Duration: six to nine days • Mileage: 1255-1825 (from Calais) • Average daily ride: ±5.75hrs

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The Black Forest has become a honeypot for British riders – especially the B500. Facing the German mountains from the other side of the Rhine are the Vosges, one of France’s best riding areas. Using the best roads in both regions – and many more – this is an ideal first European trip.

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There are three versions of the tour to tie-in with crossings to Calais, Rotterdam and Amsterdam... though the Rotterdam route also works if you take the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry. 

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As well as the basic six-day touring route, the Tour Pack editions come with three additional daytrips, so you can extend the trip by staying for two nights in key locations to ride even more of the fabulous roads around them.

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What are the highlights? For many riders, it’s still the northern stretch of the famous B500, between Freudenstadt and Baden-Baden. This is the Schwartzwaldhochstraße – the Black Forest High Road, created to attract tourists to the mountains. Though personally, I prefer the French side of the Rhine, where the equivalent is the Route des Cretes, running along the spine of the Vosges mountains. As well as these two mountainous areas, the tour goes through the Pfalzerwald forest, hugs the Moselle River into the Ardennes. 

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What’s included on the route? Each day’s route has recommended places to stop for coffee in the morning and afternoon, a suggested lunch stop and planned fuel stops.

 

How long is each day’s ride? Each leg of the tour is planned to be a full day in the saddle: check-out and get on the road at 9am, getting to the next hotel round 5:30pm. That's with coffee stops and lunch - it's a relaxed riding holiday rather than a hardcore slog. Saddle-time rating: six out of 10.

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Why six days? The short version of the tour is easier on the pocket and on family and work like, but if you have more than six days, it can be expanded with the tour pack. If you have a week off work and arrive in Europe on a Saturday morning and head home the following Sunday afternoon, that gives you nine days – so the three extra daytrips will keep you busy riding the amazing roads in the Vosges, the Black Forest or the Ardennes (or you could just by have a day off the bike, strolling around and sightseeing).

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When to go: These are mountains – they ski on them in winter! But they're relatively low mountains so you should be safe to ride them between May and the end of October. Summer is obviously better, though I'd avoid August as they get busy with European holiday season. July and September are probably the best months for this tour.

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How is it supplied? Each download consists of an interactive eBook of notes plus a GPX file (suitable for sat navs or phone sat-nav apps). Each route inludes hotel recommendations, suggested lunch and coffee stops and planned fuel stops. The complete-tour downloads have individual GPX files for each day and the Tour Pack option comes with three extra routes to expand the tour plus hardcopy tankbag notes and marked-up maps.