson
Beyond The Wall: East Germany 1949-1990, by Katja Hoyer
The Sortest History of Germany, by James Hawes
They all get good reviews.
Having them in iBooks makes it handy, too:
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Have fun and let us know what you make if it, please.
I am just looking at a loop around Berlin, to embrace the Seelow Heights, Halbe, Zossen, Potsdam, Oranieburg and Sachsenhausen.
It works. I’d probably spread it over say three to four days. Add a day to go into Berlin itself, probably by public transport.
It works. I’d probably spread it over say three to four days. Add a day to go into Berlin itself, probably by public transport.
Leaving aside the usual “But it misses out….. You should have included…… “ type chitter chatter, this webpage has some useful hints. The German Motorcycle Route passes through or close to several of them.
An interesting proposition, I can imagine the lure of things just off the route could be a distraction, I would be distracted by crossing borders so close. Next thing you know you'll be in some shithole in Russia swearing at yourself and drinking excess milk.
The distractions are indeed a worry and (as their name suggests) a distraction from my main aim of riding the German Motorcycle Route in full. I am in danger of falling into the same trap as those who ask for “Great routes, things to see and do” for their holiday, forgetting that the real purpose of their journey is to spend two weeks with their mother-in-law in Nice and they’ve only got 16 days leave from work in Manchester.
I am going to spend the winter, breaking down each of the four legs carefully and matching them to the UNESCO sites better. I have them all marked out but I need to remember that by the time I have parked my bike, seen the site and gone back to my bike, at least an hour (very possibly more) will go by. I can be reasonably flexible on the time I have to complete the journey but it’s not limitless, not least as I have to cast an eye on things like insurance and the EU limitation on non-EU visitors’ time allowance *, as it’ll not be the only venture I make over the Channel. Similarly, I need to decide whether ‘seeing the site’ means simply looking at the outside of say, a huge royal palace or going inside it, too! At the moment, I think the emphasis has to be on riding the route, so a snap from the outside may well have to do. The site won’t vanish in my lifetime, so I can (God willing) always go back.
But, that’s all just detail….. however, it’s where the Devil lives! The good thing, baring any disaster before I depart, is that it’s probably mostly doable. Where there’s a will, there’s a way….. and very probably a relative, too!
I quite enjoy the research and the planning bit, not least as it’s now so easy to find good ‘stuff’ on the internet, right down to the colour of the front door of a pension hotel in some small village. The great thing is that for the bulk of the trip I have cheated! The tracks of the German Motorcycle Route I found and downloaded a while ago, I think during the boredom of lockdown and Covid. They were though provided in segments, which I had to then stitch together over their average 2,000 miles leg of each of the four segments; thank God for BaseCanp! That done, I had an easier base to start from. Now it’s ‘just’ a matter of mixing ‘stuff’ in and combining it all with my idea to finish off the Hurtgen Forest and do the Fall of Berlin, too.
Edit…
* On checking, it’s still 90 days in any one 180 day period. Sixty days for the Motor Cycle Route jaunt, commencing late August, ending in late October. That gives 30 days spare between late April and my likely departure in late August. It might be tight but hey-ho.
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I've been travelling to Germany since 1990 on my bikes, some period of that I was stationed in Germany, since 2005 I generally have 2-3 weeks per year in Germany as I have good friends there. There are some really good roads and areas you are close to but not covering, especially in the Harz mountains around Bad Grund, Goslar, Quedlingberg, Nordhausen. Some great history in the area too.
Theres also a really good Motorcycle museum at Giffhorn near Hannover owned & run by Horst Edler who has become a friend over the years in our passion for the restoration of old bikes, he owns Team Mettise GmbH.
classic-superbikes.com
And another Motor Museum in the south Harz which is a really interesting visit. https://www.erih.net/i-want-to-go-there/site/psspeicher
The V1 & V2 Rocket facility & Concentratin Camp at Nordhausen, KZ-Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora is a very interesting visit, take the guided tour to get full access to the whole factory site situated underground in an old Gypsum Mine. You can get english speaking headpone type things for the tour. 3-4 hrs needed to do it justice. https://www.dora.de/
East/West Germany museums documenting the different era's following the end of the war to the fall of the Berlin wall.
