tommyofleeds
New Member
Im wanting to cycle through Europe next year starting from Barcelona, going into France, Italy, Austria, Germany, and Netherlands. Any advice would be welcome...
Touring Europe
- Thread starter tommyofleeds
- Start date
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vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
Play with online mapping:
www.mapmyride.com will produce gradient profiles as well as GPX files for Satnav.
www.viamichelin.co.uk will create cycle friendly routes between to end point not more than 200km apart.
You need to think about accommodate. B&B or camping.
If camping which camp sites.
Look at how you are going to get to the start of your ride and back from the end.
If you haven't done any cycle camping before have some weekends away in th UK to check out your kit and formulate a routine.
www.mapmyride.com will produce gradient profiles as well as GPX files for Satnav.
www.viamichelin.co.uk will create cycle friendly routes between to end point not more than 200km apart.
You need to think about accommodate. B&B or camping.
If camping which camp sites.
Look at how you are going to get to the start of your ride and back from the end.
If you haven't done any cycle camping before have some weekends away in th UK to check out your kit and formulate a routine.
This summer a friend and i cycled from paris to barcelona then up following the coast to Nice and Monaco, i flew home from Nice and he carried on through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, Holland, Belgium and France.
All i can tell you is of the ride from Barcelona to Nice, the Spanish bit isnt brilliant, quite hilly regardless of if you go inland via Girona or the coast road. the coast offers many towns with campsites in most of them. We done our tour before the main campsite season so often got away without paying.
The whole of the south coast of France is practically a cycle lane, you either have a yellow lane painted on the side of the road or for many miles you have your own lane separate from the traffic but going in the same way.
As said before know your kit and route well (although my friend didnt know either and still done 3000 miles)
Through France we raced on, doing 70-90 miles a day and it just wasnt enjoyable, for the last half of my journey and the rest of his we tried to hit around 50 a day.
According to him Italy was very expensive, he had planned to go round the coast but had to skirt over the top because of the price of living. In France food was cheap, we stocked up in supermarkets and lived on baguettes. Water we got from campsites or from knocking on doors.
According to him the rest of Europe was cheap and he could afford to splash out a bit more (we allowed ourselves some small treats even though we were on a budget like a tin of beer to have in the tent at night)
I would say try to learn a bit of the language in each country you are in, I had no french but talked to as many people as i could. We would often ask to camp in peoples gardens, you would be surprised by how friendly they can be, we were given a bed in their house by one family and the use of their caravan by another.
I may have left some things out, if you have anything else you can think of just let me know
All i can tell you is of the ride from Barcelona to Nice, the Spanish bit isnt brilliant, quite hilly regardless of if you go inland via Girona or the coast road. the coast offers many towns with campsites in most of them. We done our tour before the main campsite season so often got away without paying.
The whole of the south coast of France is practically a cycle lane, you either have a yellow lane painted on the side of the road or for many miles you have your own lane separate from the traffic but going in the same way.
As said before know your kit and route well (although my friend didnt know either and still done 3000 miles)
Through France we raced on, doing 70-90 miles a day and it just wasnt enjoyable, for the last half of my journey and the rest of his we tried to hit around 50 a day.
According to him Italy was very expensive, he had planned to go round the coast but had to skirt over the top because of the price of living. In France food was cheap, we stocked up in supermarkets and lived on baguettes. Water we got from campsites or from knocking on doors.
According to him the rest of Europe was cheap and he could afford to splash out a bit more (we allowed ourselves some small treats even though we were on a budget like a tin of beer to have in the tent at night)
I would say try to learn a bit of the language in each country you are in, I had no french but talked to as many people as i could. We would often ask to camp in peoples gardens, you would be surprised by how friendly they can be, we were given a bed in their house by one family and the use of their caravan by another.
I may have left some things out, if you have anything else you can think of just let me know
Any pictures from this? Sounds awesome!
- Location
- London
Do you have a good route for this stretch?
May do it sometime.
Not sure if you know, but (summer time only maybe) there's a ferry between Barcelona and Sardinia.
I would not overplan it except to get a general idea of how far it is - bung probable route into some sort of mapping programme - I use autoroute but there must be plenty of online ones - add 10% and divide by what you expect to be your average daily run - gives cycling days - add a few days off for touristing, beach, laundry et.al - I never take enough - worth it just to be a little organised once every 10days or so - gives overall probable duration - have you got that much time - if not knock a bit off the route - unless you have that sort of challenge mentality its not worth trying to go faster or doing longer days - its supposed to be enjoyable. As to daily route I tend to just make it up as I gp along based on how interesting [places look on the map
Assuming that you are camping - Personally I wouldnt worry too much about where campsites are until you get reasonably close to wanting one - I always choose the maps I use use on the basis of whether campsites are marked on them and plan the afternoon run on the basis that I have several to choose from at the end of the day.
There are no rules to cycle touring - Need to do it as it suits you - For me the only things that are set in stone are that my bicycle must be reliable and I must be able to eat and sleep well at the end of the day.
