Black Forest trip planned for June 2020

Hi
I am the ride coordinator for TOMCC East Kent and next June we are planning to go to the Black Forest for five nights, possible staying near Freiburg im Breisgau.
We will be going via Eurotunnel, so what I am after is the route down through France, Belgium to the Ardennes, along the Mosel Valley to the Black Forest, as I understand this is one of the picturesque routes, I do not mind using some motorways at the start, but would prefer non motorways after that if possible.
Also a route back, coming through France, to Eurotunnel, again using a mixture or roads including some motorways.

We would need an overnight stop on the way down, also one on the way back and would be open to suggestions of where to stop and hotels, we liked the Ibis Budget Hotels we used this year in Bayeux, France.

I have found a lot of routes to ride while in the Black Forest, so not too worried where to go when we are there.

There must be a lot of bikers that have done this, so I would appreciate any help and a GPX routes. Thanking You
BernieP

The classic “Me and a 100 mates, we want 450 miles or more of routes (no motorways) and a different way back (no motorways) we go next June....” Is there nobody in the Triumph Owners Motor Cycle Club who can help you?

Go first to the RiDE magazine website where there are loads of suggestions on how to do exactly what you are asking for. Similarly there are loads of suggestions on this site, including painstakingly created gpx routes. Have a look for some of them. There’s links to and suggestions on hotels, too. You like Ibis? So find an Ibis.

PS Site subscription is only £12 ask the TOMCC treasurer to sub you.

PPS 10 minutes with a map will answer your question but as a start, go to Kurviger. It really is very good. Here’s an example, created from a iPhone in the street, it’s that easy to do:

https://kurv.gr/abDcn

PPPS Who lumbered you with this thankless task?

Kurviger, Scenic App and a credit card are all you need.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Wapping, thanks for yor reply.
I have been to the RiDE magazine website and found a lot of rides we can do when we are there. I also have been looking around this web site I have not found a lot for when we are there but nothing on the routes down or back.
I use both Tyre and Base Camp to create routes, and have created many over the years.
I thought I would use other riders experiences of riding to the BlackForest.
The answer to your question "Who lumbered you with this thankless task" I did!
Thanks again for your reply and the route.

Funnily enough, I have a trip planned for June, to Bavaria (Fussen), then Black forest on the way back, staying near Waldkirch, not far from Frieberg. I use a small scale map of France (1cm-10km ) for route planning -you can easily identify smaller, interesting roads - the France map gets you to the west side of BF, then a local map of Baden Wurttemberg, for the last bit, plus routes whilst you are there.

Done the routes south east from Calais loads of times & IMO, there's no point in trying to avoiding motorway for the first bit of France, too built up, & not interesting scenery. If I were heading for the BF from Calais, I'd go via Belgium - Kortrik, Tournai, Mons, then the Ardennes & Luxembourg, (lovely roads) from there head south east, the Vosges maybe.
The A25 through Lille looks like an alternative, but does go through the "clean air zone" so you'll need a Crit Air sticker

Alternative would be the m-way to Cambrai, (toll €7) then make your way south/east. Done that before, bear in mind the 80kmh limit in France off motorway, which can be dull - Belgium is 90)

Sorry, I realise you asked for routes, which i have not offered, really I think you'll feel much more invested in your project if you plan for yourself. Just avoid main towns/cities, & head through the green areas marked on Google Maps (& hopefully on your paper map) & you won't go far wrong

Hotels, I don't bother with "biker hotels", rather use a booking engine (Booking.com there are others). I stay in villages rather than cities, & not too worried about "secure" parking, although if thats your thing, you can filter during your search.

Looks good:

https://www.tomcc.org/Events/RideOut/73b13ce2e23446dea1355fa0f326684a

You could add in: More when we know where we are going

Do check the spelling of Luxembourg though.

Seriously, have a crack at it and then post your ideas up here. It’s your trip and you have the winter months ahead of you. It’s half the fun or all you’ll be doing is trotting along some other bod’s GPX track for 450 miles there and 450 miles back.

Have a look at the post I put up about a lap of France I am doing next year. It shows how I cheated like hell by using Kurviger. Then pick a place with a hotel say midway between Calais and Baden Baden, with a hotel large enough to cater for your party, able to take pre-bookings. Then ask Kurviger to give you the route from Calais to there. Zoom in and out a bit and compare it with a half decent paper map. Don’t fancy the D roads out of Calais? OK take the motorway. Repeat for the second part of your journey. Then repeat for the way back but taking a more western side of the route down. It really is that simple. The great thing is that you’ll have done it yourself, which means you’ll retain it in your mind’s eye when the day comes. You’ll not be following some shonky GPX track from some unknown bod who has directed you down every goat track and up the wrong carriageway before you have even left Calais.


