EU26_34 Spielberg - Altstadt Gernsbach Loop 87km SE Loop

9-9-2026

Windy and wet overnight and this morning’s had a couple of showers and it’s very cold, 15°C and my nose keeps running. My hands are cold because I’m not wearing gloves and I’m hoping it warms up to the forecast 20°C, it may not get there if I’m in the forest but outside of the forest, probably will.

I’m following a route I did back in either 2022 or 2024. A brief look at my ride notes encouraged me to go explore it again with a few variations. Because I’m riding a bike slower than the gravel bike, I’ve shortened the distance by about 10 km and the elevation not much less than original at about 1500m for the day. Interesting to see how I go.

Well some of the trails that I rode on the gravel bike have not been used for a long time; they’re overgrown, so I’ve had to make a few short detours, not major but still a bit of figuring out the best way around is working out okay.
The extra comfort that comes with the big tyres on this bike is very welcome but the 2.4 tyres compared to the 50 mm touring tyres there is a marked difference in the effort to keep the bike moving.. Yes I’m four years older, and that has something to do with it I suppose, but I think that’s why gravel bikes are so popular, they do move along very well.
Onto a totally different subject, it’s interesting how on double track trails, the other side of the trail always looks smoother, then you swap across and then all of a sudden it’s not as smooth as you thought.

There’s a lot of timber logging going on here at the moment, not clear felling, far from it, looks more like thinning. It’s very well managed. It’s just sad that when they are logging they invariably go back and replace the trees with a hybrid, not a tree that is native to the black forest, as a result the true pockets of the Black Forest are getting fewer and fewer. To tell them apart from the native trees, the type of foliage on the original forest pretty much stops the light reaching the floor, so it’s black as the ace of spades on the red forest floor, whereas the hybrid trees and the thinning let’s a lot of light into the floor of the forest. The other issue with the trees they plant is that the root system is very shallow so it doesn’t take much for them to be blown over or cause land slips.

I’m 2km into an 8km climb and I’m trying not to work up too much of a sweat because if I do it’s going to be cold going on the other side, anyway, I’m not succeeding very well on that. I’m now on a steep section which is currently 9% and up ahead it gets even steeper. I think I’ll be getting off to walk just to control the perspiration. Even though it’s only about 16 or 17° I am perspiring so much. I remember going up this climb on the gravel bike and it had been freshly surfaced with loose gravel. I’m thankful that this time it’s quite compacted because it was pretty tricky keeping traction last time I rode it. The gradient is now 17° and I’m working hard and I’m getting the words wrong. I’m very thankful of my 28 x 52 gearing at the moment, 28 being the chainring and 52 the cassette ring. Yes I’m going slow, about 3 1/2 km/h, that 6 km is going to take awhile. It’s now 20% still peddling. I’m now 4 km in at the halfway point. It’s on asphalt, hot mix to be precise, currently six or 7% moving along at 7 km/h.
I am now back on gravel. Looks like somebody’s ridden this today because there are bicycle tracks which would’ve been washed away with the rain last night and this morning. I’ve changed to a bigger gear, one or two harder than usual just to slow down the cadence and see if that improves or reduces the amount of perspiration. I was partway through reading an article from Trainer Road about peddling efficiency and whilst I didn’t get far enough into the detail, they were talking about something to do with the ideal cadence being much much lower than recognised practice. Interesting. I must complete reading that article. I’m keeping a cadence of about 70 at the moment.
I’ve reached the top of the climb now and I’m on the top of the ridge in a bit of a saddle. I’m going start looking out for blueberries cause I’m at that altitude where there may be some. It’s probably too late in the season.
It’s only 14° that feels very cool compared to yesterday. It was 32° every now and then the sun pops out. It feels nice. I think I’m going to have to stop and put on my rain jacket just for the decent to stay warm. No blueberries so far in the blackberry bushes disappeared.

I just took a photo of the forest but most specifically the ground cover in the forest which is what lots of blueberry bushes unfortunately there are definitely no blueberries on these bushes so I must be a month or two too late unfortunately. So for those that are reading my notes and looking at the photos you should almost be able to pinpoint if you’re on the computer where I took the photo on the course that I’m on.
Talk about a fantastic decent I’ve had a few in this trick. This one had it all some small short bits were asphalt but 90% of it was gravel., Loose gravel and as a result technically at speed I had a ball and during that descent I got to see a fighter jet swerving its way through the twist and turns of the valleys here the sound echoing of the Valley walls quite a spectacle.

I was at the 63km mark and it did not look like I would get back home till about 7 o’clock that was including a stop to eat my bread roll and I’m now 66 km halfway 8 km climb it’s actually harder than the first climb because this trail is way less developed, I think the only people that use it are hunters and is mostly overgrown now, not with long grass and well on the way to being reclaimed by nature; if this was June by the end of September this would be definitely overgrown given that it’s early September. I’m thanking my lucky stars. There’s no pavement I t’s just lots of rocks and grass. It’s a bit like paspalum but they’re about a metre tall so I’m having to push my way through and check for ticks, I just got one off my sleeve. Well the good thing is I’ve just joined a substantive road, much better. I still got 1.7 km of the climb to go but I’ve got some respite at the moment. It’s flat which means that the remaining slope estimate of 4% Is going to be more like 6 or 7% by the time I start going up again. I’ve already gone 200~300m on the flat that doesn’t show up on climb pro 1.6 km now still on the flat I’m assuming I’m on the course and yes I am. The last of the climb was about 7~15%