Biking Update

I thought I would provide an update on my mountain biking experiences for those of you who read my previous blog about getting spanked by a bunch of old German mountain bikers. Saturday, a friend of mine and I rode from his house in Seeheim into the Odenwald in search of Frankenstien's Castle. After riding through various trails for about an hour we finally found it. It isn't necessarily a very impressive castle, but it was interesting to think about how it inspired "Frau" Shelley (that is how a German hiker we past referred to her) to write her novel. We rode about 8 miles total that day, which doesn't sound like much, but it was pretty steep riding so we got a good workout.



We decided we hadn't had enough, so Sunday afternoon we rode from Seeheim to a nature preserve along the Rhein river called Naturschutzgebiet Kühkopf. It was a nice , mostly flat ride. We stopped at a Biergarten in the middle of nowhere within the nature preserve to get a snack and something to drink before riding back. That is one thing I love about this country. Germans are very active people and the trails are always busy and the Biergartens in the middle of nowhere are always full of people who have hiked or ridden their bikes for miles (or kilometers) to get there. I guess it helps that it isn't 100 degrees (37 degrees celsius) outside. All in all we rode about 27 miles.

I got home around 4 and Jami and I decided to ride from our house through the Odenwald to the nearest castle before dark. We made it to Starkenberg castle which overlooks Heppenheim. We stopped at castle's Biergarten (I told you they are everywhere) and enjoyed the view of Heppenheim and the Rhein river valley below as well as some Flammkuchen (a type of thin crust pizza) and some of the local wine. We got home just at sunset, covering about 5 miles in the hills. It was definitely a more enjoyable experience than the last one.