Munich Second Bike Ride

On Sunday Emily and I went back into Munich to rent bikes from the MW Touristik service near the Isartor. The bikes were new and well-maintained, and didn’t have advertisements for the rental company hanging off them. This lack of “tourist identifier” was nice. My only mistake was opting for a men’s bike, which made the 2,000 mounts and dismounts I made to check maps or take pictures tiresome.

We had marked a Munich Bikeway map we bought Saturday with red dots on streets that represented all the different bike lane and bike path configurations in their system. The Munich planners identify three distinct types of bicycle infrastructure within their system. Bike lanes are painted on the street. Bike paths are designated bicycle space along sidewalks. Bike roads are similar to what we would call greenbelts or bike paths, and are usually solely for bikes. Variations on those are shown below.

-Priority bike routes on all kinds of street, plaza, or green space:

Sign indicating bicycle routes to various locations in Munich.

-One-way bike lanes on both sides of the street.

-One way bike paths off the street on marked space on the sidewalk.

-One way bike paths off the street on space shared with pedestrians.

-Two way bike roads (which we would call paths) off the street on bike-only space.
-Two way bike roads through green belts and parks.
-Two way bike roads (usually quite wide) on space shared with pedestrians through greenbelts and parks.
-One way bike lanes on one way streets.
-Two way bike lanes on one way streets.

And many more.

Once we had marked a few representative possibilities, we plotted out a route near the City Center so we could ride a nice loop in a reasonable amount of time.

A bike tunnel on a shared bicycle/pedestrian road.

Our first destination was a neighborhood on the east side of the Isar River. Then we doubled back to the greenbelt on the east side of the river, which we rode to the north. At times it is narrow, just a two-way bike and pedestrian path between a street paralleling the river and the steep forested banks leading down to the water. But much of it is wide enough that we could see neither the river nor any sign of the urban development to the east. Several times we rode through wide swales with sunny grass-covered hillsides scattered with picnickers and sunbathers. Wide tunnels allowed us to continue unimpeded where a few major streets cross the greenbelt and the river.

At one point I saw an adult cyclist wearing a helmet, and commented that I had not noticed any helmets until that point. We began counting, and maybe half an hour later had seen about 20 helmets on adults (who we assumed wore them by choice). We had passed maybe ten times that many cyclists in this time. So clearly there is no helmet law here, and our non-scientific survey suggests most people believe riding without one is safe. However, our friend Bernhard insists the real need is a motorcycle-like helmet that will protect against being struck by a car, which he feels is the greatest risk in the system. Others we talked to felt the biggest risk comes from reckless cyclists, and that cars are, on the whole, very mindful of the bikes on the road.

Crossing the Isar at the mill.

We rode several miles north in this pastoral paradise, then crossed the river at the site of a large mill. The bike and pedestrian bridge offered views of the gravel island in the middle of the river, again crowded with residents enjoying the warm summer weekend day. This stretch of green space extends many miles farther to the north, and eventually out of the city and into the countryside. This east side greenbelt is much less crowded and "developed" than the bigger spaces of the Englischer Garten to the west of the river. What an incredible gift to the residents it is.

Continuing across the river at the mill site, we entered the northern portion of the Englischer Garten itself. It is marked by thick forest interspersed with vast meadows, with occasional snack stands or larger buildings. The latter are primarily beer gardens, as you might imagine in Bavaria.

Side note: Did you know the first food purity standards in the world come out of Bavaria, over 400 years ago? By decree beer may contain only four ingredients – barley, hops, yeast, and water. Priorities.

Bicycles parked along fences at a biergarten.

Even without seeing the buildings or hearing the oompah music, the beer gardens can be identified from a distance by the clots of bicycles around the entrances. Most of the primary pathways through the park are bordered by simple iron bar fences. Bikes were packed two and three deep along these fences on both sides of the pathways and randomly pushed into the bushes for a hundred feet or more from the entryways. At the Hirschauer beer garden entryway parked bikes narrowed the space leading through the gateway and far into the garden itself to less than half its width.

Riding through the east side greenbelt had been a fairly high-speed pedal, but we had to take care when we were passing pedestrians and oncoming bicyclists. By contrast, riding in the park on this crowded afternoon involved steady weaving through pedestrians walking in all directions and other cyclists threading their way through the mobs.

Once free of the park, we rode on narrow but well-marked two-way bike paths between busy streets and the river. This was at times stressful as we encountered cyclists coming the other direction two abreast, or were passed by faster cyclists heading our direction. I’m sure we were guilty of moving violations at times, but no citations were issued.

As we returned the bikes, our reflections on the ride were revealing. Three impressions come to the fore:

1. We felt that we were respected as users of the street or park space we rode on, and forgiven minor booboos.

2. The constant weaving of the narrow bike lanes and paths, transitions from dedicated to shared space, switching from the street to the sidewalks, and the constant presence of pedestrians requires constant attention.

3. Munich has a problem with parked bikes clotting up the sidewalk and landscaping spaces from the main train station to Marienplatz to the far reaches of the Englischer Garten. This is a wonderful problem to have, of course, as it indicates the success of efforts to get people out of cars and on two wheels. The backlash against parked bike clutter is building, however, so it is time to develop solutions. More on this topic in our posts about meetings with city staff.

All in all, these rides gave us a wonderful glimpse into a successful and multi-faceted bikeway system. It was a joy to cycle around the town even as relative strangers unfamiliar with all the rules.