Alsace Bike Tour through Charming French Villages

This bike route rides through beautiful vineyards and villages in the Alsace region on the border of France and Germany. It’s a nice day trip or weekend getaway from Switzerland, less than an hour drive from Basel.

The route is well marked and mostly on dedicated bike paths, bike lanes and low traffic country lanes. We did this as an E-Bike tour but you can easily shorten the route to make it more reasonable for regular bikes.

Along the way, you can stop in the villages for a short wander through the cobble stone streets, picture taking, delicious pastries, and perhaps wine tasting. If possible, we suggest staying overnight to take full advantages of the charms of this region.

Gallery

Location

This bike route is located in the Alsace region north of Basel, near the France/Germany border. 

Bike route map

We selected a route that visited the prettiest towns in the area: Riquewihr, Kayserberg, Eguisheim, Colmar, and Ribeauville.

I highly recommend using the Komoot app and saving an offline version of the route on your phone. Then you can use it to navigate in real time during the ride (the rental bikes came with a phone holder). I did this during our ride and it was super helpful keeping us on track.

Of course, having the phone on during much of the ride drained the battery quickly. So I was happy I brought my power bank, which sat in my front basket with a longish cable connected to the phone.

Shorter routes

It’s a long loop and everyone in our group was wishing it was over around the 50km mark, even with E-Bikes. I suggest choosing a shorter loop. Le Velo Libre has several small loop routes for Riquewihr and Colmar. Whichever route you choose, I suggest maximizing your time on the vineyard part of the bike routes.

Bike rentals

We rented bikes from Le Velo Libre, which is a self-serve bike rental service in Riquewihr and Colmar. You book online for a specific day. Just before your ride, you get a code to open the door of the bike room and the number of the bike assigned to you.

The daily price is around EUR35, but it depends on the day and time slot. The bikes include a helmet, front basket, lock, and smartphone holder. You can also rent a child seat and paniers. The E-Bike charge lasts about 100km. They ask that you take a photo of the bike before and after the ride and send the pics to their email address. 

We rented E-Bikes at the Riquewihr – 2 Rue de la 1E Armée, 68340 Riquewihr, France. Their Colmar location is at 37 Rue Turenne, 68000 Colmar, France. 

How to get there

This bike route is a loop between Riquewihr and Colmar. If you are renting bikes from Le Velo Libre, you can start your ride in either of these villages. If you are coming from Switzerland, Colmar is a bit closer so you may prefer to start there.

By public transport

Best to start in Colmar, where there is a train station (see on map). Otherwise, you have to take a bus from Colmar to Riquewihr, which is a waste since you are going to bike this section anyway. From Zurich, it’s about 2 hours by train. From Basel, about 45 mins.

If you are bringing your bike, learn about traveling with bikes on French trains.

By car

We rented our bikes in Riquewihr. We parked in the large dirt lot on the east side of the village – 4 Av. Méquillet, 68340 Riquewihr, France. You pay for the parking when you leave, so you don’t have to estimate your time.

If you start in Colmar, there are a few open air parking areas near the bike rental, like at 28 Rue Turenne, 68000 Colmar, France and Pl. des 6 Montagnes Noires, 68000 Colmar. If you prefer a parking garage, perhaps Parking Saint-Josse (Rue Saint-Josse, 68000 Colmar) or Parking Place Rapp (7 Av. de la République, 68000 Colmar).

Bike signs & navigation

I don’t know about the whole country, but the Alsace region of France has pretty good signage for the bike routes, using the green bike symbol shown below.

For the first half of the ride, you are generally on the Vignoble route, which means “vineyard.” The blue Route 5 is the main bike “highway” running through this region, which is more direct but doesn’t always go through the vineyards. We were sometimes on Route 5, but mostly on the “Vignoble” side routes that were marked with just the green bike symbol. 

When bike routes intersect, there is usually a sign with the town names as shown here. It’s helpful to make a list of the towns on your route and tape it to your bike handlebar for quick reference (like the numbers on Netherlands routes). 

For this route, the towns would be:

Riquewihr (start) – Kientzheim – Kayserberg – Ammerschwihr – Katzenthal – Turckheim – Wettolsheim – Eguisheim – Herrlisheim – Colmar – Houssen – Ostheim – Guemar – Bergheim – Ribeauville – Hunawihr – Riquewihr (end)

Note that you don’t necessarily go into the center of each town on the list. The bike route often skirts around the town. So the town name is more of a direction than a destination. The towns in bold are the prettiest and worth stopping for a short or long wander by foot without the bike.

Although the routes are fairly well signed, there are a lot of different routes criss-crossing each other. We often had to stop and double check our desired route on my Komoot phone app, then course correct. As mentioned above, I strongly suggest downloading an offline version of the route on your phone and use it for live navigation (using the phone holder on the rental bike). 