I have a huge host of suggestions but you'd need 6 months or more for your trip
Theres also a really good Motorcycle museum at Giffhorn near Hannover owned & run by Horst Edler who has become a friend over the years in our passion for the restoration of old bikes, he owns Team Mettise GmbH.
Classic Superbikes Museum Gifhorn
classic-superbikes.com
The V1 & V2 Rocket facility & Concentratin Camp at Nordhausen, KZ-Gedenkstätte Mittelbau-Dora is a very interesting visit, take the guided tour to get full access to the whole factory site situated underground in an old Gypsum Mine. You can get english speaking headpone type things for the tour. 3-4 hrs needed to do it justice. https://www.dora.de/
East/West Germany museums documenting the different era's following the end of the war to the fall of the Berlin wall.
I have a huge host of suggestions but you'd need 6 months or more for your trip
Just mucking about and thinking aloud.
8,000 miles over sixty days is an average of 130 miles a day. Not unreasonable at all. But, that gives no days off. It emphasises the importance of not being distracted by ‘stuff’. I can up it to say, 80 days, which brings it down to 100 miles a day. But, I am happy to do up to 250 miles a day on what are mostly N and D type roads. It’s not the daily mileage that’s important, it’s not flogging myself from A to B to C to D, just to do ‘stuff’. That said, the daily mileage can’t be ignored. I don’t want to be faced with a 600 mile day, just because I dawdled around somewhere.
I usually like to pre-book hotels. This though is not so easy when I don’t know quite where I’ll be. I haven’t even decided which order (or direction) to ride the four legs in. At the moment, I think it’s going to be clockwise, in the sequence, north, east, south and finally, west. I think I’ll pre-book hotels just at the start of each leg but then only for the first couple of days of each leg. That gives flexibility. That said, having more pre-booked hotels, brings the discipline of a timetable. More to chew on over the winter. Now I need to stop looking for more ‘stuff’!!
8,000 miles over sixty days is an average of 130 miles a day. Not unreasonable at all. But, that gives no days off. It emphasises the importance of not being distracted by ‘stuff’. I can up it to say, 80 days, which brings it down to 100 miles a day. But, I am happy to do up to 250 miles a day on what are mostly N and D type roads. It’s not the daily mileage that’s important, it’s not flogging myself from A to B to C to D, just to do ‘stuff’. That said, the daily mileage can’t be ignored. I don’t want to be faced with a 600 mile day, just because I dawdled around somewhere.
I usually like to pre-book hotels. This though is not so easy when I don’t know quite where I’ll be. I haven’t even decided which order (or direction) to ride the four legs in. At the moment, I think it’s going to be clockwise, in the sequence, north, east, south and finally, west. I think I’ll pre-book hotels just at the start of each leg but then only for the first couple of days of each leg. That gives flexibility. That said, having more pre-booked hotels, brings the discipline of a timetable. More to chew on over the winter. Now I need to stop looking for more ‘stuff’!!
I have a huge host of suggestions but you'd need 6 months or more for your trip
Thank you for you post and information, very much appreciated. Yup, inevitably the German Motorcycle Route does miss things out or just passes by or through some, which would merit more attention.
I guess it wasn’t the intention of the fellow who conceived it, to say that it did it all. That would, as you suggest, make it unbelievably long (8,000 miles is long enough) or too complex. Its beauty lies in its simplicity, a huge four-leaf clover (centred on one town) drawn over a very big country.