PS Very disappointing that your club’s dating service was not at all what I had imagined.

PPS The word ‘Club’ boils the piss of many here. Tread carefully and carry a big stick.

Thanks for the replies Ajay & Wapping.
I had in my head planned to use the motorway down as far as Dinant, Belgium, then on to Autohause Eifel-Mosel non motorway for the overnight stop. Continuing to somewhere around Freiburg im Breisgau in the Black Forest, for 3 nights before returning through France.
I do have some French maps, which I do use, and have been looking at Booking.com for the overnight stop, and when in the Black Forest, some are even getting booked up already.
I will agree with both of you, about doing it yourself, but I was trying to get some ideas which I could adapt.
Will have a look at your “lap of France” Wapping.
Thanks again to you both, you have given me something to think about.
BernieP

I don't buy into the "there are no nice roads in Northern France" argument. Many people take the autoroutes so the N-roads can be empty and fun, especially by South-East England standards. If you want to take a different route there and back, I'd go via Rheims or St Dizier on the way down, using combination of autoroutes and non-autoroutes if you want, aiming to use smaller N and D roads when not on the autoroute. This will give you a great 2nd day to Freiburg, with no autoroutes and some time in the Vosges mountains, which are lovely biking roads. Head for Gerardmer and go over the Col de la Schlucht.

On the way back, maybe come back via Luxembourg - straight up the Black Forest towards Baden Baden then via Trier. Day two of return journey will be across the Ardennes (Bouillon, Vresse, Revin, Dinant, Namur where you can get onto autoroute to get back to Coquelles or stay on N roads a bit longer if you want. I'd come back this way as it is a "better" route to my mind and will make the last day something to look forward to (apart from the 3 hours from Namur to Coquelles).

Loads of accommodation and food places in Vianden.

Depending on how closely shepherded your group want to be, you could remain flexible about routes depending on weather or how you feel on the day. As long as they all make it to the same hotel, individual riders can make their own route. Or you can set precise routes all the way and share the sat nav or phone routes so you all stay together.

I'd also spend a happy hour or two using Street View on Google maps to see what kind of road your routes might be taking you on. Some N roads are arrow-straight dual carriageways and not much fun. Some autoroutes are like smooth uninterrupted race tracks (though admittedly not in Northern France or Belgium).

I agree, there is nothing wrong with the D roads of northern France. How much anyone will use of them will depend on:

A. What time the bod (and their mates) roll into France and get going. Mix in bods milling around, deciding (or remembering) that they need fuel and back slapping with people they have just spent 90 or 40 minutes with on the boat or train and half an hour or more will go by with feck all by way of forward motion.

B. Where they aim to get to and what time they expect to get there.

C. How long they spend hooning or bimbling (bumbling) between A and B, along with fuel breaks (as some idiot is bound to forget) fag breaks, wee breaks, tea breaks, lunch breaks and leg stretch breaks.

Only the OP will know the answer to that lot..... over to you, ‘Road Captain’.

If, as Wapping says, you have the time, then nothing wrong with D roads in the north of France.

Truth is, my trips always see big miles the first day or two, which necessitate some faster roads, in order to enjoy the D roads, and still arrive at destination at reasonable time, I aim for around 1700 at the hotel

What works for me & the groups I have taken across the water is 200miles or so - all D roads or equivalent, 250 ish or more, I need to build in some motorways. This allows for plenty of stops & to arrive at reasonable time. The larger the group, the longer those stops tend to be. Largest group I have taken was 10, quite a job getting them on the road in good time & keeping them all together. I prefer 6 or 8 on such a trip.

Your advertisement on the Truimph Owners Club website says five or six days away. Your post #7 says three nights in Freiburg im Breisgau (bottom end of the Black Forest) which translates to a minimum of two full days in the Black Forest. That, if your total holiday is to be five (not six) leaves either:

A. One day to get to Freiburg im Breisgau and two to come back, or

B. Two to get there, one to come back

Are you sure you are set on six days? I guess so or you’ll be doing a whole chunk of motorway to either get there or come back.

