After finishing an exploratory trip to investigate the Danube for a tour (OK… it was a River Cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest on the Rhine-Main-Danube Rivers but I did check out the bike trails), I’m heading to Frankfurt to start preparations for this year’s spring Main River Adventure.

So far, I’ve met with my bike shop to make sure we’d be ready for a Wednesday pickup, I’ve spent the last two days seeing family in the area around Schweinfurt and today will be a shopping day for me…. if I find a reasonable pair of Lederhosen, they’ll be coming home with me!!

Tomorrow, I return to Frankfurt to pick up the bikes Wednesday morning and stage them at the start of the ride, in Bayreuth.

Bayreuth is near the headwaters of the Red Main River which will join the White Main River closer to Bamberg. Bayreuth is also home to a couple of Opera houses and is known as one of the major places Richard Wagner worked. If you don’t immediately know of him, I feel very sure you know of his work as music in Bugs Bunny cartoons!! “What’s Opera, Doc?”, of course, is the classic example. But I digress….

Anyway, after the bikes are staged in Bayreuth, I’ll return to Frankfurt and wait for the group to arrive by Thursday morning and we’ll head to the start for our ride to start Friday morning.

6 days of riding approximately 60 miles a day… kind of like RAGBRAI but flatter and with Castles and Vineyards. Beautiful countryside on dedicated cycleways is to be enjoyed with every pedal stroke. 360 miles later, we will have arrived at the 0.0 marker where the Main River ends, joining the Rhine River at Mainz.

So…. join us on this ride and vicariously enjoy some of the sights on the Main Radweg (Main Cycleway). I’d love for you to be able to smell and taste the food and beer/wine but for that you’ll need to come on one of our tours.

We do the 60 mile/day Spring ride on the Main, a 30 mile/day Fall ride in the Franconian wine country and a non-riding Bavarian Christmas Market tour as well. Plus, we regularly throw a unique ride in the mix…. The Rhine River Ride through 4 countries, ending at the North Sea or The Danube River Ride from Regensburg to Budapest.

But for now, enjoy the trip! I’ll be posting daily beginning Thursday.