When I joined the segments of each of the individual legs together * , I wondered why nobody had made one full GPX track of the lot. I think you have touched on it. People don’t often ride the lot. They use it to go to areas (for instance the Harz) and back again or to ride from say, Berlin to the Danish border on the Baltic. I’ve seen that there’s now ‘official’ branches off it, which I guess are the ‘Guardians of the Route’ saying “Here’s some more”, whilst preserving the essence of what the route’s creator made originally.
Anyway, I’m pleased that my plans / ramblings (call them what will) are of some interest. I’ve already lapped the outside if the country; this will fill in most of the middle.
* Here’s a sample screenshot of the 20 or so segments making up the South stage of the route.
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A little piece in the Motorrad Strassen magazine’s website, which might interest some.
www.motorradstrassen.de
It translates OK, using the free translation tools built into most search engines.
Der Vogelsberg, die MSD und ein Motorrad namens Münch
Am 8. Mai 2004 wurde in Laubach/Vogelsberg von Konstrukteurslegende Friedel Münch die Motorradstraße Deutschland (MSD) eröffnet. Kürzlich ergab sich für uns die einmalige Gelegenheit die Ausgangsregion der MSD gemeinsam mit dem Sohn Friedel Münchs, unterwegs auf einer der legendären Mammuts, zu...
It translates OK, using the free translation tools built into most search engines.
On a lot of occasions where we've not had a real plan & when it has been just myself and the wife or a small group I've not booked hotels until the last minute, mostly sat eating breakfast while we decide where and how far that day or ask the hotel if we can stay another night to do more in a particular area. We've always managed to find somewhere using Booking.com.
Thank you.
That’s going to be my general plan for this extravaganza. Germany is definitely not short of hotels / pensions and I don’t fear the proprietors throwing stones at me, just because I do not arrive on foot, on a bicycle or in a tank.
One spot where I know I’ll be five or six days (10% of the trip’s duration) is Berlin, I’ll definitely book something in, probably in one (or two) of the outlying towns, with a half decent train connection into the city, for one day. I have been to Berlin several times and like the place.
That’s going to be my general plan for this extravaganza. Germany is definitely not short of hotels / pensions and I don’t fear the proprietors throwing stones at me, just because I do not arrive on foot, on a bicycle or in a tank.
One spot where I know I’ll be five or six days (10% of the trip’s duration) is Berlin, I’ll definitely book something in, probably in one (or two) of the outlying towns, with a half decent train connection into the city, for one day. I have been to Berlin several times and like the place.
Sadly, I think the Motorrad Strassen magazine is going to close its doors, quite soon.
From experience, this means the maintenance of the website falls away or the domain simply closes, too. I have taken the precaution of downloading the maps.
Handily (and something I’d forgotten) is that each map has red markers, delineating each segment. This is sometimes easier to look at than a route on my iPad, when looking at distances:
Kurviger now holds the routes’ sections too, put there by the magazine. These weren’t there when I made my downloads into BaseCamp. I guess (hope) that these will stay live for a while. In any case, I am going to spend a happy hour or so, downloading the versions held on Kurviger, maintaining the same segmentations. I’ll then have routes which match the maps. The versions I made before did, but not segmentally. The segments are probably on my Mac, which hasn’t been turned on for two or three years. It will be good to have them on my iPad and in MyRoute.
PS The maps are very clear and probably useable by anyone, without a GPS device. The publishers of some UK magazines, with very poor maps (or none) in their articles, should take note.
From experience, this means the maintenance of the website falls away or the domain simply closes, too. I have taken the precaution of downloading the maps.
Handily (and something I’d forgotten) is that each map has red markers, delineating each segment. This is sometimes easier to look at than a route on my iPad, when looking at distances:
Kurviger now holds the routes’ sections too, put there by the magazine. These weren’t there when I made my downloads into BaseCamp. I guess (hope) that these will stay live for a while. In any case, I am going to spend a happy hour or so, downloading the versions held on Kurviger, maintaining the same segmentations. I’ll then have routes which match the maps. The versions I made before did, but not segmentally. The segments are probably on my Mac, which hasn’t been turned on for two or three years. It will be good to have them on my iPad and in MyRoute.
