© Gesund an der Emscher! // Foto: Axel Mosch Captures
Mindful Cycling Tours – Get healthy along the River Emscher in Germany
Bike Touring Collection by KNAPPSCHAFT
12
Tours
14:51 h
137 mi
3,050 ft
Happiness is found on the open road, so the saying goes. We think that it’s found on cycle paths too. Exercise, health, and happiness belong together. The Emschergenossenschaft, the largest waterboard in Germany, and health insurance provider KNAPPSCHAFT, are offering mindful cycling Tours under the scheme ‘Get healthy on the Emscher!’
The Tours combine fun and exciting routes along the Emscher River in North Rhein-Westphalia with exercises for living a healthy everyday life, including mindfulness, conscious enjoyment, and gratitude. It’s important to take care of your health not only during the hard times but to regularly take time to do something for yourself. With the Mindful Cycling Tours now available online, we would like to help you make sure this is also possible during these unusual times when many plans have been cancelled and our habits have changed. Beautiful places on your doorstep, that are both stimulating and relaxing, are waiting to be re-discovered.
Each Tour has its own focus and offers tips, exercises, and suggestions for a healthy everyday life. KNAPPSCHAFT is supporting these healthy habits under the motto
‘for my health’. In addition to information on the Emscher River’s renovation, you will also find health, mindfulness, and nutrition tips along the routes. An extra dose of happiness for every day in the region.
Cycling to improve your health
Relaxed cycling is healthy for your body and brain. Moderate physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise, is good for your cardiovascular system, builds up your endurance, reduces stress hormones, and body fat. If you follow these tips, it’s even healthier:
– Drink enough water 💧
– Treat yourself to a healthy snack every now and then 🍎
– Avoid the midday heat, protect your skin and head from the sun ⛅️
– Speaking of protecting your head: It is best to wear a helmet ⛑
– Drive with foresight and consideration ✌️
– Take a first aid kit with you including bandages and a life blanket (very important in case of shock reactions) 🩹
– Take a pair of tick tweezers with you and check for ticks from time to time 🕷
More information on the...
KNAPPSHIP: knappschaft.de/EN
Emscher Cooperative: eglv.de/en
Cooperation "Get healthy on the Emscher!" (in German language only): eglv.de/emscher-lippe/kooperationen-und-projekte
On The Map
Tours & Highlights
- Easy01:5217.3 mi9.3 mph425 ft450 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
On this tour you often want to rub your eyes. The places that you experience over a mere 30 kilometers are so varied: The strict parallel between the Emscher and the Rhine-Herne Canal, in contrast to the almost wildly romantic Pausmühlenbach and the lively, meandering Läppkes Mühlenbach. Ripshorst invites…
- Easy00:406.72 mi10.1 mph100 ft100 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
If it is too contemplative for you on the Emscher Island with its Emscher art or on the renatured tributaries: no problem. This extra tour (eleven kilometers extra) leads to one of the largest sewage treatment plants in Europe as well as through the Essen harbor, to the stadium and the not yet renatured river Berne.
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- Intermediate02:1321.4 mi9.7 mph375 ft375 ftIntermediate bike ride. Good fitness required. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
In the Ruhr area, green fields are rarely built. One encounters the legacy of more than 200 years of industrial history everywhere and calls on us to deal with it carefully and creatively. Colliery grounds become parks, railway lines become cycle paths and open sewers become clean bodies of water where…
- Easy00:161.91 mi7.2 mph150 ft0 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
Right next to the Schurenbach there is a crisp climb up the mountain, more precisely the dump. But the view is definitely worth the effort!
- Intermediate02:2020.3 mi8.7 mph500 ft500 ftIntermediate bike ride. Good fitness required. Some portions of the Tour may be unpaved and difficult to ride.
Around Castrop-Rauxel, the Emscher conversion will create new river landscapes that you can enjoy on this tour. It leads over fields, hills of the Emscher quarry and partly narrow paths. This makes this tour a bit more demanding. But as is so often the case: a little effort is worthwhile and the muesli…
- Easy00:435.90 mi8.2 mph75 ft100 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
This extra tour (plus 9.5 kilometers) takes you to the northern edge of the Ruhr area, where the four Ruhr area canals extend in all directions. On the way, the AGORA cultural center bears witness to the diversity of cultures in the former coal pot.
- Easy00:314.15 mi8.1 mph100 ft100 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
With this abbreviation, the Glücksradtour 3 (komoot.de/tour/253986268) is reduced to around 22 kilometers and 80 meters in altitude.
Important note: The "Schleichweg" after about half of the way (behind the bridge over the B 235) is quite bumpy at the beginning and sometimes a bit overgrown.
