Todtnau sits in the Wiese valley in the southern Black Forest, and the forest roads around it are the reason people ride here. At about 650 metres, the town is tucked below the Feldberg, the highest mountain in the whole range, and the lanes that thread up through the spruce on either side belong to a landscape of steep pastures, deep side valleys and old farmsteads with their huge, low-hanging roofs.
The riding is the best sort of Black Forest riding: not about speed but about rhythm. Roads here were laid down along streams and ridges, so they pitch, bend and twist, tight hairpins followed by long straight bits where the trees close overhead and the light turns green. The surface is generally good, but patched in places after winter, and in shaded corners you may find damp or pine needles even in July. Traffic is mostly local, plus cyclists, who are numerous and often climbing slowly, and tourists. Weekends are busy, and the best hours are early morning or early evening, when the valleys are quiet and the smell of cut grass and resin hangs in the air.
Todtnau is a proper town of about five thousand, so fuel and food are easy. It built its name on winter sports as much as anything: skiing in the Black Forest has a long history, and the area claims some of the earliest ski clubs and lifts in Germany. Nearby, the Todtnau waterfall tumbles down a rock face and is among the taller falls in the country, a short walk from the road. In the town itself, the cafes serve Black Forest cake, which here is not a tourist gimmick but a point of local pride, made with kirsch from the valley's orchards.
The forest also carries older history. Silver and other ores were mined on these slopes in the Middle Ages, and the scattered hamlets and chapels grew from that wealth and from the work of farmers who lived on poor, steep land. If you stop on a quiet lane, listen: cowbells, running water, and the odd chainsaw, a reminder that forestry is still the economy.