Particularly as you cycle through the villages, you often have to squiggle through the small streets, turning many times. Look carefully for the bike signs as shown below, so you know where to turn. We often missed the turn and had to backtrack to get back on route.

Photo story of bike route

We parked in Riquewihr and picked up our rental bikes from the self-serve Le Velo Libre depot, right in the center of the old town. It’s conveniently right next to the tourism office. So I had a quick chat (in English) with the helpful tourism staff and got a free cycling map of the whole region. I recommended getting both of these for future reference.

From the center of Riquewihr, follow the bike signs towards Kayserberg, which lead you to this country lane next to the vineyards.

A couple time you see these “Descente dangereuse” signs that are just warning that the descent is a bit steep. Not a big deal on bikes, just use your brakes.

Here is the descent towards Kientzheim and Kayserberg.

Occasionally, you’ll see signs with the same village name but pointing two different directions. But one sign will say “Vignoble”, meaning it’s a smaller path through the vineyards instead of the main road. Choose that one. The example below shows the Vignoble route leading to Kayserberg, instead of the main road.

At Kayserberg, we parked the bikes and did a short wander down the main street, taking pictures and buying treats. Definitely recommended.

Kayserberg is super adorable and super popular on weekends for tourists. 

Lots of delicious traditional Alsatian treats in these villages.

Back on the bike route, leading to the next village. Again, we chose the “Vignoble” route instead of the main road.

So lovely and quaint.

Couldn’t stop taking pics in this section.

My favorite pic of the ride, looking back towards Kientzheim.

Riding through one of the cute villages but not worth stopping.

We laughed at this sign with the dragon. We thought perhaps someone added the dragon aftermarket, but no, it is part of the official sign. This area supposedly has a dragon living underground.

Descending towards Turckheim.

It’s called the wine region for a reason, so many vineyards on these sunny hills.

Nearing the far end of the loop at Eguisheim. Everyone is happy!

Eguisheim is the cutest village on the route, in my opinion. I suggest parking your bike as the streets inside the city walls are too narrow for riding (with pedestrians around) and the cobblestones so bumpy.

This would be a great place to have lunch at one of the outdoor cafes. But you might want to make a reservation as the wait can be long on weekends.

Back on the road, headed to Colmar. This section has a few bits without a dedicated bike path. Also not as many bike signs. For best to use your phone for navigation on this part until you get to Colmar.

Lots of flat farm fields on the west side of the loop. Nice but not quite as charming as the vineyards on the first half of the ride.

The bike route is on dirt for a few km here. It’s obstacle free but a little bumpy.

It was a little complicated navigating into Colmar, which is a large city compared to the tiny villages from earlier. We headed to the classic photo spot at the bridge at “Le Petit Venise” or little Venice (see on map). 

On weekends, Colmar is so full of tourists that it was very difficult to walk our bikes through the small charming streets. In retrospect, we should have just skipped Colmar and rode around it. If you want to spend some time here, definitely park your bike on the edge of the old town and walk in. I’d plan about an hour walking the streets here. But perhaps visit Colmar on a separate visit instead of part of the bike tour.

To get out of Colmar, it’s an annoying section on city streets (but with good bike paths) until finally you emerge to the countryside again. I adjust the route included above to minimize the city streets and get back to the fields as quickly as possible. But Colmar is so big, you can’t avoid the city altogether.

At some point, you have to go under the train tracks to continue the ride. The tunnel has a ramp so you can roll the bike. Our E-Bikes had a “walking” function that made it much easier to push the heavy bikes up the ramp.

So happy be heading back to the vineyard hills, towards Ribeauville. My route above includes Bergheim, which is included is most recommended routes for this region. We ended up skipping Bergheim because we were already at almost 60 km and our crew was tired and ready to be done. It was easy to skip Bergheim by just following signs directly to Ribeauville instead.

A quick stop in Ribeauville for us. I would have loved to spend more time in this village. But it was near the end of our ride and no one had the energy. I think staying overnight in the region would be great so you could spend more time in these villages.

Leaving Ribeauville we had the steepest climb of the ride. Our crew definitely couldn’t have done this without the E-Bike. We were all on the lowest gear and highest power to get up this hill. Also the road is narrow and had a few cars. So we had to stop on the side to let the cars pass and restart on a hill, which is tricky.

Happy to be done with the hill and heading down to Hunawihr, last village before the end.

Back in Riquewihr. You can ride through this city arch directly to the rental shop.

Riquewihr has lots of restaurants and fun shops. If you have time and energy, it’s worth a stroll after your ride.