Now to try to help you:

1. What time do you roll off the ferry / train in Calais. 7 am? Noon? Two in the afternoon?

2. What time do you need to roll back on?

I ask this only to determine how much of a day you have available on the first and last day. Often on this site we discover that bods don’t plan on arriving until noon and want to be in their hotel by 17:00 having stopped for an hour for lunch.... and still expect to travel 350 miles in four hours having avoided motorways, an average moving speed of 87.5 mph on the scenic (green lined) roads someone has told them they must use.


This is the Kurviger route between Calais and Freiburg im Breisgau, 442 miles door to door

https://kurv.gr/2yKju



As you can see it misses out the Ardennes and the Mosel / Moselle valley; that doesn’t matter as it sort of gives you the start of something to work on for your return through France. 442 miles over two equally spaced days is 221 miles a day on the D roads of France, perfectly doable for a modestly sized group, leaving at 09:30 finishing at say 17:30 with a morning coffee, a fuel stop and lunch. Run your finger along the blue line to about halfway and you’ll be somewhere around Rethel. There is no Ibis in Rethel, so look at places somewhere around there where there is one. You are now starting to cook on gas and your return route is sort of working itself out and you’ve not touched a motorway.

Next the way down....

You want to ‘do’ the Ardennes and the Moselle? The river flows roughly Epinal to Koblrnz so you need to decide where to join it.



Somewhere around Trier / Luxembourg / Metz I guess? Now, how do you join Calais to say, Metz via the Ardennes and how much motorway do you need? Time to cheat again by going to Kurviger and using a touch of imagination, all the way from Calais to your chosen stop off point at the bottom of the Black Forest.




https://kurv.gr/1yg7f

That is give or take 500 miles, no motorways. Still doable in two days for sure, depending on your answers to my questions above. I did it all on an iPad, without touching a paper map; it really is that easy. You can export Kurviger routes as a track (it’s neater than a route into BaseCamp) to start your work from. In short, you now have a Kurviger gpx trace, which is near enough what you asked for. See the post I mentioned about not trusting Kurviger to throw in some silly ‘twisty’ bits just to pee you off and make you the laughing stock of the gaggle of happy Triumphalists following you down some ridiculous goat track.

Want to join the river at Trier instead? Easy, insert Trier into the top bit of the route list in Kurviger after Bastogne. You are now up to 538 miles. Thirty miles on D roads is about an hour if you don’t dawdle. It does illustrate (which is what people forget) how adding in places in between A (the start point) and B (the end point) extends routes and therefore time. As you can see it’s about 100 miles further than the return route.



https://kurv.gr/c4u1T

Now what to do? These routes all exclude motorways. But we have no idea how long you have really got for your two ‘two day’ travels A to B and back to A.

I’d suggest Calais > motorway, you can see the A26 running parallel to the non-motorway blue line from Calais, which is why they built the thing > Cambrai (to get you cracking along and as you have decided northern French roads are all no go) > D / N roads across Belgium / the Ardennes to pick up the river Moselle > then near enough follow the blue line along to complete the total two day jaunt. Zoom in and out a bit / look at a map to see if it suits you exactly. Where to stay? Easy enough for you to work out, based on which route you take and how long you’ve got on day one / want to take on day two. A good place to pinpoint as a rough start is logically about halfway along the total two day route. But hey, it’s your turn now....




PS If you go, as you may well do, to Nancy. Take the motorway around the place. It’s a real grind getting through it.

Thanks for the reply’s and more info Ajay, Wapping & Quinten
To answer your question how long we are going for, nothing is fix in stone, but we are planning to take two days traveling down, have three nights in The black forest and two days traveling back. So a total of five nights six days.
We are going by Eurotunnel as this will save an hour, over going by ferry. So we hope to be in Calais by 10.30 am French time and cover at least half of the route the first day and stopping once for a fuel & pee break, traveling on motorway as far as Dinant, Belgium and the last bit of the first day by D roads as I said in my reply.
May be the Ardennes and the Moselle is a bit too much and will have to re think it, I had read some were that it is a fantastic route so I thought I would add it.
I think your suggested route back of 442miles on D roads is pretty much what I had got in my head, but do not mind the last bit from say Saint-Quentin by motorway
Richard
You have given me a lot to think about and I would like to thank you for the maps and all your input, I did have a look at your “lap of France” it looks a fantastic trip, I wish you all the very best and do hope you enjoy it come next August.

