King of Schauinsland

Southern Germany is a bicyclist's heaven. The scenery is gorgeous, and almost every highway (except the Autobahn) in Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg seems to have a bike path running parallel with it. But Freiburg is clearly the hottest of all bicycling hot-spots. In 2007, Deutsche Welle reported that the city had twice as many bicycles as cars. According to the city's own website, Freiburg has over 400 km of designated bike paths, and about 30% of transportation in town is by bike. Freiburg even has a "glass shards hotline" for reporting flat-tire risks on the roads.

Here is my handsome husband on Sunday morning before setting off to ride in the Schauinslandkoenig Bergzeitfahren (the Schauinsland King mountain time trial race), which covered 11.5 km distance while ascending 800 meters up Freiburg's highest mountain. There were bicycles, duple and triple tandems, unicycles, in-line skaters, hand-powered cycles, recumbents, and bikes towing kiddie trailers. Stefan finished respectably in the middle of the pack of 950 but passed on the opportunity to put a crown on his head and have his photo taken at the top (in this race, everyone is "ein kleiner Koenig").