Starting from Wien Floridsdorf, the route runs through the Weinviertel and Waldviertel, then on through central Bohemia. Once the Zittau Mountains are behind you, it descends into Upper and Lower Lusatia and finally heads straight
for Berlin. The finish is, by tradition, Tempelhofer Feld, and on the final stretch the net descent works in your favour.
The start is close to Wien Floridsdorf station in the 21st district. It is easy to reach by regional trains, the S-Bahn and U-Bahn, and by bike from Wien Hauptbahnhof. From Berlin, Vienna is well connected by ÖBB (night) trains and by long-distance coaches.
Long-distance coaches are usually available at short notice, and in our experience taking a bike along is straightforward. Most run overnight, so you reach Vienna in the blink of an eye.
Train and bike could be a perfect match, but in practice it is often complicated. In general you can travel with the ÖBB Nightjet (nightjet.com); booking directly with ÖBB is usually cheaper than via DB. In concrete terms:
a) In our experience it is often easier to pack the bike in a dedicated bag (e.g. “tranZbag”, “Rinko Bag”) – it then counts as luggage rather than a bike – than to secure one of the few bike spaces.
b) On the Nightjet you can reserve a whole four-berth compartment fairly cheaply. Two people with two bikes fit in quite comfortably.
Vienna has countless places to stay.
On past visits we have had very good experiences with the Austro-Brazilian design hotel Rioca and are happy to recommend it.
For the ’22 edition the team went for the slightly obscure option of camping right in the city at Campingplatz Neue Donau. On the very large site no reservation is needed – you simply check in. It is a little noisy but well located, with short, bike-friendly routes into the centre and to the start. Since camping before the camping is a fitting way to do it, we can genuinely recommend this option.
Around 1900 the finish was an old customs house on Tempelhofer Feld. The house is gone, but after a lap of the field you have every option to travel on by U-Bahn and S-Bahn to the main station.
The elevation profile is comparatively relaxed; mostly you are dealing with rolling hills. It gets steeper beyond the Austrian border and again before the German one. Towards the end, the difficulty fades out in a gentle decrescendo.
The term gravel has to stand for all sorts of things these days. With us, gravel really means gravel. You need not fear bike-and-hike or detours onto the motorway. Our carefully scouted routes prioritise fine gravel tracks and surfaced forest roads. We only switch to quiet roads for unavoidable connecting sections. That makes the route easy to plan and pace. Our route is based on the free CXB route planner. For it, the extensive open-source community toolkit was adapted specifically for gravel cycling: gravel tracks are highlighted visually across Europe, so you can factor them into your planning. We tested the planner extensively around Berlin and, among other things, while scouting Vienna-Berlin.
In the tracks themselves we also mark supply points such as supermarkets, petrol stations and shelters as POIs.
For a comfortable, sporty ride we recommend a well-maintained gravel, cyclocross or adventure bike. A hardtail MTB is fun too. A classic road bike with tyres up to 25 mm, however, is not suitable. In dry conditions an all-road bike will mostly be a good choice on this route; in rain and mud you should use every millimetre of tyre width available. The route has different sections: wide forest tracks, fast descents on dusty trails, and short gravel ramps that can be coarser near the tops. With disc brakes you have ample braking power. Tyres between 35-45 mm and – depending on your off-road experience – a semi-slick or treaded tyre are recommended; better safe than sorry. For more comfort, choose the wider tyres. The climbs are short but steep in places, so we recommend a 1:1 gear ratio.
