Day 21: Black Forest action in Bad Wildbad

21 Jul 2011

Day 21: Heading north in the Black Forest. We left Todtnau yesterday morning after a great couple of days – big thanks to Andreas at Gasthaus Feldberg, Alex at Todtnau Tourism, and Arne and Stephan from the bike park. A little over two hours drive north and we were back in to the rolling hills and forests (looking just like the opening battle scene in Gladiator) and setting up in Bad Wildbad.

The bike park ‘station’ is actually at the top of the hill in Sommerberg, and the trails come down from there. We dropped in at Bikers Paradise first, said hi to Patrick and picked up our lift passes. Then it was straight out on the bikes. The 2 main DH courses are typically demanding, the iXS course in particular. And due to the recent heavy rain it was even more so today – very slippy in the steep sections. There is also a great section that is like nothing seen on the URT so far – a huge rock garden (and roots too), with a seemingly infinite number of lines through it. The course is taped, but in this section the tape is about 15-20 metres apart giving all sorts of line options for all sorts of bikes and skill levels! Just up from the start of the DH tracks there is a skills area, northshore section, Biker-X course and an old-school mini dual-slalom track. All great fun for messing about on. And from the bottom of these you get a T-bar lift back up – yes a T-bar! Not that common but it certainly works; just hook the ‘T’ under the saddle and off you go. For the snowboarders out there I am sure you remember what a pain in the arse T-bars were to learn on the board. You will be glad to hear it is nowhere near as bad on a bike!

Accommodation is the Gästehaus Schmid, a great little place in the centre of Sommerberg which is 30 seconds from the Bike Station in one direction and 30 seconds from the top of the DH courses in the other. And they are more than happy to have mountain bikers staying so it couldn’t really be any more convenient. As Dan and I concentrated on riding, and as Tim is away in Scotland, there are no pictures from yesterday sorry. But we will definitely get some shots today (how hard can it be…?).

Comments