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just a bit of info for those thinking of travailing to German alps..
it was winter and it was time to plan the animal family holiday. fortunately the joy of alpine meadows and crystal clear mountain lakes has had become the family norm over beaches etc. good or what. however they are getting wise to the bike park venues. Hence leogang got spotted and vetoed. Innsbruck had appeal but was to many pennies so we ended up the German side of the alps.. Never been no idea what to expect. We booked a cottage near a town called Fussen. some nice castles to see and what not. ok deal done with family time to research what to ride. Research showed up a cable car and chairlift. map showed area identified as good for mountain biking. All looking good.
So body armour and the banshee was looking the order of the day.
and so it was till closer to the date when route planning started to show up well groomed totally nontechnical terrain.
I then entered a period of inner turmoil. if it smooth and pedaly the banshee is one suckey bike to sit on. but there is nothing worse than feeling you are under biked.
but i made a bold choice and packed the carbon hard tail, yep what a risk.
anyway it turned out the right decision. massive climbs to put roadies to shame big distances and wonderful remote mountain trails.
nothing that raised the heart rate other than shear power delivery .
i was happy with this but the icing on the cake there are loads of remote mountain huts sell very reasonable priced beer and cheese cake.
the only down side . ebikes . there is no glory rocking up to a mountain summit on an ebike lads. so don't pretend there is.
Apparently Germany is the largest market for mountain biking in Europe but is also pretty pants to ride on the basis of singletrack trails, from my experience. This explains why many German riders travel to, say, Italy for their fix as it’s less restrictive. I find that annoying as I feel very comfortable with being in Germany, and it’s great value to boot as you highlighted. Saw my first anti-ebike sticker there last year on a jeep trail... interesting times ahead I suspect 😐
The biggest thing in German mtb used to be and probably still is Alp-X. Big distances, varied trails, but mostly long mountain passes like -
There are riders in that photo!
Somebody told me 80% of bikes sold in Germany are ebikes . If true, even discounting the granny specials that must mean an awful lot of e-mtbs
Germany has a large all mountain/enduro scene, much more so than the UK, but it is swamped by cycling in general.I see plenty of other cyclists on my cycle to work in the morning, on fireroads on the edge of town, and about 10% of our company still cycle to work in winter rising to near 50% on nice summer days. It was mainly an xc scene when I moved here just over 10 years ago, but it has changed a lot since then.
Some states have specific "doubletrack" laws where you can't cycle on anything narrower than 2m, but away from population centres you are unlikely to have any problems on singletrack as long as you are not a dick. But all the marked cycle routes are doubletrack, so you have to be adventurous to find the good singletrack, you need local knowledge or spend time studying maps to try and work out the possible routes. GPS heatmaps are largely useless because they are again swamped with all other types of cycling.
Somebody told me 80% of bikes sold in Germany are ebikes . If true, even discounting the granny specials that must mean an awful lot of e-mtbs
You probably see more than in the UK but it could be more like 20% rather than 80%, and yet again the sheer number of cyclists, whether dedicated hobbyists /occasional leisure or for transport, would just shock most of the UK, the number of pensioners in Germany who use bikes would be more than the whole UK cycling public.
certainly a lot of e-bikes. probably just that UK is maybe 1-2 years behind mainland Europe?
been passed by many great-grandads uphill barely tickling the pedals. most have apologised as they've overtaken too.
80% nah. but then what you see on the trails and what is supposedly selling like hot cakes are not the same.
as for german alps? you can have everything from towpath to full-on hike-a-bike full-face stromtrooper sick edit. the latter probably isn't going to be advertised as an MTB loop anywhere.
openstreetmap can help, when used in conjunction with other maps, and some luck on youtube. they colour paths differently depending on they type of path and whether it's walking only or cycling too (presumably using their own rule rather than any local law?). if it's a footpath, and looks hilly, and youtube shows someone doing a blurry edit with a rattly go-pro that's angled down too far, then you might have something to check out. just avoid the footpaths on a sunny weekend cos there'll be too many out for a sunday afternoon stroll. none will tell you off if you're not a dick though. except if it's one of the many illegal trails - never do them on a bank holiday, cos the cops will be out to catch offenders.