East of Munich the Alps vanish from view, and the landscape becomes one of gravel terraces, fields of wheat and rapeseed, and little towns clustered around onion-domed churches. The dot sits in the Erding district, near Buch am Buchrain and Pastetten, where the main business is farming and where the roads are straight and the villages have a tidy, prosperous look. It is the tail end of a long day that took in the Chiemgau and the Tegernsee valley.
The upper part of the ride has a good deal of history. Tegernsee's monastery was founded in the eighth century, and later became the summer residence of the Bavarian royal family, the Wittelsbachs, whose former abbey now houses a brewery and restaurant by the lake. The Chiemsee, often called the Bavarian Sea, holds the island of Herrenchiemsee, where King Ludwig II built a palace modelled on Versailles but never finished it. At Sudelfeld, a high pass road between Bayrischzell and Oberaudorf, the road climbs to about eleven hundred metres and offers wide views over the Inn valley.
Back in the lowlands, the character changes. The roads are open and fast, and the speed limits are low in the villages, so ride with some restraint. In spring the yellow of the rapeseed makes a striking contrast with the distant mountains, and in autumn the fields are brown and the air has a sharp smell of woodsmoke and harvest. Fog can settle in the shallow valleys, and early mornings can be wet and cold even in summer.
Buch am Buchrain and Pastetten are small, so for fuel and shops head for Erding, a few kilometres to the north, or Markt Schwaben, which has a railway station, supermarkets and plenty of cafes. Bavarian bakeries open early and are an excellent source of breakfast, with fresh pretzels and Leberkäse rolls.
The sun sets late over the plain in summer, which means you can usually enjoy the last stretch of the ride in a warm, golden light, with the faint outline of the Alps still visible to the south.