July 07 - July 13, 2024: a great tour through the Czech Republic, Saxony, Bavaria, Hesse and NRW

"After last year's tour with less altitude, we swapped the headwind for the mountains this year", is how the tour and its profile can be summarized. Many took the opportunity to see the beautiful city at the start, Prague, and arrived early. The weather in Prague was very good, almost a little too warm, but well suited for a stroll through the city.

Right on the morning of our start, "the humidity was rather too high", it was drizzling a little, but that didn't stop us from riding to the castle first and taking a nice group photo in front of the castle at an early hour before we set off on the most difficult stage. We were out of the city relatively quickly, on cycle paths and roads with little traffic, and after 37 km we made our first refreshment stop in relative solitude. The next section went through wooded areas, the most beautiful part on a newly asphalted road, which was not yet open to car traffic and was a great descent. In Rakovnik after 61 km many took the opportunity for a good coffee, the second refreshment stop after 76 km again in a small village. After 90 km the route climbed steadily until we reached the highest point of our day (750 m) after 123 km; from then on it was largely downhill to Karlovy Vary, a steep descent took us to the beautiful spa town, where we had to split up into two smaller hotels. This day had about 1720 m of climbing over 143 km!

The first few kilometers out of Karlovy Vary were unfortunately busy again, but after 11 km we reached the beautifully situated town of Loket, then another 8 km to Tesovice on roads with more traffic, but then on cycle paths and quiet roads in the Eger valley to Cheb; 12 km before the town a bridge was suddenly torn away, which had still been there three weeks before... Cheb is a very beautiful town with a great market square and many places to stop for refreshments. Shortly after Cheb we reached Frantiskovy Lazne (Franzensbad), also an old spa town. There, our catering vehicles were driven away from the selected site, where we had been parked for hours three weeks previously without any problems. We continued past Seeberg Castle, where there was a steep climb and then the longest "gravel section", which was unavoidable, and continued steadily uphill to the highest point (705 m), then continued very "undulating" through As and Hranice to the border with Germany. We rode 6 km through Saxony and were already in Bavaria, still a little undulating, until we reached our hotel in Hof after 123 km and 1280 m of ascent.

From Hof, we were able to follow the Saale river for 14 km before climbing steadily via Weißenstadt to the highest point (798 m) shortly before Bischofgsgrün after 40 km, then another "ramp" in Bischofsgrün, and then 11 km on a cycle path with a 2% gradient downhill through the forest, which is how the whole tour could have been! Our next destination on this day, Bayreuth, after approx. 74 km, also invited us to take a short break in an ice cream parlor. A few more highlights of the town on the way, then on to Bamberg, our destination for the day, initially "undulating", but the last 20 km almost all downhill. After 132 km with approx. 1400 m of ascent, we reached the hotel and had a wonderful time exploring the town, as the hotel was very centrally located.

On the ride to Bad Brückenau, the climbs were very unevenly distributed; the first 60 km along the Main were largely flat and then on the ride from Schweinfurt via Bad Kissingen to Bad Brückenau almost all of the 850 m elevation gain on the last 52 km. It also rained heavily at times in this part, but the air was so warm that rain jackets and pants didn't really help, because then you got wet from the sweat on the inside. So eyes closed and through.... Our Hotel Rhönhof was just outside Bad Brückenau and the road into the town was under construction, so everyone took advantage of the catering on offer at the hotel.

As the road was under construction, we had to use a gravel route through the forest the next day - sometimes very downhill - but everyone managed it without any damage. After two more climbs and passing the Rhine/Weser watershed, the route took us beautifully downhill into the Fulda valley, past the small castle and pheasantry in Eichenzell to the cathedral in Fulda, which was hardly accessible due to a concert on the cathedral square. The next town on the route was the castle town of Schlitz, very beautiful, but unfortunately with few restaurants. From Schlitz, we continued for almost 30 km on old railroad tracks until we had to turn west after 100 km. The last 34 km to Grünberg were undulating, and on the 134 km we had "collected" almost 1400 m of ascent, and we hadn't always stayed dry that day either.

The last two stages were then almost relaxing, on the way to Bad Marienberg we went down into the Lahn valley, we were able to admire Wetzlar a little, but then had to climb 770 m on the last 37 km, and some of the short sections were really steep! Nevertheless, everyone reached the finish relatively early and we were able to enjoy the final evening.

From Bad Marienberg, we first rode to Hachenburg to admire the many half-timbered houses there and then towards Au (Sieg). There were still a few strenuous climbs on this first section, but then we were able to let it roll in the Siegtal valley. The groups met at the Sieglinde in Hennef and we all rode together up to Siegburg to the Michaelsberg, the last effort of the tour. There we were warmly welcomed by many friends and relatives, a nice final photo in the courtyard of the abbey and then a nice get-together at Anno17 to round off the tour!

You can take a look at the routes we cycled here, with 8500 m we had the tour with the highest elevation gain in the history of cycling tours (excluding the USA).