100 miles, 1 day, on a Brompton, in mainland Europe

[robjh]

For the last few years I've been doing the Imperial Century a Month challenge on this site - chatzone here - but this April I'm going to spending most of the month travelling round Europe by train, taking with me a Brompton for some local rides and a few gaps between trains.

Since I want to do one 100-mile ride in that month, I'm trying to plan where on my travels might be the best area to get this ride in.

I will be going to the Alps, Italy, Germany and parts of East-Central Europe. Scandinavia calls too but I'll probably run out of time before that.
My requirements for the ride are : 100 miles, doable in a day on a Brompton without luggage. Flattish - small hills OK but no mountains. Mainly quieter roads, or decent-quality cycle paths. It could be a round trip back to the start, or a linear trip where I could return by train, so parallel to a main railway line.

My ideas so far are :
- Northern Italy around the Po valley - flattish with good train links
- German river cycle routes, eg Rhine, Elbe, Danube. These can be very good, but can also involve infrequent or seasonal ferries in places, and will be slower than roads. In places, eg the Rhine, the river is paralleled by main railway routes.
- the Danube through Austria and Hungary. Same remarks as above.
- around Lake Balaton in Hungary
- parts of Poland, eg Silesia

Anyway, that's enough for now. Any thoughts on this CycleChat? What would you do?

 

[steveindenmark]

You are overthinking this. Unless you are in an area full of mountains. 100 miles on a Brompton in a day is not a problem. It helps if you are on tarmac roads with pleasant weather. There are 24 hours in a day so you only need to travel at 4.5 mph.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

What an absolutely fabulous thing to be contemplating!

As to your specific query it's all a bit open and on a bit of a large scale for me to usefully contribute.

They only things I can comment on is that that river routes along the Rhine and Danube, for instance, can fill up at the weekends and on holidays. Personally, I love that, but it can mean slow progress to hit 100 miles.
For mountain areas another thing to consider is that flooding can occur in April when snowmelt rushes down. This also applies to some of the river routes. The year I did some of the Danube vast stretches had been destroyed in the Spring.

Perhaps some laps of a lake? Should be relatively flat and you can make good progress without having to stop and see everything because you'll see it next time around? A quick, crude circumnavigation of Lake Konstanz suggests 170km and is well service with trains.
https://cycle.travel/map/journey/396062

When you do this please update this thread!

 

[JB052]

I can second Hobbes circuit of Lake Konstanz suggestion, we did it over 4 leisurely days last year. Good roads and paths plenty of places to stop as well.

 

[robjh]

@steveindenmark a good reply, I am probably overthinking 100 miles on a Brompton. I know several people, not least in the Fridays who do long distances on Bromptons so no reason I shouldn't be able to.

@HobbesOnTour , @JB052 thanks for the suggestion of Lake Konstanz, that's one I hadn't considered.

In any case a lot will depend on where I am at what times and in what weather, and seeing as I can't even decide which directions I will head first on the trains and at what speed, I'm certainly not going to tie myself down with specific cycling plans just yet.