In article <[email hidden]>,
[email hidden] says...
Quoted message said:I have a friend visiting from Germany, and I took him out
on his first singletrack today. He really liked it & would
like to try it at home but is unaware of any singletrack
in his area (Bodensee). I was googling & found your post
from last year (tinyurl.com2tfz3Open ↗) wherein you
mention that singletrack ist verboten in Baden-
Wuertemmberg. Can you point me to finding some other
options for him in that area? You can email me at gab at
gorge dot net if you know of anything.
Hi Gabrielle,
If you're friends a biker, he probably's ridden
singletrack... The problem is that it's pretty scarce here.
There's the problems of population, laws and farmers. The
trails are either for hikers, or they are farm roads. There
aren't many in-betweens. Add to that the problem that hiking
trails are normally small sections of foot-path linked by
long sections of fire road.
Trying to compare the trails in the US to trials in Germany
is difficult. There's a major cultural difference. Germans
think that the reason that there is so much singletrack in
the US is that "It's so big". That's BS. It's because
bikers/hikers build and maintain them. They don't do that
here. In 10 years of riding in Germany, I've never seen a
trails day. I've never seen anybody do anything to a trail
except sanitize or obliterate it. Here, you'll have a road
going straight up a hill here. In the US, someone will
build a singletrack up it with switch backs. Here, someone
will drive a backhoe up it making it wide enough to get an
unimog through.
The number of times I've ridden a fire road and thought
"Wow, in the US, someone would build a singletrack off the
side of this stupid gravel road, maybe something that
meanders up the hill with switchbacks and some technical
features - but those clever (insert German, French, Italian,
Austrian, Swiss), they figured out that it's better to just
blaze a road instead." Marked mountain bike trails in those
countries are normally roads. If you find a marked mountain
bike trail that is smaller than 2 meters, you probably
missed a turn somewhere and are on a hiking trail.
So, I poach. I poach often. Heck, I probably poach ever time
I ride. If I'm ever stopped, I tell people that the trails
larger than two meters, then ride on. Sometime in the past,
it probably was (20-30-100 years ago). I never argue with
Germans on this as they're always right. Again, a cultural
diffence that isn't improved by the fact that I'm a
foreigner.
I've never ridden down by the Bodensee so I really can't
help. I could probably help your friend find some trails up
here by HD though...
email address is nota_knob at t-online dot de.
nk
