Over the Thuringian Forest

The forest in front of me

The evening before, I looked at the rest of the route to my halfway point — Gera, my hometown — and thought: that’s not far, I could have done that today.

I could not have done that today. I’d set off late, rolled into Flieden late in the afternoon, and learned that a few hundred kilometers of country road take considerably longer than a few hundred kilometers of anything else. Reaching Gera the same day would have meant arriving completely wrecked. Not a great idea in general, and a terrible one on my first long tour.

So the overnight stop in Flieden was, annoyingly, the sensible choice.

Flieden itself was a small surprise. Not a village, not quite a town. Something in between. Calm, in the way places are when nobody is trying to sell you anything.

Beautiful, not easy

The day’s route was a little shorter than the first one and, as it turned out, a lot harder. Riding through the Thuringian Forest is not easy.

Beautiful, yes. Easy, no. Not for a rider as careful as me. Steering nearly 240 kilos of motorcycle through narrow bends was one thing. Staying patient with the drivers behind me — who wanted to overtake in exactly those narrow bends, because I was too slow — was another.

It wore me out, mentally and physically. I was very happy to leave the forest behind and roll into Gera in the afternoon.

Lesson of the day

Forest roads are gorgeous and not remotely forgiving. Riding them with confidence takes practice, which is a polite way of saying I need more of it.