About Martin Donat
Hey! :) Ich liebe das Radfahren und ich liebe es, andere an meinen Erlebnissen teilhaben zu lassen. Das mache ich in meinem Printmagazin, dem lifeCYCLE Magazine, das ich viermal im Jahr herausbringe. Und das mache ich hier, als offizieller Collection-Redakteur für komoot. Ich nutze komoot schon lange für meine Tourenplanung und freue mich darüber, meine Erfahrungen hier weitergeben zu können. Wenn ich sie nicht selbst ausprobiert habe, plane ich meine Collections genau so, als wenn ich selbst auf große Reise gehen würde. Ich recherchiere die besten Routen und empfehle dir Highlights, die ich selber spannend oder hilfreich finde. Wenn ich mal daneben liege und eine Route aus irgendeinem Grund nicht empfehlenswert ist, freue ich mich über dein Feedback. Ansonsten wünsche ich dir einfach viel Spaß auf dem Bike! :)
10,525 mi
841:22 h
Recent Activity
- Martin Donat
Hardly out of town, you're in the middle of a gravel paradise. Even with mountains! It was exhausting, but recommended for imitation throughout. There is more about it in the next LifeCYCLE Mag 👉🏻 lifecyclemag.de
April 24, 2021
- Martin Donat
And another chocolate ride under Corona conditions. The big trailer went to Weeze again to get new chocolate. I tell you: there is a lot of work in this chocolate! 🤪If you want to find out more about the chocolate ride, I have two more reading tips here:lifecyclemag.de/schokofahrt-die-storylifecyclemag.de/schokofahrt-2020
April 18, 2021
- 🚶♀️🐩 Rebecca 🏃♀️🚴♀️, Bernd Hallmann aka 'Jacominas Enkel' and 2 others like this.
- 🚶♀️🐩 Rebecca 🏃♀️🚴♀️, Bernd Hallmann aka 'Jacominas Enkel' and 2 others like this.
- Bernhard Neumayer, Lothar Cieborra and 35 others like this.
- Martin Donat
What can you do there? I tried it this way today: I set myself a goal that was easy to understand. Five times up Hegestrasse!Sounds feasible, even if the bitch has a 25 percent gradient. In the end it was 8.75 kilometers and almost 500 meters in altitude. Short and sweet and in any case better than nothing. 💪🤪🚴
April 8, 2021
- Mc Lorenz, 🚶♀️🐩 Rebecca 🏃♀️🚴♀️ and 4 others like this.
- Martin Donat
This is how a day can begin! In a wonderful Italian country estate surrounded by vineyards, it is not difficult to get that holiday feeling.The tour begins with an ascent of around 1,000 meters in altitude on the east side of the Etna. It is very different here than in the north and south. You mainly drive through the forest, but it always opens up, lets the sun through and offers great views.
Above the forest becomes lighter and suddenly you are back in this typical, surreal volcanic landscape. Here, however, it looks much richer in contrast, because in the middle of green forests a gray strip of desolate volcanic desert simply stands out much more clearly.A few cars are parked at the top of the mountain café, with a bit of luck you will meet other cyclists. This route is great for cycling and seems to be relatively popular. You will find out why exactly. Because the descent back to Zafferana Etnea is calling. Pure enjoyment, even if in Italy one wishes from time to time that one or the other Italian motorist would show a little more consideration for other road users. It is best to keep your eyes open a little and pay attention to what other road users are up to.Once at the bottom in the hustle and bustle of small towns in Italy you will agree with me that this was a great descent! And it's best to do what any Italian would do now - drink a delicious espresso and take a break. You have enough time to review this great tour in this unique volcanic landscape.From Zafferana Etnea, the return journey to Catania is waiting for you. You can do that by bike, as it only goes downhill. In Catania you can reward yourself with a detour to the beach.March 31, 2021
- Mc Lorenz, 🚶♀️🐩 Rebecca 🏃♀️🚴♀️ and 2 others like this.
- Martin Donat
Today there is a lot of "gravel" on the program. Starting from the agriturismo, it first goes a little uphill to the small town of Santa Maria di Licodia, where you can breathe a piece of real Sicily: narrow, loud, hectic but somehow cozy and warm. If you feel like it, it's best to find a small café and start the tour with a delicious Italian espresso. As soon as you have left this and two other towns behind you, there will be no more opportunities to do so.Instead, you slowly but steadily screw your way up narrow mountain roads and loose forest paths through the middle of the "Parco dell’Etna". Overstimulation for the senses "Powered by bicycle". Once at the top, a surprise awaits you: an absolutely stunning view of Mount Etna. The lava rock is repeatedly interrupted by splashes of color in places where life has taken control again. In the background the snow-capped summit of Mount Etna. Just wow!This is followed by a breathtaking descent over a washed-out farm road. High speed with a view. At the end of the descent you drive directly towards a hut that looks like an abandoned building from behind, but turns out to be a mountain hut including gastronomy from the front. Here you can enjoy the warm oven and fortify yourself with the pasta served by the friendly Italian. A great atmosphere - just be careful not to forget the time too much. There are still around 40 kilometers to the finish.Today's agriturismo in a spacious country house style is beautifully located in the middle of vineyards and has large rooms that offer enough space for bikes and bikers. Shower, pasta e buona notte!
March 31, 2021
- Mc Lorenz, 🚶♀️🐩 Rebecca 🏃♀️🚴♀️ and 3 others like this.
