Miesbach is the main town of the Oberland district of the same name, a place of about eleven thousand people on the Schlierach river, where the foothills rise from the plain. It sits in the Leitzach valley country that links the lakes of Schliersee and Tegernsee with Munich, and the roads leading out of it, to the capital to the north and to the lakes to the south, are among the pleasantest in Bavaria for a return ride. The town has everything you could need: petrol stations, supermarkets, bakeries, banks and a railway to Munich.
The town carries the character of the region. It is a centre of Bavarian dress tradition, and many people here still wear Tracht, the regional costume, on festival days. Hausham, a neighbour, was a coal-mining town until the 1960s, and the old pit closed in the second half of the twentieth century. The miners' houses and the old workings give a different side to a region that tourists see mostly as cows and onion domes. A bakery in Miesbach, with a good selection of pastry and a cup of strong coffee, is the best way to begin a stop.
Heading home, the road through Holzkirchen, a gentle route with rolling hills and long open bends, makes for an easy ride toward Munich. The surface is mostly good, and the views of the Alps behind you, in the mirror, are fine in the evening light. Traffic builds on Sunday evenings when the lake visitors return, and the autobahn gets busy, so the country roads are often faster than the motorway. Watch for speed cameras near the villages and in some of the longer stretches.
In terms of season, late spring is hard to beat: the meadows are full of flowers, the hills are green and the peaks still carry snow. Summer weekends bring many riders, cyclists and cars, and on a hot Sunday the roads around Schliersee can be packed. In autumn the Föhn brings clear, warm days and colours. By late October the first frosts can leave ice on the shaded corners in the early morning, so take the first hours of the day gently.