For our first E-bike trip in Germany we selected as starting point the town of Schierke. If you would happen to be somewhere around here do not miss the oportunity to visit also Wernigerode. Even though it was stuck in the East Germany for almost two generations, you will be hard pressed to find any signs of that history.
Expectations for biking on marked bike roads was very high – we thought that we will experience nicely maintained asphalt roads – but, well, not many parts were smooth asphalt covered. On this trip you will be crossing from the former East Germany to West Germany and back – you will see the old border markers. One of them is in the middle of the lake dam.
However, the most remarkable is the shape of the forest in this national park Harz. We wrote about the damage done to the forests by burning bad coal in power plants followed by infestation of a bark beetle when we traveled through Šumava. But here you can see the devastation in much larger scale. And the recovery is just at very early stages.
For this ride you should definitely use the mountain bike and E-bike is a godsend. We even avoided the climb to the top of Brocken from point 5, this saved us about 200 m elevation gain. But if you are in better shape than we, you may attempt that. Our excuse was also the late afternoon and need to travel some more after return.
At point 4 you may enjoy fresh water from the natural source. After crossing the dam pay attention to a very rough path with a lot of tree roots. However the most annoying are the parts of the path paved with the concrete panels. But in any case, this trip will give you a good idea about the Harz national park. An alternative is to take a narrow gage rail from Schierke to top of Brocken…
https://en.mapy.cz/s/bakebazuje 36.6 km, 824 m elevation gain. To see this E-bike trip in context, check our interactive maps.