- Martin Donat
In front of you are 1,500 crisp vertical meters. Today we are going up the Etna for the first time. You start with the south side. And you would do well to take warm clothes with you, even if it is still pleasantly warm downstairs: it can get very cold, especially up in the mountains. Pack warm clothes to put on so you don't have to freeze and you can enjoy the descent later.Maybe you can treat yourself to a coffee in the starting point of Zafferana Etnea. But then it really starts. Slowly but surely, you pedal turn after turn up the pass and enjoy the wonderful view and the increasingly bizarre landscape, which is shaped by the volcanic rock. The higher you get, the more striking the lava desert becomes. There are hardly any large trees and you can almost feel the frightening atmosphere that has to reign every time Mount Etna erupts. Again and again you cross an obviously particularly “fresh” trail of devastation. The Etna is still extremely active and there have recently been remarkable eruptions. You can marvel at the lava flows of past eruptions again and again - at first glance they leave a dead trail of devastation. Only on closer inspection do you discover how nature and life are slowly returning. The result is bizarre, but still incredibly exciting, impressive and rich in contrast. Deep black lava rock paired with the fresh green of the various grasses and bushes and the rust-colored foliage of the autumn forest in those places that have been spared the fresh lava flow for a while. Every now and then you come across abandoned houses or their remains: Sometimes only the roofs of former accommodations peek out of the ground. The rest is buried under meter-thick lava rock.Once at the top, the tourist-looking restaurant welcomes you at the valley station of the Etna mountain railway. Also on Mount Etna, like everywhere in Italy, you can get super delicious coffee! So why not take a little break as a reward? If you want to go even higher, you could take a ride on the gondola. It will take you up to 2500 meters in no time, from up there you can either ride your bike on a sporty single trail or on the super fast gravel road back to the valley station. The ride with the gondola up the mountain gives you an action-packed descent and a great extra adventure on Etna. Driving up there yourself - you would have to be pretty motivated for that.Back at the valley station, the actual reward for the hour-long uphill follows. The descent that follows is amazing. Permanent this prospect! Either you have a clear view down to the coast or a creepy lava landscape opens up in front of you. Either way, an impressive backdrop. Even when the weather doesn't cooperate and it's foggy and cloudy. Then the mood becomes all the more mystical.You are slowly but surely returning to civilization. Biancavilla is a larger city just before the goal. If you want to buy anything else, do it here. Because the agriturismo that I used to stay overnight and can recommend to you is lonely on a country road. There you won't get anything far and wide. The culinary recommendation of the day: pizza. No Italian can go wrong with that ...
March 31, 2021
- Martin, Kevin Münkel and 109 others like this.
- Martin Donat
It all started with the fact that this measure was planned to install a movement restriction of 15 kilometers around one's own place of residence to contain the pandemic. I asked myself: what does that actually mean? How much (or how little) is 15 kilometers? My #rideFAR tour that came out of it gave me a lot of answers to this question!The tour was not originally planned as a #rideFAR round. In any case, I began to lay a route that was based as precisely as possible on a 15-kilometer radius around the weather where I live. Tools for this were sprouting up like mushrooms and with this specification it wasn't that difficult to design a tour with komoot afterwards. My second requirement became more difficult: I wanted to drive "off-road" whenever possible. So if possible, no larger roads, but side roads, dirt roads, typical “gravel paths” or even a few trails. When I was finished, I realized: My lap is not only a straight “orbit”, but also has a length of almost exactly 180 kilometers! Yeah - so there it was, my idea for #rideFAR!Okay, I'll admit that the almost 4,000 vertical meters that komoot showed me in the planning tool gave me something to think about. That's why I planned to leave Dortmund's main train station early in the morning in order to get the “big chunk” over with right at the beginning and then to let the tour roll out later. This idea was basically a good one. I can still tell you: that was a real monster! It felt like it was only uphill, sometimes so steep that I had to push every now and then. Here and there there were trails that would have been worthy of a full-blown mountain bike tour. A couple of times the path was "gone" - buried by fallen trees or simply not there. In short: It was a really tough, but ingenious adventure! With all the effort I had a great day, I didn't even think about giving up and I'm still totally thrilled. I left at 6 a.m. and was back in Dortmund at 8:30 p.m. - there is no better way to use a day (and the daylight).This tour has it all, but I would recommend it, with the exception of a few places, as a follower if you should be looking for a nice challenge. Since cool is there: you are never far away, namely always almost exactly 15 kilometers away from the weather. You will also pass a few train stations so that you can quit at any time. And there are countless places in the Ruhr area and the surrounding area from which you can easily join the tour.The best thing about this tour, however, is that it has a real message to everyone who thinks you can't live without limitless mobility:
- On that day, I drove an estimated 95 percent of the ways, trails and roads that I have never been on before.
- I drove through a wide variety of landscapes, for example through the Sauerland, the Bergisches Land and the middle of the Ruhr area. It was like a real time-lapse vacation.
- I got to know my surroundings in a completely new way. I never thought that I could do such a low-traffic tour here. It's amazing how many off-road trails there are winding through the area. You just have to look for it!
- I got so worried that I was just flabbergasted afterwards. No wonder: After all, I conquered the Stelvio Pass more than twice in terms of altitude - and on off-road paths, not over slippery asphalt.The moral of this tour in a nutshell. If you think 15 kilometers are too narrow, too boring, too used, I recommend: Take a tour like this, then we'll talk again. If you think you have to travel somewhere else for a great experience: Take a tour like this, then we'll talk again. And if you think you have to fly to Malle or somewhere else for proper training: Take a tour like this, then we'll talk again.I am still flashed. Thank you #rideFAR for this beautiful day on the bike!March 31, 2021
