Hi Charmaine,
I just had a quick look at the Weser radweg website, and would offer these observations:
1) I've not ridden the Weser river route. I have ridden the Rhine route to the west, from Nijmegen to Mainz, (and eventually onwards to the Danube & Vienna); and further east, the N-S route from Rostock to Berlin.
2) My limited experience with German routes is that they're very well-planned, documented, and signposted. The Weser radweg website is no exception. And, when they run along rivers, especially if those rivers cross the Great Northern European Plain (as does the Weser route), those routes are generally quite gentle. There are short-steep sections (check the altitude profile of the Weser sections); those are often the approaches to bridges crossing the river.
3) When I rode the Rhine route in 2012, my friend David, from Amsterdam, came with me for the first section to Cologne. He used his Brompton, no problem.
4) If you're in any doubt, or if you want to explore hillier side-routes, I'd suggest your Bike Friday.
Hope that's helpful, Charmaine. Enjoy your safari (= "journey")! I've hugely enjoyed my cycling in Germany -- the landscapes, the fellow-cyclists, the cafés.
Cheers, John
Have another grand adventure, my friend! Will you be journal-writing about it?
Hi Keith! I'm just now seeing your post - - I had a great trip! I posted it on Facebook. :) I hope to do more European bike trips in the future! :) Hope you are doing well and also your Rodriguez bike! :)
Hello John - I'm just now seeing your post about the Weser Route - thank you! I had a great bike trip and enjoyed it very much. :) My Brompton did excellent on the trip - no problems. I will keep your advice in mind regarding hillier side routes, to use my Bike Friday. I agree! In fact, I recently got a new handlebar set-up done on my Bike Friday (switching from drop bars to a flat bar), and have been enjoying it. :) Where else have you bicycled in Germany and can you suggest some other routes? Thanks!
Thanks, Charmaine, glad it all worked so well for you.
I've made a couple of longer tours in & around Germany, both about ten years ago. Our daughter was living in Berlin between 2010 & 2015, so my wife and I visited her as often as we could -- happily, our work took us through Europe in those days, so we were able to arrange stopovers.
Beyond rides around Berlin--hugely enjoyable, esp if you have a local guide--I made two longer tours. In mid-Sept to early Oct 2012, I rode from Amsterdam to Vienna. That was my first tour in Europe, and my first long-ish tour, mostly solo. The route was actually south along the Rhine from Nijmegen to Mainz, then by train to Ulm, and thence along the Danube to Vienna. A longtime friend from Amsterdam accompanied me as far as Köln on his Brompton, and I rendez-voused with our daughter in Vienna, before taking the train N to Prague and Berlin.
That ride was easy and hugely enjoyable, and probably one best shared with someone close to you, at an easy pace.
At a similar time of year two years later, I made a tour from Berlin to Flensborg (just into Denmark) by train, and from there along the W coast of Denmark, by ferry into Sweden, south and then east to the Baltic coast, back to Germany via the ferry to Rostock, and south to the Brandenburg Gate. I shared the first part of this tour (the train and Denmark) with our daughter; the remainder I soloed. My Swedish ride took my through Ystad on the SE Baltic coast. It was my homage to Henning Mankell -- he set his Wallander novels in & around Ystad. That tour had a bit more variety than my Rhine/Danube ride, though the weather was a bit less clement.
Bother journeys were full of history, both family and public, and that's why I took them and probably enjoyed both so much. I have a journal from my Rhine/Danube tour. It's not yet posted on Cycleblaze--the original got lost in my hasty departure from crazyguy. If you're interested, I'm happy to edit that and share it with you. I don't have a journal from my Scandinavian venture (partly because my camera conked out on departure), but I do have notes.
If either of these is of interest, send me an email on
Cheers, John
We rode the Weser as part of a longer trip in 2015 my journal is ‘Three Reasons for Riding In Europe’. The Weser is full of interest and we found it well marked. There is a useful Bikeline book with maps etc. As it is largely following a river it is not too challenging. Links well with the Fulham to Frankfurt. Have a fantastic trip
I will be riding this route next month, and if you have ridden it, can you let me know if the terrain is mostly flat? Should I bring a Brompton (with only 6 gears), or a Bike Friday (which has 24 gears)? Thanks for your assistance! Charmaine
1 year ago