Shimano Gravel Alliance rider Dalila Lecky is a big fan of solo bikepacking and in particular, the route planning aspect. Back in March she got the opportunity to ride 600 km across Germany from Koblenz to Berlin, but she was on a tight schedule and things weren’t going quite as smoothly as she had hoped. Would she make to Berlin on time or would she be stuck in the mud out in the forests? Read on to find out. 

What is 'rad'? In English, it's a slang word that means cool or exciting. But in German, it simply means wheel. This latest trip, taking me 600 km across the German countryside from Koblenz to Berlin in four days, aimed to combine those two definitions. I would be on two wheels and hoping to take on some exciting gravel trails along the way.

So, there I was at the start of another self-determined adventure. I left my house in London, England, at 6.30 a.m. and 13 hours later, I arrived in Koblenz, Germany. Why so long? Because I took the train, or rather a series of trains, including some excessively long transfer times to allow for bike loading and unloading and potential delays. Why not fly? I travel often for gravel adventures and rail travel is both kinder to the planet and more practical for A-to-B trips like this one. Avoiding the stress of packing my bike in a cardboard box made the choice even easier.

This was one of those trips where if you asked me why I was doing it, the simple answer would be, first, because I could and second, to keep my route-planning skills sharp. Picking a start and end location and then plotting my way across the map, linking up all the trails that look both interesting and rideable (an essential element at any time), is one of the key skills I have honed over the years. It's part of what gives me the confidence to go out and do this sort of thing entirely on my own.

So, why start in Koblenz and end in Berlin? Koblenz is the home of Canyon and they have been providing me with various gravel, CX and road bikes over the past five years. So, after five years of being looked after by their UK team, why not visit their premier location?

And then why finish in Berlin? Well, that's why I only gave myself four days to cover the whole distance. On Saturday, 15th March, the most rad and riotous fixed gear race on this side of the Atlantic was happening: the Rad Race Last Wo/man Standing. As a former fixed-gear crit racer, it's an event that still brings me great joy even as a spectator. Maybe because I still have deeply buried plans to one day make a spectacular return to that racing scene.

So, since I'd be visiting Canyon on Monday and aiming to watch the racing live on Saturday, I had just four days to cover 600km of mixed terrain across the middle of Germany. What does mixed terrain in the middle of Germany look like? Mostly, it's forest trails and farm tracks. I had to be cautious when planning this route because I've heard Germans can be very serious about not breaking the rules. I made sure to only stick to trails, paths and tracks where cycling was either not explicitly forbidden or actively encouraged by official trail markers. But it still felt odd as I flew along the many tracks between farmers' fields, knowing that back home in the UK, I would likely have come up against a locked gate or a fence preventing me from accessing them.

The German word I used the most on this trip was "Danke" to the many dog owners who, upon hearing a couple of dings from my bell, brought their wayward hounds to heel until I had safely passed. Did you know that it's compulsory to have a bell in Germany? It's essential to do your research before setting off. I had to buy a bell for this trip as I don't usually use one.

Day one took me out of Koblenz along the Rhine river, away from the bustling streets and into the forests. Days one and two were quite similar, consisting of a mix of forest trails and farm tracks linked by sections of tarmac. However, there were more farms on day two and they smelled very strongly of freshly spread manure, an unfortunate downside to making this journey in early spring.

Day three at first seemed like it would be a repeat of day two, but then the tributes to the Spring Classics came. Somehow, in the route planning that I had done in the months prior, I had gifted my present self with many kilometres of Strade Bianche-style white gravel roads and Flanders-style cobbled streets through quaint little towns filled with half-timbered houses. The cobbled streets were particularly harsh on my tired muscles, having already covered around 400 km by the time they were coming thick and fast. But still, I'll take any excuse to stop and snap a photo.

Day four brought yet more cobbled roads and by now, I couldn't fly over them at a speed that would dampen the impact, so it really slowed down my progress. Then, there were the forest trails decimated by logging vehicles. I've never seen an official cycling trail churned up so severely. Unofficial routes, yes, but not named and recorded trails. But what's a gravel adventure without a little bit of hiking? And this was only a short hike.

Ultimately, though, my progress was slow and by the time I reached Potsdam, it was dark. I still had several kilometres of forest trails to cover before making my way onto the bike paths of central Berlin. As I sped along those pitch-black forest paths, the trail ahead of me solely lit up by my front light, I wondered how many women would consider doing something like this, riding their bike through the woods at night, entirely alone. The darkness never worries me, as this is how I learned most of my off-road skills, practising with my clubmates in the dark on the trails behind my local velodrome. 

But the alone bit, I'd never really considered it until now. I don't even know why it decided to pop into my head at that moment. Maybe it was my proximity to an urban centre and the increased likelihood of coming across another person (usually, if I'm doing this sort of thing, I'm in a very remote area and the chances of anyone else being there are slim to none). And then I remembered something another rider said to me when I asked if she ever felt scared when wild camping solo: "In these moments, no one knows you're a woman". And at the speed I ride, I'm certainly not hanging about long enough for anyone to find out. So what occurred was a standard (for me at least) off-road ride through several kilometres of woodland to deposit me onto the urban cycling network just outside central Berlin.

Ultimately, the proximity of the end of this final off-road sector to the centre of Berlin is a core theme in a lot of the riding that I do. With the places I ride and the routes I follow, I aim to show that gravel riding is available wherever you are, even if you live in a capital city. You just have to know how to find it and where to look. I prefer to use komoot to develop these adventures, and that's where you'll find the collection of four rides I completed on the way from Koblenz to Berlin.

And that fixed gear race that I mentioned? It was just as rad as ever. Watching those racers fly around a go-kart track, battling for the win in an atmosphere that felt more like a party than a bike race, was the perfect way to cap off this adventure.

If you would like follow in Dalila's tyre prints, you can find her komoot collection here: