Between April and midsummer, the Niederrhein belongs to asparagus. Farms around Uedem, Xanten and Kalkar sell white spears from roadside stalls and serve them in restaurants with new potatoes, ham and butter or hollandaise, and the season officially ends on the feast of St John, the twenty-fourth of June, when the growers let the plants rest. Hochwald 5 is a forest spot, about seven kilometres from Uedem, but it sits in a region where the fields that border the trees have the sandy, well-drained soil that white asparagus loves.
So eat well on this ride, and plan it around the harvest. In season you will smell the fresh straw and see the black foil of the raised beds running across the fields like long dark ribbons. Pickers work early, so mornings can be busy with vans and tractors, and the narrow lanes are lined with parked cars outside the best-known farm shops. Later in the year the same fields give way to maize, potatoes and beet, and the roadsides fill with Rhineland apples and pumpkins.
The forest road itself is quiet, shaded and plain, with long flat sections and the odd low rise. Surfaces are generally good, though tractors drag mud and sand onto the road at field entrances. The speed limits are often lower than you expect and are checked from time to time. In wet weather, take extra care on the leaf-strewn bends, and in hot weather, remember that there is neither water nor shop inside the woods.
Fuel is available in Uedem and in larger Xanten and Kalkar, and bakeries in each open early. Many farm shops sell homemade jam, fruit schnapps and fresh eggs; a few have a small café corner for coffee and cake. A heavy lunch on a motorcycle can make you sluggish, so go for a light plate or share one.
Aim for mid-May on a weekday, when the weather is usually kind and the harvest is at its peak but the crowds are small.