30 June 2007

Steinen, Germany to Kirchzarten, Germany (Black Forest)
Last night Dorothee had talked us into riding up into the Black Forest and volunteered to accompany us. By the time we made it down stairs for breakfast she had been to the store and had an assortment of fresh baked bread and rolls set out on the table. We had a leisurely breakfast and didn't hit the road until 10:30. With Dorothee's guidance we breezed through numerous small villages and picked up a rails to trails route in Adelsberg. This proved to be a nice gentle grade and took us past the village of Schonau which is world famous for it's solar power production. Along the way we passed through a tunnel and took a break on the far side. We pulled out bananas and Dorothee pulled out a bag peanut M&M's, our first M&M's of the trip. Another 8 km's or so and we were in the village of Todtnau where the people were busy setting up to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the invention of the hair perm by one of their own. I guess there is always a reason to party. From Todtnau the!
real clmbing started and within a few km's we were at Hangloch falls, the Black Forest's tallest waterfall at 97 meters. The climbing continued to Notschrei, where Dorothee treated us to cake and coffee. According to Dorothee's new GPS system we had climbed 850 meters over 40 km's with most of the elevation gain coming in the last 8 km's. It was here that we parted ways, Dorothee heading back home the way we came and us heading 13 km's down hill to Kirchzarten to camp.
We wished her good luck in her planning of an around the world bike trip beginning in February of 2008. She kept smiling and saying "only 7 more months." Hopefully she will stop and visit when she makes her way across the states on her epic journey.
Today was the kind of day that makes all the hard, miserable days worth the effort. The sun came out, we had a tail wind and beautiful scenery, along with a wonderful riding companion. Perfect.

Kms 53.39
Time 3:51:29
Avg 13.8
Max 53.9
Total 2584.3