# Stuttgart-Heidelberg-Karlsruhe, Germany Ride Report



## Solomon76 (Jul 22, 2008)

I'm due to transfer back to the U.S. in August so I officially have one complete month left in Germany. Therefore, I've been trying to squeeze as much riding in as I can in before I leave. Yesterday I decided to ride from Stuttgart to Heidelberg, then from Heidelberg to Karlsruhe, and finally catch the train from Karlsruhe back to Stuttgart. I've ridden my bike from Stuttgart to Heidelberg before via the Neckartal Radweg which is a bicycle touring route which runs the entire length of the Neckar River. However, the route from Stuttgart to Heidelberg via the Neckartal Radweg is almost twice as long as the most direct route from Stuttgart to Heidelberg. The catch is that there are a lot more hills via the more direct route that I created on GPSies.com.

I left home about 7am and arrived in Heidelberg around 2pm. The ride from Stuttgart to Heidelberg was 66 miles. I had lunch at the food court on the base in Heidelberg and left for Karlsruhe about 3:30pm. The ride from Heidelberg to Karlsruhe was 36 miles and I arrived in Karlsruhe at about 6pm. I rode around Karlsruhe for close to an hour and caught the train back to Stuttgart at 7pm. I got home just before 9pm and I had ridden 109 miles throughout the day.

The ride through Karlsruhe was great because by the time I got there Germany had just beaten Argentina in the quarter final of the World Cup and everyone was out in the streets celebrating. I don't really care about soccer, but after yesterday I hope that Germany wins the whole thing so that I can hang out and party with the Germans.

Below are the GPS data from the rides from Stuttgart to Heidelberg and from Heidelberg to Karlsruhe along with some of the pictures I took during the ride. I could only post 40 pictures in this post, but there are about 100 more photos that I didn't post at the following link: https://s201.photobucket.com/albums...uly 2010 Stuttgart-Heidelberg-Karlsruhe Ride/

Enjoy and I hope to be able to provide a few more ride reports before I transfer back to the U.S. next month.














Pope Leo the Great church in Sankt Leon-Rot









This trail is about 10 miles long with no hills or turns.









Almost to Karlsruhe









Schloss Kalsruhe (Karlsruhe Castle)









Who doesn't like Hooters? The restaurant isn't bad either.









Karlsruhe Polizei (Police) station









Bicycle parking at the Karlsruhe Hauptbahnhof (Main Train Station). The signs say, "Reserved for climate heros. Head on, Engine off. For zero CO2 on short trips.









Another cameo on the train back to Stuttgart









A couple was on the train with their tandem









Vaihingen an der Enz Hauptbahnhof from the train point of view. You can see the same roof that is above the bicycle parking/storage boxes.









Finally home 109 miles later


----------



## rodar y rodar (Jul 21, 2006)

Gogeous, Solomon! I especially love the little paths that you find! Have you thought about doing a rando series when you get settled in at your new station?

Here`s an idea for another ride- somewhere near Salsburg, which I think would be in your range? Just remember, not too fast!


----------



## Solomon76 (Jul 22, 2008)

rodar, GPSies.com makes it pretty easy to plan routes and load them to my Garmin. Using the Open Street Map view, I can see pretty much all of the trails as well. The only catch is that you never really know what condition the trail will be until you actually ride it, but for the most part it isn't anything that can't be ridden through. Of all the rides I've done, I think that I've only had to walk about 50 yards through what looked like a trail on the map only to find out it was a dried up riverbed. It had recently rained when I rode that route so that entire section of trail was nothing but mud, but I survived.

I checked out that town in Austria on the map and I'm afraid that it is too far for me to ride to. I'm about 150 bike miles from Munich and it looks to be about another 80 miles past Munich. It would make for an interesting ride report though.

I'll have to look into a rando series because I've never heard of it before. I really hope that I can continue to make these kind of trips once I get settled in at my next duty station.


----------



## rodar y rodar (Jul 21, 2006)

Solomon76 said:


> I'll have to look into a rando series because I've never heard of it before. I really hope that I can continue to make these kind of trips once I get settled in at my next duty station.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brevet_(cycling)
http://www.rusa.org/


----------



## Solomon76 (Jul 22, 2008)

Thanks for the suggestion and the info rodar. That sounds like something that I'd really like to do a lot more than road, mountain bike, or cyclocross races. I have the rusa site bookmarked and I'll look into it more once I get back to the states.


----------



## PscyclePath (Aug 29, 2007)

Lots of memories here... I was stationed in Heilbronn from '78 through '81 (ohne Fahrrad); and was a bike commuter from Leimen to Campbell Barracks in Heidelberg from '87 to January '90. 

One ride you ought to consider is the highway running along the Neckar River (Hwy 36, I think it is) between Heilbronn and the Heidelberg Hauptstrasse... one of the most beautiful rides I've seen, with castles all along the ridge lines...

Tom


----------



## Solomon76 (Jul 22, 2008)

PscyclePath said:


> One ride you ought to consider is the highway running along the Neckar River (Hwy 36, I think it is) between Heilbronn and the Heidelberg Hauptstrasse... one of the most beautiful rides I've seen, with castles all along the ridge lines...
> 
> Tom


PscyclePath, I already made that ride. It was my first (imperial) century. Heildelberg Ride Pictures.

I think my next ride is going to be around the Bodensee on the border of Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.


----------



## Natalie Portman (Sep 23, 2007)

Great report and I'm sure the experience was lovely as well.

As for FCUKING, a friend recently returned from a trip there. She was so proud of all of her photos. Here's the Fcuking Post Office, the Fcuking Cemetery, the Fcuking Bus, Fcuking etcetera-etcetera. But that's about all that side trip accommodated, a few quick giggles and not much cuddling afterwards.


----------



## rodar y rodar (Jul 21, 2006)

Effing ride report. As juvenile as it sounds, I`d love to write that one up


----------

