This morning we started at the Geißkopf bike park, but without paying attention to the downhill routes, jumps and North Shore trails. Bike park manager Diddie Schneider had piqued our curiosity on our last visit: "The Bavarian Forest has the best freeride trails. And just over the border in the Bohemian Forest there are even more wild smuggler trails - a dream. But hardly anyone knows about them," Diddie told us and laughed out loud when he heard we were going to set off in search of them. "You'll never find them!"
Diddie Schneider is certainly right, but he doesn't know Hannes. The little man from the Black Forest, who looks like Sandokan with his long, thick hair, is our map expert. Instead of a colourful jumble of contour lines, Hannes sees a mountain ridge, instead of markings in all colours, single trails, instead of hatched areas, he locates the ideal camp site for the night. The guy seems to have "Google Earth" programmed into his brain. He sees maps in 3D and that alone makes him a friend to us all. Many of our tours began without a plan and in the end we found trails that were later praised in BIKE as dream trails, travelled and praised many times over.
You can read how to ford the Black Rain and conquer the Großer Osser in the PDF download below.
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Dimitri Lehner
Editor
