Riding in Offenburg

Today I went riding in the Blackforest (Schwarzwald) just outside Offenburg.  Offenburg has it right when it comes to bikes.  I biked to the trailhead from the city centre in a clearly marked bike lane.  I think you could pretty much go anywhere on your bike.  For the most part, bikes had the right of way.  In the odd case, there would be little traffic lights with red and green bikes.  Clearly, it meant "bikes can go" or "bikes must stop".  I enjoyed this so much I said it outloud at every light.  The ride itself went up (and I really mean up) into the forest.  I was trying to get to Schloss Somethingsomething (the name is upstairs, and I can't remember), which in the end, I didn't quite get too.  I got lost for a bit (the trail was really well signed, except for a couple of major forks with nothing), and eventually I just hit a point where I didn't want to ride uphill any more.  I got to a sign that said the castle was another 2.5 km, which arguably is not far.  However, the sign was pointing to a hike-a-bike straight down (the trail had been fun singletrack for a while).  This would have been either walk or death singletrack, and I just wasn't willing to come back up.  Also, I made it to a fabulous vista 0.2 km past that fork, with a view of pretty much everything in the area.  There was a big tower to climb that must have been 5-6 stories up.  In the end, I think I biked up for 2.5 or 3 hours and down for 20 minutes or half an hour.  Weeeeee.

ps.  I have pictures, but I can't post them yet due to technical difficulties.  Maybe from Jayanti's place.  

pps.  Big plans for the weekend!  Jayanti's here, Bridget and Fran are back from Paris, and Toby's rented us a car.  First we're going drinking tonight (a sort of bus pub crawl) and then we're off to France.  Toby scored us tickets for Sunday to the soccer (I mean FoBball - the "B" being that weird German double s B thing) game.  Karlsruhe is supposed to be really good.