So the road to Eurobike was a bit of a convoluted one for us, starting with a ferry crossing from Hull to Rotterdam and a day on the Autobahn to get to Tegernsee, just outside Munich. It’s a fairly straight forward drive that gets you to the campsite just in time for a quick spin round the lake to the Bräustüberl for food and beer. Perfect.
Sunshine and a loose plan of where to ride to stretch our legs and get into the ‘big climb for singletrack reward’ groove was the basic plan. A chance to grab some rays and stock up ready for the 4 days indoors that was waiting at the end of the road.
A ride in big mountains,a long day in the saddle, and maybe with a cheeky mid ride hut stop for good measure.
As we’re spinning up alongside the river we spot a sign for a new mountain bike trail that wasn’t there the year before; so we take the one hour diversion of a fire road climb to get to the top of the trail and give it a go.
It turns out it’s a little natural trail that flows through the woods and a shoulder high spearmint meadow at one point (probably the best smelling singletrack I’ve ever ridden). A trail that can be ‘pumped’ better than ridden in sections, along with a really nice flow in the top section, before getting steeper and a little more techy in the lower.
It’s a top little diversion before we continue on the planned route, on the next climb we can feel it in our legs but it was well worth the extra effort.
A couple of days in Tegernsee gets us acclimatised so we head a couple of hours through the mountains (noting possible future destinations) to get to Zillertal, or more specifically Mayerhofen.
Mayerhofen has the added benefit of the Penkenbahn to get a bit of easy altitude and cut out a lot of fireroad grinding, and it’s a nice easy process to get mountain bike tickets to allow as many ascents as we can squeeze in. At the top station a bit more climbing gets us access to the good stuff with opportunities dropping away in a couple of different directions.
Losing height there’s some nice sections of Wanderweg that can be strung together through the lower woods giving good rooty descents for the final drop into the valley below.
Flowy singletrack on one side of the mountain is mirrored on the other by steeper chute and step runs. It’s an easy option to clock up a few days riding with all the facilities of the ski town below. It’s only when we find ourselves on the DH run that Sharon’s Superlight is a bit out of it’s depth.
Before we know it it’s time to head west and start the drive to Eurobike, another few hours in the van scanning the mountains either side of the Autobahn for possible places for future trips. Six days of riding in our legs and a good time to get us prepared for the six days of the show, seems like a fair deal.
What did you get up to?
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