Bonn-Linz-Bonn 73 km

This route takes you along the Rhine River between Bonn and Linz, and makes a small detour into the Siebengebirge. It is a nice route with beautiful river views, wooded hills, castles, cityscapes, bridges and parks. Along the Rhine you generally take dedicated cycling paths, although near towns the cycling paths are generally mixed pedestrian/cyclist routes and you need to slow down. This track is suited for the racing bike. In Linz you need to take a ferry to cross the river (1,40 € fee January 2015). There are other ferries along the route offering an opportunity to take a shortcut. In the Siebengebirge, I had planned to climb the road to Drachenfels, but the road had frozen over and was very slippery, so I gave it a pass. If you add this climb (see waypoint ‘Drachenfels turn-off’), you add about 5 km to the route.
The route starts in Bonn, at the foot of the Friedrich-Erbert Brücke (see waypoint). You cross the bridge to the east bank and then turn south. You cycle through Bonn along the Rhine past the Kennedy Bridge and the Konrad-Adenauer Bridge, from where you start having good views of the Siebengebirge. In Königswinter, at the waypoint marked ‘Turn-off Siebengebirge’, you turn away from the river and slowly climb into the Siebengebirge along the Heisterbache Strasse. You pass the monastery ‘Kloster Heisterbach’, and shortly after turn right on a forest road to climb to about 250 m. On the day I rode this route, the forest road was iced in places (no winter service), and so I took it slowly. After a cross-roads near a restaurant you descend to the foot of the climb to Petersberg (see waypoint). From here you climb to the large hotel Petersberg (see waypoint). This road has winter service. There is a magnificent viewpoint (see waypoint) here across the Rhine River. After having enjoyed the view, you descend towards Königswinter. I wanted to climb the road to Drachenfels here (see waypoint ‘Drachenfels turn-off’), but that road was too slippery. In Königswinter, I climbed a bit towards the Drachenburg (see waypoint), but this road was quite steep and became slippery as well, so I turned back down along a steep road towards the valley station of the Drachenfelsbahn. From here, you go back to the Rhine and follow it towards Linz. On the way you pass Grafenwerth Island (see waypoint) and several nice villages. In Linz there is a small bridge across the railway I took (see waypoint), before you get to the ferry (see waypoint). After having crossed the Rhine to the west bank, you follow the Rhine close to the river back to Bonn, with nice views of the Wallfahrtskirche Sankt Apollinaris (see waypoint), the island Nonnenwerth (see waypoint), the Siebengebirge with Drachenfels and Drachenburg (see waypoint) on the way. You pass the center of Bonn, and continue towards the starting point.
At the start, there is ample free parking below the highway, if you come by car. In Bonn, you can make the connection to another track I put on Wikiloc which takes you north to Cologne and back (http://nl.wikiloc.com/wikiloc/view.do?id= 5998493).