The Black Forest & Riezlern Austria

Finally we are getting some better weather for our trip to ride the Black Forrest. We took a diagonal route on the small roads thru Pfullendorf and Beuron to finally end up in Baierbronn where we had booked a hotel.

On the way in the distance we saw a huge castle on a hilltop in the distance so we had to check out the 11 th century Hohenzollern Castle.

It was till early in the day when we got to Baierbronn so we decided to make a loop north on the famous The Schwarzwaldhochstraße, or “Black Forest High Road”, is the oldest, and one of the best known, “themed drives” in Germany. It is a part of the B 500 federal highway. This runs to Baden Baden and then we looped back to Baierbonn for the night. The riding here in the Black Forrest is EPIC. There are a huge number of single-track twisty roads with no traffic.

We have another glorious fall day in the Black Forrest!

For our next day here we tried to stick to these tiny single lane roads until we got to Sexau and then onto the seconday roads after that.

We were headed to Lake Constance, but the GPS routed us thru Neuhausen am Rheinfall in the corner of Switzerland to see the Reinfalls , which is the “largest falls in Europe”. Too many tourists here I guess.

We left here at 4 pm with almost 200 km to go to get to meet our friends in Rizlern Austria on the other side of the lake. It is in a valley in Austria only accessible from Germany. We made it back into Germany and took the highway only briefly before going  onto the lakeside road. This is a very busy small road along the lake Constance.

This put us eber further behind for our expected 7 pm arrival. The next issue is we came across another road closure into Oberstorf, which then involved a back track and then another 40 km of backcountry lane driving on a detour with a 30 km limit.

Finally we arrived in Rizlern Austria at almost 9 pm. We were meeting our Vancouver friends Jay and Leanne who were here on a 3-week holiday. Jay had met our host Michael in Tok Alaska. Michael has been around the world on his Africa Twin, but this time in Tok he was on his bicycle. He was kind enough to invite us to join them all. We arrived to a beautiful dinner cooked by Sabine and multiple bottles of wine.

Riezlern is a lovely alpine village in Austria with tons of hikers in summer and skiers in winter. There are chairlifts and gondolas all over.

It was a bit chilly at 10 degrees, but we decided on a day ride near by in Germany.

We stopped in 24 km in Sonthofen at the Motorcycle Apparel shop to get the shields on the Shuberth helmets fixed. They were nice enough to replace the ratchets for free.

About 10 km out we were headed up a steep windy road on which “passing is forbidden”. Just before this was a round about and Dan and I had smelled something burning. Well about 30 seconds later Leanne’s BMW stopped suddenly. She though she had stalled and tried to get going. Then we could see the smoke and flames coming from her rear brake. The caliper was seized. Dan Jumped off and had to drag the bike to the side of the road since the wheel would not move at all. We pulled it onto the sidewalk and left it to cool off and came back for it later. Luckily there is a mechanic about 4 km from here and he is the guy who used to go to Dakar with BMW.

We continued the ride with Leanne as pillion.

We had a coffee while Jay and Michael went back for the bike now with Jay as a Pillion!

We are in for an Austrian traditional Schnitzel dinner prepared by Sabine. Michael supplied normal wine for dinner, but after he opened these huge bottles of wine.

You always end an evening here with schnapps! And treats!!!