If you do a lot of bicycling around Germany, you no doubt appreciate all the well-marked cycling trails. Sometimes it’s OK to just follow random routes and see where you end up; other times, you may have a specific destination in mind. If that’s the case, you can engage in some advance planning by visiting Web sites that allow you to plot out your bike route beforehand. Many of these sites work similarly to www.map24.com or www.mappy.com but for cyclists, allowing you to plug in your starting point and destination and then calculating a suitable route.

Most of the German sites that would aid a cyclist are based on the state you happen to be in, which can be a drawback if you plan to cross borders. For example, when I tried to calculate a route that started in Hessen and ended in Bavaria, Hessen’s site refused to kick out a response. When I kept my query within the confines of Hessen, however, it gave me not only a proposed route, but informed me of how long the journey might take, the temperature and wind direction in the towns through which I would pass, the height of the hills I would encounter, and a detailed description of when and where to turn.

Here are links to maps and related resources for cyclists by state:

Bavaria: http://www.bayerninfo.de/vib/bike/;jsessionid=C16CB1D744757C4EBB94F1FEFF2CEEAB

Hessen: http://www.radroutenplaner.hessen.de/\

North Rhine-Westphalia: http://www.radroutenplaner.nrw.de/RRP_rad_aus_02.html

Rhineland Palatinate: http://www.routenplaner.rlp.de/mapbender/frames/index.php?&gui_id=Tourenplaner%20RLP

Outside Germany

Netherlands: http://planner.holland.com/fietsroutes/RoutePlannerForm.jsp;jsessionid=470ABC4F69AF333B9522D9355769C823

Don’t see your geographical area of interest listed above? The North Rhine-Westphalia traffic information Web site provides links to a huge variety of maps, route calculators, and other resources to make planning that perfect bike trip a breeze. The links appear beneath the heading “Fahrrad,” about one-third of the way down the page.

http://www.verkehrsinfo.nrw.de/ort.asp?ort=NRW-Ausserhalb#3