BernieP

The road alongside the Moselle is very scenic. But after half an hour it all gets a bit samey. River, boats and barges, vineyards clinging on to impossibly steep hillsides... And the road is busy with lots of villages and towns with speed limits, speed bumps, traffic lights and tourists in camper vans slowing down to look at the pretty castles and half-timbered houses. And a gazillion Harleys and wanabee Harleys with rider chugging along slowly with their best bad-ass grin and mirror shades....

A better idea is to cut across the loops in the river. Most of these loops have smaller roads that wind up the hill on one side and back down the other. They have much less traffic and can be stunning twisty roads. Much more fun than chugging along the river at a strict 80 kph. And all the locals DO 80 kph...

One of my most remembered rides is from Alf to Daun, via Bad Bertrich. So good you'll want to ride it twice. But I'm sure there are many equally as good roads nearby. Have a look on Goggle street view.

i did a black forest/ mosel trip last year ,prob still got the GPX routes , but we headed down from Europort. Blast away from the port using motorways for a good hour or so, we headed first to Viaden, superb place with a fantastic castle. from there down to the black forest, Baden Baden over the B500 to Freiburg, then a short loop up to Wolfach, another great village with beautiful surroundings. it was planned we would then head into the Vosges,Colmar and Mulhouse, but after doing some research , we found the Tour de france there on the days we planned, so we Headed north, still in Germany to Bad Bergazbern, and picked up the B48 ( highly recommended) and arrived in Cochem, stayed here for a couple of nights exploring the area abit before heading back to the Boat.
I am sure you have travelled in europe before, So will know Sundays they dont allow HGVs on the road, I use this as a good excuse to make progress either away or to the boat. The down side is the service stations are packed with trucks !

May be the Ardennes and the Moselle is a bit too much and will have to re think it, I had read some were that it is a fantastic route so I thought I would add it.

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That’s a common enough problem, trying to add together several ‘must do’ roads or places, when the end purpose is actually to get to the Black Forest for two full days of riding (and back home again) in six days with a gaggle of motorbikes behind you. The great thing about ‘must do’ roads and places is that they have been there for years and will still be there long after we have gone. You don’t have to do them all this year. You could do a separate trip just to the Moselle and its surrounding area next year or in five years, it won’t go away.

Enjoy your holiday. Let us know what you settle on and how you get on, please.

I n went to the Black Forest in summer 2019 - disappointed - better places to go imo..

twizzle said:

I n went to the Black Forest in summer 2019 - disappointed - better places to go imo..

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It’s iconic, more than anything else, driven along by the B500, fir trees, gateaux, bonkers German folk
stories and women with red balls on their hats. It’s a huge area, with several interesting roads (hunt them out) some (reasonably) decent beer, half decent hotels and sometimes a big mixture of weather. Go there, tick it off the list and go again in maybe five or 10 years. Then go to the Stelvio... and moan about that; it’s the bikermate way

PS Tell us where is “better IMO”

B500 / Stelvio / Grossglockner - all highly hyped and likely to disappoint (and be crowded)

Seek out the quieter roads in the area and things tend to be far better, I prefer the Alps and Pyrenees to the Black Forest, but compared to England / Scotland / Wales I find the BF very good, been a couple of times to stay and used it as a way in / out of the Alps many times.

The more major routes between the larger towns can carry a fair bit of traffic, and often have lots of built up / speed restricted areas, the back roads tend to have little traffic and fewer built up areas, I can easily put together a few days decent riding in the area and make a decent 5-7 day trip out of it, maybe more if we spend a day at the springs in Baden, go to the Euro-Park theme park or take a spin up to the Technik museum....

...Or you can combine a trip to the Black Forest with the Vosges, Ardennes and Luxembourg and easily fill a full week, using two weekends and a week off work would allow for a really good 9 day trip covering 3 iconic areas.

Having visited all of them more than once I would personally just use them as a way into / out of the Alps or Vercors if I had 9 days to spend on a trip, but for anyone that has never been I would recommend any of those areas for a trip away - especially those of you who consider a long ride is one were you leave your own postcode.

Wapping said:

It’s iconic, more than anything else, driven along by the B500, fir trees, gateaux, bonkers German folk
stories and women with red balls on their hats. It’s a huge area, with several interesting roads (hunt them out) some (reasonably) decent beer, half decent hotels and sometimes a big mixture of weather. Go there, tick it off the list and go again in maybe five or 10 years. Then go to the Stelvio... and moan about that; it’s the bikermate way
U
PS Tell us where is “better IMO”

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Spain

twizzle said:

Spain

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Is nice.