Anyone want to play hookie on Friday?

I am working 1700 to midnight Friday. Want to ride a Pfalzerwald trail in the morning. Don't really care which one, but I am looking to get about three hours in. Maybe Quidersbach, Waldfishcbach, or Rodalben. I haven't ridden any of them, so if you can go and have ridden one of them...even better. If not, you might do some exploring with me.

Well after studying the map, looks like Tour 4 from Hockspeyer will be the one I ride. 30k with decent amount of climbing. Just doing the short loop, not the whole thing.

Did the first loop of trail 4 due to a later start than planned. 18 miles at an easy pace was just at 2 hours. The trail is really quite tame. Mostly gravel roads, double track, and a bit of single track...till the last five miles. When mile 13 ticked over, the trail sign had an arrow pointing off a fast gravel descent straight up the side of the mountain. It was a black arrow, so it was a beast of a climb. The fact that the boar have torn up what the loggers have missed made this tiny single track off-camber climb a memory. It went up for half a mile like this wher till it crosses a road (where I had a nice German group cheering on my suffering) then level out a bit for the secon but shorter push to the top. The is followed by a very fun single track descent.

Like I said though, for the first 13 miles I kept thinking it would be a great beginners ride though it has a good amoung of gravel road climbing. Worth the first bit to finish off so strong. I started from the Hockspeyer train station. Great signage and easy to follow.

I will be going back to Hockspeyer to catch the full thing next weekend or possibly this Sunday. I believe the whole trail is 63 km so it wuold be a great tune up ride for the Marathon next month.