Eifel and Black Forest Guided Motorcycle Tour

Five nights from Folkestone to the Black Forest and back by the Eifel, guided, with riders on their own bikes.

The Champagne region comes first through Epernay and Sezanne, which breaks the run across France and puts the first night somewhere worth stopping, then the long leg south-east to the Black Forest, which is the hardest day of the trip and mostly motorway.

A free day there covers the B500, the Schwarzwaldhochstrasse, which runs along the ridge for sixty-odd kilometres and is the most celebrated motorcycling road in Germany, busy with bikes at weekends and empty midweek, with Lake Mummelsee at the top of it and the Nagoldtalsperre reservoir below. Belgium follows on the way back, by way of German bakeries, then a free day for the Eifel, a volcanic upland of crater lakes and forest with the Nurburgring at its northern edge, where a lap of the Nordschleife is available on public days.

Five nights of bed and breakfast, four evening meals and the return Eurotunnel crossing are included, along with the GPX routes and the itinerary; fuel, parking, admissions and the vignette are not. Six days for two of the best riding regions in Germany means two long transit days to get there and back, which is the arithmetic of any short trip from the UK. The B500 is worth riding midweek if the dates allow, and the Eifel roads are quieter than the Black Forest ones at any time of the week. Both regions are at their best between May and September, when the high roads are clear and the evenings are long enough to keep riding.