German is an awesome language: you can make as many new nouns as you will by compounding nouns and names together.  The above noun is made out of the name of the area (Saxony), Rad which means wheel and also, in Californian, radical, and Abenteuer which is adventure, in German.  So there you have it.  Three days in the wild side of the deep east came and went, but the level of excitement and stokeness remains.

It all started with Neil of Cedar Cycling announcing his intention to visit Berlin and to go on a bike tour.  Neil also reminded me that he has been choosing motorcycle over his beautiful Kelly Bedford which meant that my need for distance had to be curtailed.  I planned a 550 km tour along the border with the Czech Republic from Dresden to a city in Bavaria called Passau which I figured we could easily accomplish in 4.5 days of riding.  We had no hotel bookings, no real daily targets and a very small amount of gear with us.  We called this hobo-touring as we limited our gear to whatever could be inserted into a Revelate half-frame bag, a seat bag, and jersey pockets.

The train from Berlin to Dresden takes a total of 2 hours. If you get the right train you can take your bike with you without needing to box it up (the difference between using the ICE and the IC trains – the E stands for express).  We got out of the train station in Dresden and headed to the first part of the tour – an old German post road which I discovered while trolling around Wikipedia for routes of historical significance.  This was roughly the only part of the tour which followed any sort of plans.  We were out of the city and quickly into the hills surrounding Dresden in a matter of 30 minutes and from there the environment changed quickly to rural farmland with narrow roads and many hills.

We tried to stick to the post road as much as we could, but probably did not adhere to the route too religiously.  There were simply too many interesting things to see and as soon as the environment changed to lush green we stopped caring about the destination and enjoyed the scene, stopped to take pictures and when possible get some coffee or ice cream.  It was hot and somewhat humid so finding water sources was also high on the agenda as well as sparing Neil’s legs for the rest of the tour.

We did notice, when riding through some of the little towns, that the houses that looked the oldest had windows that looked creepishly like eyes.  One of these houses even stood outside of an impressive looking castle and looked more menacing then the actual castle that was towering over it.  This little village was also when we decided to head into a village that appeared, at least on the map, to sit on the edge of a large lake.  We constantly were in a state of not knowing how far the next target was, but Garmin actually was pretty good at telling the distance once we figured out where we were heading.

By the time we made it to Bad Gottleube it was already 17:00.  We sat down for a coffee and decided to check out the Bed and Breakfast in the tiny town.  They had a two-room, joined shower, combo which was going to cost each of us 30 Euro for the night with breakfast and Internet – we decided that this was the correct place to park ourselves.  We took the keys to the rooms and decided to ride up to the top of Augustusberg which towered at 507 meters (1663 feet) above the village.  We figured that there would be a hotel there with a terrace and a dinner menu and indeed we were not disappointed.

It became clear that the tour is not destination driven, but rather sights oriented.  So the next day, having found a local map that showed the sights, we circled some targets and decided to head out towards the very east corner of Saxony and catch as many of the attractions as we could.  The area is called “Saxony-Switerland” and not for nothing. With the Elbe river running deep between strange geological structures, plenty of rainfall and sparse population, we felt as if we were touring a far away land.

As the second day progressed and the realization that we are not headed to our original target cemented itself, I felt more relaxed and was able to enjoy the sights.  Both Neil and myself stopped on our tracks when we finished a climb, turned a curve in the road, and saw the majestic and incredibly weird Königstein fortress.  This was really the moment where we sat down on a bench, took the incredible view in and were excited.  We also discovered 4 leftover homemade pickles we picked up at a tiny village supermarket (they came in plastic bags and were homemade) and snacked in full view of the fortress.  Pictures were taken and the ride continued in a northern direction towards the river Elbe.

We followed the river for a short while, took a ferry across and disappeared into the forest again.  I had an idea of where we were heading, but no idea on the actual route to get there.  At some point the bike path split into gravel and road and we made the natural decision to follow the gravel path, which quickly turned into a forest path. Garmin protested and insisted on making a U-Turn, but we ignored.  To my amusement, if we ignored Garmin long enough, it eventually decided to take us on the best and least explored roads through the forests.  This occasion, where we accidentally ended up in the National Forest of Saxony-Switzerland, was so packed with surprises, that we tried the trick as often as possible.

As we were rolling at a good speed in the forest, we took another corner and we both pulled on our brakes at the same time.  In the distance we saw a collection of huge rocks that appeared to have sprouted from the forest.  We rode closer and I went exploring while Neil explored the forest.  The stones were at least 2-300 meters tall and appeared to just be stuck in place in the middle of the forest.  They all bore exotic names like Goldstein (Gold stone), Affesteine (Monkeys stones) etc.  I was amazed that we even got to where we are since it was certainly unplanned and not clearly shown on the map we now had.  Not only did the landscape looked wild we also had amazing descends in the forest and eventually arrived to the end of the forest.

Right before leaving the forest, Neil, who was riding my Adventure-touring Hunter broke the rear-deraileur cable.  We tried to bring it back into functioning mode for a while, but miserably failed. Instead we swapped shoes and I rode Hunter, as a single speed bike locked on 22 teeth in the front and 12 on the back, while Neil took my Seven Mudxium S.  We made it into a tiny village called Hinterhermsdorf which looked like it was the east most point on the map and found a small hotel to stay.

The third day started with a single speed ride to Sebnitz, a town slightly to the north west of our hotel, where we found Egert, a bike mechanic, that could fix the cable.  7.5 Euro and 30 minutes later we were ready to hit the road again.  This time we wanted to head west towards a mountain-top fortress called Hohnstein and then ride down to the Elbe before heading back to Dresden to jump the train back to Berlin.  We climbed and climbed and again decided to take the other roads than the ones Garmin originally planned for us.  This time each of the decisions were more and more rad.  Ways that somehow existed in the Garmin map but clearly were not used in years and years.  We did not care, in fact we were grateful to find all these routes and pretty much just looked for more all the time.  We had sections that were covered in clay-like stones and sections that were clearly formed by river run-offs and ones that probably last saw any wheels when Germany was still split into two countries.  The last section was probably the most exciting and challenging and included many boulders.  While I managed to hop around most, one boulder did manage to jump at me at the end and succeeded in taking a huge bite out of my front rim.

This was the end of the getting rad fun.  I could hear the rim deform and could see the spoke loosen.  While I could still ride, with a very wobbly front wheel, we knew that we could not put a lot of distance on the wheel.  The loose spoke started banging on the TRP Spyre caliper, but lasted nicely until we got back to the Elbe river, took the train back to Dresden and then got on the train to Berlin.

Distance-wise this was a day’s riding.  But as Neil correctly pointed out, we had all our stuff with us, we moved from one point to the next, we had no idea where we’re sleeping the next night and we got to discover an incredible landscape that’s only 2 hours train ride from home.  I consider the tour amazing as well as a preparatory tour for the next adventure in Saxon.  Great things are coming and they’re closer than you think.