30. May 2003
Well, with all the talk about the 50th anniversary of the first climbing of Mount Everest, I decided that it was about time to take my own little trip to the mountains. The mountains near Dresden are not exactly 8000m giants in Nepal, but the mountain range Erzgebirge (which means Ore Mountains) with the highest point being Fichtelberg at 1214m, was enough for me and my (more or less) faithful bike. For my orientation I took along the bike map of Dresden’s surroundings (1:100000) that my roommate gave me for my birthday- Thanks Stefan! Sadly I forgot to adjust my camera for distance pictures and all the pictures turned out blurry. Oh well, the best pictures are in my head! I wasn’t sure if I would make the entire tour in one day because I have almost no experience with bike riding in the mountains. To be sure, I brought a bed roll and sleeping bag with me, as well as a couple coins to call Jenny at night!
To warm up I took the Elbe Bike-Way nice and easy from Dresden to Pirna. There isn’t much to say about this stage, because I have driven there now countless times. The amount of broken glass on the bike path was, however, very frustrating. I know that the day before was Mens-Day (Männertag), but I have never seen it so bad before. I think the sudden increase in broken glass on the streets and bike paths is due to the new security deposit system in Germany. With the intention of keeping beer cans off of the streets, a deposit of 25 cents was mandated for beer cans (and other drink packaging as well). So now people are throwing the glass beer bottles on the streets, because they only have a deposit of 8 cents. I wish people would think about others (especially their bike tires!) a little more before smashing the bottles.
Anyway, in Pirna I left the Elbe Bike-Way and got on the Bike-Way Bayreuth-Zittau. Shortly later I met with the first long climb of the day. Luckily I was still fresh and made it from Zuschendorf to Nenntmannsdorf. Here it started to get really warm and sunny. The view was also starting to get really good, as the Elbe Valley started to fade away. After a long series of riding up and down and up and down (including a hard climb after Liebstadt due to a mistake in map reading!) I arrived in Zinnwald. There I found an Edeka and refilled on water (I needed 8 liters total for the day!). After a little confusion and another hard climb in Rehefeld the bike path turned into field and dirt paths. This was nice because I didn’t have any cars to deal with. It was also very pretty. After a long strait paved part of the path, a turned off and headed for Rechenberg-Bienenmühle to cath the Freiberger Mulde.
I took the Mulde to Freiberg, which was nice and flat. The last rough climb was in Bertholdsdorf. I don’t know if it was as steep or long as the others, but I was totally kaput after the long day of ups and downs, that I gave up and pushed my bike up the slope.
From Freiberg I took the Silber Strasse to Löbtau. This was finally the down-hill stage I had been waiting for the whole time. It was also a sight worth seeing, especially through the Tharandter Forest and Kurort Hartha in the evening. In Naundorf I saw a large scale chess board with large figures. Too bad the picture didn’t turn out. As I arrived in Kurort Hartha I was very happy. Finally I had reached the point, from where I now the route home by heart. I knew then that I would make it back before dark: 100 mountainous miles in 1 day!
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Tour Statistics
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 Over 100 miles through the Erzgebirge |
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Dresden |
Postal Marker near Fürstenwalde |
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Fürstenau |
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near Zinnwald |
a long path |
a forest path |
break time |
Arrival in Kurort Hartha |
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Sunburn |
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