Cycling from Geneva to Santiago de Compostella

[russ_insydney]

Hi. I was wondering if anyone with any experience of this route can help me with a couple of tips. I am at the early stages of planning so these are quite high level, but would really appreciate help from a more experienced cyclist than myself.

Firstly, what bike should i take. I think in france a great deal will be on tarmac but a lot of the latter part of the camino through la rioja and and on from there seems to look like MTB terrain. the tour companies in particular seem to specialize in mountain bike tours in the spanish secton from pamplona westwards. just wondering whether a mid range tourer or a mountain bike with two sets of tyre width will be best.

Second, the timing and route. I have 6 weeks to do this. from august through september. i have to pick up a friend in a town called tarbes in the south west of france, i was then hoping to go down to perpignan, through catalonia into spain and maybe barcelona then upto pamplona then across to santiago. but dont know if that is too far in the time and maybe its better to go geneva to tarbes then cross the pyranees to pamplona, do the la rioja region and then head west for the end of the journey.

would really appreciate a few early pointers from a seasoned veteran of the route. i am reasonably fit and do a fair bit of mtb and a bit of triathlon biking but im not a day in day out road cyclist at the moment.

many thanks,
russ.

 

[snorri]

Sorry, I have no experience of that part of the world, but a search on this link should help.
http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/

 

[rich p]

50 miles per day is a reasonable rule of thumb. More is possible of course, but using that as a guide will give you a rough estimate of the time your route will take. Add up to 10% for fecking about too. I rode a short stretch of the route, east of Leon, last summer and all the cyclists I saw were on tarmac and road bikes. If there are some off road sections I imagine that there would be an alternative road section possible.

 

[andym]

I hope I don't get my knuckles rapped for saying this, but you might be better off asking on the bikeradar.com forum - there are two or three people there who know a lot about Spain. One of them (iirc his username is Culverwood) is a regular on a mailing list devoted to the Camino(s) di Santiago - I tried to find it by Google but couldn't.

Sorry to be a wet blanket but I think you probably are trying to cover too much ground. Go by train from Tarbes to Perpignan - or reschedule your meeting, so you go to Tarbes after Perpignan.