Wednesday, September 23

From	To	Distance (km)	Average Speed (km/hr)	Max Speed (km/hr)	Odometer (km)	Riding Time (hr:min:sec)	Push-Ups
Feldberg, Germany	Beringen, Switzerland	70.03	15.6	55.7	816	4:29:02	200

(746 words)

This morning Matt and I started our day with a great breakfast at the Wasmer Gasthoff. Once on our bikes, we headed up towards the Feldberg summit, which at 1493 meters is the highest point in the Black Forest. We had been quite close to the summit yesterday when we were at the Wilhelmer Hütte, but at that time we hadn't quite figured out what the Feldberg Nature Preserve was all about. Having come this close to the high point of the Black Forest, we weren't about to ride on before we actually reached the top.

We pedaled our bicycles up to the summit on a path filled with many tourists. We passed a few radio towers along the way, and at one point had to ride through a column of smoke. The smoke was caused by a fire set by several men who were using chainsaws to clear brush from the hillside and then feeding the brush to the fire. When we arrived at the summit, we found a raised circular platform with benches and a plaque showing the directions and distances to many world cities. The morning was sunny, but cold. Although the air was a bit hazy, we could see many mountains off in the distance from our vantage point on the summit.

Once we'd had our fill of the Feldberg summit, we rolled back down to the tourist center, where we stopped to buy groceries for lunch. Perhaps because our kind hostess at the Wesmer Gasthoff had let me have a second pot of tea, I was in a hyper "let's make progress" mood. Matt, by contrast, was in a relaxed "let's allow ourselves to get distracted by anything and everything" mood. He dawdled for 15 minutes at a tourist shop trying to decide which map to buy, even though we didn't need a map. In the grocery store he lingered in each aisle, fingering various products and reading labels, and stood in front of the magazine rack flipping through magazines. I, meanwhile, was jumping up and down trying to impress upon Matt that we gotta get moving, gotta get on down the road, gotta make some progress.

Several hours later, it seemed to me, Matt and I emerged from the grocery store with our usual supply of lunch goods: yogurt, fruit, and a pair of brötchen. (A brötchen is like a small loaf of bread that's about the size needed for one sandwich.) We combined these ingredients with granola, peanut butter, and a few cookies from our bags, and sat down on a pair of rocks to have our lunch.

Our lunch complete, we started rolling again. We rolled back down to the town of Feldburg, where we found a great downhill bike path that took us all the way to the Schluchsee. This path was mostly rocks pressed down into dirt, so we could glide quite easily. I did have to keep my brakes on most of the way, but only softly so my hands didn't need to strain very much. As we glided down this path, we were surrounded on both sides by a beautiful pine forest. We emerged from the trees just before we arrived at the Schluchsee.

The Schluchsee is an oblong lake about 2 kilometers long. When Matt and I arrived at this lake, we turned left and took another beautiful bike path. This one ran along the shore of the lake. We followed this path around the north side of the lake until we arrived in the town of Schluchsee, where we turned east and aimed for Bonndorf. After a bit of climbing to get out of Schluchsee, we basically rolled downhill all the way to Bonndorf. The road to Bonndorf had little traffic and took us through another pine forest. It had just the right grade to enable me to simply glide without braking or pedaling. During one stretch of several kilometers, I was able to maintain a speed of 28 km/hr by just coasting.

In Bonndorf we got onto a highway (Bundestraße #315), which had more traffic. This highway was also just about all downhill and we zoomed. When we reached the Bundestraße #314, we turned south and rode towards Stühlingen. In Stühlingen we crossed the border into Switzerland and headed for Neuhausen. This stretch was a gradual uphill through scenic hilly countryside. We decided to stop for the night before we reached Neuhausen, at a Gasthof in the town of Beringen, Switzerland.