Bregenz is the Austrian end of Lake Constance, and the lake is the whole point. The Bodensee stretches out in front of the town like a small sea, flat and silver in the early light, with Germany and Switzerland on its far shores and the Alps rising right behind your shoulder. Bregenz is the capital of Vorarlberg, with around thirty thousand people, so you will find every kind of shop, fuel station and café you might need before you set off. It is an easy place to begin a ride and an easy place to put off beginning it.
If you have an hour, go up the Pfänder by cable car and look down on the lake and the ring of towns. Or walk the promenade to the floating stage, where the Bregenz Festival stages its opera spectacles on the water each summer, with sets built on a scale that makes a motorcycle look like a toy. The Kunsthaus, a glass box designed by the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor, is worth a look from the outside even if you do not fancy modern art. The old town, the Oberstadt, sits on a small hill and has the medieval gate and the tower with the onion dome that appears on every postcard.
The ride east into the Bregenzerwald is a gentle climb, which is a good way to start. The valley is the heartland of the region's alpine cheese tradition, with farms and dairies that sell directly to the public, and the roads become quieter and more curved the further in you get. The Bregenzerwald is Austrian green in its purest form: steep meadows, wooden houses with shingled fronts, and mountains that rise suddenly rather than gradually. You will pass villages known for their carpentry and their timber architecture, and stop at least once for a slice of Bergkäse and a coffee.
Traffic around Bregenz itself can be thick on summer weekends, especially when there is a festival performance in the evening, so leave early. The lake can produce its own weather, with fog in autumn and sudden afternoon gusts, so look at the sky as you pull out. Fill the tank before you leave town, since the pricing and choice are better here than in the narrow valleys, and then go and find the cheese.