If you are a Dutchman who wants to take a mountain bike trip abroad, the Sauerland will soon be your choice. Many of our compatriots have already gone before you. And not without reason: this region has a mega good cycling infrastructure and not unimportantly: altitude difference! Actually, no matter which bike you go here with, the Sauerland will not disappoint.
Photos: Mark Prinsen
With five friends, I travel to Winterberg in early May. We will stay here at the Landal holiday park Winterberg in all luxury with a spacious cottage, sauna and hot tub. So post-bikeride wellness is taken care of. In winter, you can easily reach the ski lift right next to the park, and from our balcony we overlook the slopes and ski jump of Winterberg. There is even some snow here and there. We will make grateful use of these lifts this weekend!
But of course we are here to cycle. Winterberg is an MTB paradise and popular with many. Friday evening we are eager and, with the beautiful weather, we opt for a short reconnaissance ride. We don't regret this, the beautiful gravel roads soon lead us into the endless seeming forests. We see deer, birds of prey and enjoy the silence and peace around us. This is already a successful weekend!
Park service
At breakfast the next day, we use the park's sandwich service. This is super easy to order and so you have a fresh croissant and tasty rolls every morning to get well prepared for a long day in this cycling paradise. We choose Saturday for a real MTB ride in the trail park. Right around the park these trails are hidden, and at the end of the day you can finish with the Landal trail, which opens onto the park.
Trailpark means climbing
Trailpark does mean some serious climbing, as there is no lift assistance here like at the bikepark around the corner. But the descents are more than worth it! We start with nice blue flowy lines, but soon fall in love with the red and black singletracks. These are a bit steeper, have more roots and generally more challenging. What we super liked about these trails is that there are also two uphill singletracks! One flowy line with lots of hairpins and one more technical, steep line where you can train well on technical climbing. This leads to the aforementioned Landal Trail, and we ride this combination a few times during the weekend because of its high fun factor! Sometimes it takes some searching but generally the trails are well marked with signs. Back at the park, we hose down our bikes at the bikewash and switch on the sauna. Totally relaxed, we cook a pasta for dinner and are ready for another day on Sunday!
Investment in cycling
The Sauerland not only invests in the Ski infrastructure but also knows how to use it cleverly in summer by building Bikepark Winterberg & Willingen. From the Landal park you cycle to the bike park in 10min so this is a really good base to visit it! After buying a lift pass, we hit the first trail. First warm up with some laps in the kids&skills park, then on to the first blue flow line. Here you get down to one of the three lifts that serves most of the trails. The trails here are very cool and a good mix of flow, enduro trails with more roots, wooden features and trails for our airtime enthusiasts. We had a good time here and honed our skills again.
Checkout monday
Unfortunately, Monday it is already time to check out of our lovely cottage and head back to the Netherlands. But of course, we don't do that without riding another round. Besides the trail and bike park, there are also several XC/gravel routes laid out. We rode route 24, one of the longer routes. It was beautifully varied with mainly wide gravel paths and some stretches of bike path here and there. There were, however, a few times a dirty steep climb where the power had to be put on the pedals. We were happy with the GPX we had downloaded because in some places the signs were missing. All information on the routes for MTB, race and gravel bikes can be found on the website of the BIke Arena. Also read our article on this: Cycling in Sauerland: Bike arena on your doorstep
Conclusion: Winterberg is an MTB paradise
We can only draw one conclusion after this weekend: What a spectacular cycling region this is! And Landal Winterberg is the perfect base from which to explore this region with its lovely spacious cottages and location on the main MTB parks and beautiful gravel roads. On a road bike, too, you'll be out of here in no time on the beautiful roads through the Sauerland mountains. And at about three-four hours from Utrecht, it is a top destination for a weekend getaway! Will we see you soon in the Sauerland?