- Intermediate02:3323.1 mi9.1 mph350 ft350 ftIntermediate bike ride. Good fitness required. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
Where does the Emscher flow to? The only consistent answer to this question over the last 150 years has been: “To the Rhine.” Just like its course, the mouth of the Emscher has also hiked several times. That is why we find 3 courses of the Emscher in Duisburg and Dinslaken today, which we all meet on…
- Easy00:417.07 mi10.3 mph100 ft75 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
Those who cycle through the district will sooner or later discover them and learn to love them: former railway lines that connected collieries and smelters and now enable us to enjoy relaxed, brisk cycling. The green path and the HOAG route are prime examples of this. They lead through a varied landscape…
- Easy00:091.12 mi7.2 mph25 ft25 ftEasy bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
With this abbreviation, the 3-Emscher tour becomes a 2-Emscher tour (komoot.de/tour/328082688)
- Intermediate01:5518.7 mi9.8 mph550 ft550 ftIntermediate bike ride. Good fitness required. Mostly paved surfaces. Suitable for all skill levels.
In the middle of the city and in the middle of the green and blue: From the Phoenixpark, hidden paths always lead along the water, across the south of Dortmund, to the left Emscher inlet of the Rüpingsbach. Here it goes on just as idyllically. Now along the fields, orchards in the UmweltKulturPark Dortmund…
- Intermediate00:589.11 mi9.4 mph250 ft250 ftIntermediate bike ride. Great for any fitness level. Some portions of the Tour may be unpaved and difficult to ride.
In the middle of the city and in the middle of the green and blue: From the Phoenixpark, hidden paths always lead along the water, across the south of Dortmund, to the left Emscher inlet of the Rüpingsbach. Here it goes on just as idyllically. Now along the fields, orchards in the UmweltKulturPark Dortmund…
Gartenhaus zu den 4 Schafen bei den 5 Gänsen
Bike Touring Highlight
Small, fine café / beer garden, delicious cake, is definitely worth a break.
Tip by Michael Willuweit
Haus Ripshorst
Bike Touring Highlight
Come in and explore the Emscherpark. A map on the ground with stepping stones shows you the highlights of the park.
Tip by FRANK.V
Berühmte Trinkhalle (Am Bugapark)
Bike Touring Highlight
One of those cult spots in the pot: If you want to take a break in the area, do it here!
Tip by Martin Donat
Holgers Erzbahnbude
Bike Touring Highlight
It's just a takeaway. Nevertheless, it is well on the way to becoming a cult without any chic. That's how it works in the pot.
Okay, this place is something special. On the one hand, it is right at the intersection of the Erzbahntrasse and the Kray-Wanner-Bahntrasse, a real bicycle junction. On the other hand, it is simply cozy here. Drinks, sweets, fresh pastries come out of the construction trailer and there are also some tools ready just in case. The numerous seating areas are usually well used, you can always strike up a conversation here if you want to. And sometimes, if you're lucky, there's even live music. In good weather, such a simple bike tour can end almost magically.
opening hours
Monday to Sunday: 10am to 10pmTip by Martin Donat
Café Hof Emscher-Auen & Hochwasser-Rückhaltebecken
Bike Touring Highlight
As a layperson, one can hardly imagine “flow management”. Perhaps you first think of pumping stations, sewage treatment plants, dykes or barrages - which is all right. But managing a river also means creating a landscape. And why shouldn't a flood retention basin necessary for flood protection, for example, also be a local recreation area? This is how the Emschergenossenschaft thought when it created the Hof Emscher-Auen, a new excursion destination in the northern curve of the river, in 2017. Here you can also marvel at a special work of art: the reinforced concrete construction "Black Circle Square" (2016) by Massimo Bartolinis.
In the event of heavy rainfall, the Emscher's runoff is slowed here and dammed up within the retention basin. Incidentally, these are the largest along the entire Emscher and have a total capacity of 1.1 million cubic meters - that corresponds to around seven million bathtubs.
More information about the Emscher-Auen farm and the other three farms that the Emschergenossenschaft operates between the source and the mouth of the Emscher along the Emscher-Weg together with local partners can be found here: eglv.de/emscher/emscher- yard /.Tip by Nikolai 🔅 Rad & Sinn
Biergarten Oskar am Kanal
Bike Touring Highlight
Cozy beach feeling
Tip by Kirsten
Hof zur Nieden – Essen, trinken, selber pflücken
Bike Touring Highlight
Wonderful place to have breakfast, with a dining room in the renovated barn and seats in the courtyard. Outside there is a variety of fruit to be harvested depending on the season. Oh yes, and there's a pony too 🐎.
Opening hours:
Closed Sunday to Tuesday,
Wednesday to Saturday 9 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Info:
hofzurnieden.deTip by Nik Wys
Ballermann an der Emscher
Bike Touring Highlight
Nothing special - and that's exactly why it is a nice place to take a break “on the weekend when the weather is nice” (according to the opening times), to enjoy the peace and quiet or the hustle and bustle with a cold drink, French fries or something similar.
Incidentally, the company cooperates with Café Emschertalhof in Ickern, which is also a great detour from here: komoot.de/highlight/416856Tip by Nik Wys
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Collection Stats
- Tours12
- Highlights14
- Distance137 mi
- Duration14:51 h
- Elevation3,050 ft
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