Heidelberg MTB road trip Friday--with HD MTB club (mostly downhillers)

The weather is supposed to be good on friday and its a day off (at least for most army folks in Germany it is). If the weather holds, I'm planning on taking a road trip up to Heidelberg this Friday.

Heidelberg has some fantastic riding there that rivals many of the trails here (IMHO). A good bit more rocky/technical terrain... Also, usually a steady climb of an hour to an hour and a half, followed by mad descents lasting 45 minutes or so.... Much fun to be had, and a change in scenery.

I always like to take the train when possible, so the plan is to catch the train at about nine a.m. (we can get a group day pass for 30 euros for up to 5 people) and get to HD about 10:20. We'll head over to Campbell barracks where we can store some gear (I plan on bringing a change of clothes for afterwards). We'll ride from Campbell Barracks (I expect it will be about 10:45/11:00 by this time) hit the trails for about three hours or so, then drop back in to town, shower and change and head to the Schnitzel Haus (a restaurant that offers grand portions, and 102 varieties of schnitzel). From there, back to the train station and back to KL. Expect to be back in K Town roughly 4:30-5:30 depending on how the day goes.

As an alternative we could simply drive/carpool to HD. It knocks about 20 minutes of the travel time there, but it can be substantially slower coming back, because of the common staus between HD and MA. Also, it's not as green and if we get enough people together, each putting up 6-9 euros for round trip train fare... makes it economically advantageous as well.

Also, if the weather turns out to be snowy, I don't think the trials will be rideable enough to make HD worth the trip, SO As an alternative I plan to do Rodalben, whcih is probably not much more rideable in snow, but IS much closer and quicker.

Anyway, post if you are interested.

Jonesy

Jonesy,

I am working on Friday. Maybe we can do this on Saturday sometime.

I'd rather do it on a US holiday,. SAT, if the weather is nice, the trails will be overun by hikers. On a Friday it will be much clearer... plus the weather should be pretty good on Friday... not so sure about SAT... Monday might be a possibility...

Would more folks be interested in doing this on Monday?

OK, so the HD MTB club is doing a group ride and grill/BBQ friday as well. They are mostly downhillers and will be doing bus shuttle runs up for multiple downhill runs. I plan to do the cross country thing and earn my descents, but might join them for some of the downhills, and once I'm all worn out on climbing, maybe join them for a few shuttle runs. Then join them for their grilling afterwards....

They will be starting their riding/shuttle runs around 10 a.m. and think they'll be grilling somewhere around 4 p.m.

Anyway, thought this might sweeten the deal for any of you more downhill oriented folks with full squish rides etc.

Jonesy

Well, looks like work just dropped big turd on my desk, cancelling my plans for tomorrow.... Didn't look like I had any takers anyway...

I will probably still be getting a good long ride in somehow, so maybe that'll be a rodalben full-loop trip after I'm done with what I need to do for work tomorrow.... If the timing works out I'll try to meet up with the GWOOG crew... if not, anyone interested in doing a Rodalben full loop tomorrow mid day/early afternoon?