PS The maps are very clear and probably useable by anyone, without a GPS device. The publishers of some UK magazines, with very poor maps (or none) in their articles, should take note.
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Well, that wasn’t too hard. Using nothing more than an iPad, I have downloaded the 18 GPX files of the northern route section. I always try to download third party route files as tracks, rather than routes. It means some more work later but tracks (usually) are closer to the original.
I have amended the name of each segment, adding A, B, C…. in front, so that the 18 now match the sequential order of the Motorrad Strassen website and, more importantly, the map. Of big help is that my route also gives me the time estimate for each segment. From experience, these are pretty good. That said, I know I can ride 250 miles in a day; it just gives me a better idea that I can divide the 18 individual segments up, by adding two together to make one day’s ride. That’ll give me nine days riding (excluding any stops) to cover the full northern route. Add in three days for days off, gives 12 days. The other three segments are broadly similar. Four times 12 is 48 days. 12 days spare on my original idea of 60 days. It’s sort of starting to work!
Using MyRoute means I’ll always have them on my iPad or iPhone; a clear advantage over BaseCamp, which requires my MacBook, when I’m away.
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What the MyRoute library looks like when the 18 tracks have been converted to routes. There are now 36 (two times 18) items, being the original track and its route clone. As is usual, there are some slight discrepancies in the distances. They don’t bother me at all. In part, they are usually caused by:
A. The original tracks maybe having some errors in them, where the fellow probably took a wrong turning.
B. The original track following a road that is no longer available for use.
In short, it’s all close enough.
I now have to repeat the operation for the other three cardinal point segments of the route.
One advantage of doing the job, is that it gives you the opportunity to actually look at where the routes go and imagine them in your mind. Not least, it’s possible to use MyRoute’s ability to show the route in Google’s Street View, which is nice.
A. The original tracks maybe having some errors in them, where the fellow probably took a wrong turning.
B. The original track following a road that is no longer available for use.
In short, it’s all close enough.
I now have to repeat the operation for the other three cardinal point segments of the route.
One advantage of doing the job, is that it gives you the opportunity to actually look at where the routes go and imagine them in your mind. Not least, it’s possible to use MyRoute’s ability to show the route in Google’s Street View, which is nice.
I and others I am sure take our hats off to you Mr Wapping. What a trip ! Just the planning and detail you go into would make my head wobble 
That will be just brilliant .. utterly brilliant. Good luck.
That will be just brilliant .. utterly brilliant. Good luck.
Thank you.
It’s a bloody long way and ultimately, not a cheap trip to embark on, so a bit of planning is worthwhile. The real danger is adding in too much, so I’ll be taking a scalpel to parts, no doubt. And, no doubt, adding some bits in!
Of course I could just pack my bike and set off to ride the lot in 25 days (or less) and come home. But, I think that would be a waste. Yes, I’d see all of Germany, but would I really ‘see it’? A part of my inspiration comes from an interest in history and a part from looking at other people’s trip reports, when they actually ‘see stuff’. A good example might be the Irish Photo Rally reports; segments of Ireland, seen and enjoyed, with the bike almost secondary.
It’s a bloody long way and ultimately, not a cheap trip to embark on, so a bit of planning is worthwhile. The real danger is adding in too much, so I’ll be taking a scalpel to parts, no doubt. And, no doubt, adding some bits in!
Of course I could just pack my bike and set off to ride the lot in 25 days (or less) and come home. But, I think that would be a waste. Yes, I’d see all of Germany, but would I really ‘see it’? A part of my inspiration comes from an interest in history and a part from looking at other people’s trip reports, when they actually ‘see stuff’. A good example might be the Irish Photo Rally reports; segments of Ireland, seen and enjoyed, with the bike almost secondary.
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