Biking through Alscase Route du Vin - suggestions?
 

Some friends and I will grab our bikes for just the day and take an early morning train from Zurich-Alscase wine region next weekend, and are seeking advice for biking the Route du Vin. Any suggestions on an ideal route? We don't necessarily need to start in Colmar, but were thinking we would concentrate on one portion of the Route starting at one of the "major" towns to another.

Just wondering which portion of the Route du Vin people thought was the nicest? Have you ever biked it? Any favorite wineries? Thanks!

Just realised I butchered the spelling - Alsace is what I was going for...

I'm not a bicyclist - but we've spent abpout 2 weeks or so exploring that region. IMO, the Route du Vin is not really a good place to bike. Too much auto traffic & commerce. There is a much better bike path just to the west of the Route du Vin going through the same villages. The bike route is well marked. Go into Riquewihr & circle the town & you'll spot the route. It goes on less-traveled & smaller roads in the vineyards. We stayed in a gite for a week & this route passed our gite.

Stu Dudley

Stu is correct about the bike route being better than the Rte du Vin.

I believe that it goes from Colmar to Kientzheim, Riquewhir, Ribeauville and Bergheim. I haven't been on it beyond that.

((I))

Great, and it's easy to see the wineries even from the bike path? Just curious as to which "portion" of the path you felt was best...

Many of the wineries have tassting rooms in the villages - so if you go from village to village, you'll encounter winery tasting rooms. The Gite we stayed in is actually a winery also, but their tasting room was elsewhere.

Stu Dudley

Whether on the Route or the bike path, you will pass by lots of vineyards. Few of those vineyards have 'wineries'on them, and even fewer have tasting rooms. As previously mentioned, the tasting rooms, or caves, are generally located in villages. Marcel Deiss, for example, has a splendid tasting facility on the outskirts of Bergheim, while his vineyards are located elsewhere.
If you taste wines, it is expected that you might purchase a bottle or two of something that has taken your fancy. Carrying bottles on a bike might present a difficulty, particularly if your tasting has been enthusiastic!

This has been excellent advice with regard to the wine caves! Glad I posted this on the forum before we left :) Also in my research I found this site with all of the Alsatian wine festivals, looks like they have some nice harvest festivals on the docket: http://www.vinsalsace.com/IMG/pdf/Sc...vents_2010.pdf

The bike route is the thing, however here are some other thoughts

1) Colmar is a bit touristy so lets assume you arrive at the station there. You need to head West towards Equisheim. (nasty little road with some scary bits but doable going West (horrible going East so try to come back along a back road
2) Generally (but not totally true) the Southern wine area (Haut) is the better wine area so I'd tend to go SOuth
3) Going South I know the bike route and the occasional road/vinyard track is good riding
4) Try to get out to Rene Mure by the motorway its worth the visit
5) Shlumberger is also worth the tour.

THe 67 or 68 departmental (i forget) tourist information web site is pretty on the bike routes

sorry there is a c in schlumberger

Hi kb,

>it's easy to see the wineries even from the bike path? <

The bike path goes through the vineyards, Each town will have several to many spots for tasting, eg, I think that there are four wineries in Kientzheim. More in Kaysersberg.

((I))

did I mention Materne Haeglin

Where is a good place to rent bikes? Also, can one rent bikes for more than one day? Does anyplace allow rental in one town and return in another? are the wineries and tasting rooms open on mondays?

There are a bunch of bike links at http://www.mybikeguide.co.uk/Alsace_Bike_Hire.php

Colmar has a place and Eguisheim has one too.
Multiple days are available
Hire and return in different places (unlikely) so you have two choices, ask the guy to come and get your bike as part of the booking process, possible you need to ask or, alternatively catch a train back with your bike (very easy to do). If you look at the other pages on the above website you can see where all the stations are and a good number are along the wine route.

We biked from colmar 2 of the last 3 years. We rented bikes from cycles geiswiller on avenue champs de mars, right off of place rapp. We rented some nice hybrids (VTC) and he gave us helmets and spare tubes and tools in the event of a flat.

I had a book, Alsace a velo, but he actually had some xeroxed maps that were better. We went to Munster one day through a forest, mostly on a dedicated bike path. It was great.

We rode along the colmar canal to marckosheim where we ate lunch before returning--also very nice ride.

I rode up to Riquewihr and Ribeauville early in the morning on the route de vins (sans wife and kids)--it was a great ride as well although you will encounter more traffic on this.

Short rides to Eguisheim, Wintzenheim and just around colmar are nice as well. Stumbled on a fantastic paved bike trail through the woods on the way back from Riquewihr (off of the route de vins) one day which ended up in colmar.

There's also a nice bike path along the river in Ingersheim.

We rented from the place at Place Rapp owned by the town the first year and the bikes were kind of ragged out and they didn't have any equipment to give us to fix flats so we didn't venture nearly as far.

It's a super place to ride. Hope to go back some day and do it again.