Europe (all)

Planète D. is our volunteering and filming world tour on the tandem bike. It’s that simple.

We cycle.
We film, edit and share videos.
We volunteer for NGOs.

Descriptions of several short (1-3 days) bicycleroutes in the Netherlands.

A new cycle journey. I want to cycle from Vienna to Nice, a complete crossing of the Alps from east to west. Then I have to cycle a bit further to Avignon. The idea is to zigzag as much as possible to fit in as much exciting backroads and extraordinary landscapes as possible. Jeroen van Meijgaarden will join me the first two weeks. Then I will be on my own to complete the crossing of the Alps.

``Won't you get shot there?''
``Are there any roads out there?''
``Albania, isn't that in Africa?''

The reactions on my plan to cycle in Albania with my friends Willem Hoffmans, Marco Duiker and Marc Dirkx, make clear that there are a lot of prejudices about Albania. A lot is unknown about the country; there is no Lonely Planet Albania; Albania is largely ignored by tourists, businessmen and statesmen. Nobody knows if the prejudices so just to the country. Nobody seems to know what all those years of Ottoman regime, Italian regime and the complete isolation under Maoist communist regime of Enver Hoxha have done to the country. I want to know. The mysterious cloud that is still hanging over the mountain state, is reason enough to take a look...

The website includes maps and data on the route followed and photos of some of the people we met and the food we enjoyed, including Porto's famous speciality the Francesinha. This is the ideal food for cycle tourers.

This tour was from the north east corner of England to the west coast of Scotland and included a few day on the island of Arran. We travalled with full camping gear but becasue the rain stayed a several B&B's.

Several of the B&B were very memorable and are detailed in The Daily Log and Useful Links page.

Route maps are included - much the route followed the National Cycle Network.

For our two-week tour we choose the little corner of France tucked in between the Pyrenées Orientales and the Mediterranean: wine growing country, rich in history, near the Spanish border. Having just recovered from a knee injury in early summer, I can now put my knee to the test with hills and a loaded bike.

Cycling along Canal du Midi and Canal de Garonne from Mediterranean sea to the Atlantic Ocean. Nice pics and travelogue.

For people living in the South of England this is an easy tour to get to and makes a perfect first cyclecamping tour. No days over 40 miles, easy terrain and lots of history and beautiful countryside. Though done in 1997 nothing has changed. Especially for those terrified by some of the tours posted here:-)

Une jolie traversée des Alpes orientales entre l'Italie et l'Autriche, avec un petit crochet par la Slovénie et un passage par le parc national autrichien de Nockalm. En passant par des cols souvent raides, même si pas tous très élevés.

A nice tour crossing the eastern Alps between Italy and Austria, including a small part in Slovenia and the Austrian national park of Nockalm. Riding over passes, many of them steep even if not very high.

Eine schöne Überquerung der östlichen Alpen zwischen Italien und Österreich, mit einem kleinen Schlenker über Slowenien und die Fahrt durch den österreichischen Nockalm Nationalpark. Die Pässe auf dem Weg waren oft steil, auch wenn nicht besonders hoch.

Like last year the month August was cloudy and rainy, and the prospect for cycling in the Alps was not very promising. September did not seem to get better, until the weather broadcasts predicted some sunny days ahead.

7. Sept. 07 I fastened the panniers onto my bicycle and was ready to start the annual alpine cycle tour.

After 9 days I was back again, without seeing a drop of rain.

A six-day tour through the hills and plains of southern Spain. 544km cycled, stopping over in Antequera, Castro del Rio, Fuencaliente, Ciudad Real and Toledo.

This tour was a baptism of heat and hills through the olive groves north of Malaga, giving way to cooler weather, stunning landscapes and beautiful plains as we neared Madrid.

Il ciclismo è sofferenza. Il premio è la cima di una montagna o una città a 2000km da casa. Se questo premio vi sembra adeguato allora la domanda ``ma chi te lo fa fare'' ha già una risposta. Se non vi sembra abbastanza, semplicemente non potete capire chi pedala.

Cycling is suffering. The prize is the top of a mountain or a city 2000km far from home. If this prize seems you enough, then the question ``why do you do that'' already has an answer. If you don't find it enough, you just simply cannot understand cyclists.

La Francia è un paese solcato da canali navigabili e ogni canale possiede almeno un'alzaia o un sentiero di alaggio. Da queste considerazioni è nato il progetto di un viaggio lungo un canale di navigazione.

Abbiamo scelto una via d'acqua breve e facilmente raggiungibile dall'Italia, il canale dal Rodano a Sète, prolungamento del più famoso e lungo Canal du Midi che da Toulouse conduce sino al Mediterraneo. L'alzaia del canale dal Rodano a Sète è completamente sterrata, con fondo a tratti mal tenuto. A volte corre su una sponda, a volte sull'altra della via d'acqua: occorrono un po' di esperienza, di intuito e di fortuna per non imboccare sentieri che si perdano nella campagna.

In cambio si ha il privilegio di vedere la Provenza e la Camargue da un punto di vista privilegiato e sconosciuto ai più.

A world tour on a rather odd bicycle.

Sono rimasto stregato dalla bellezza della Terra durante le lunghe camminate effettuate nelle ``mie'' Alpi o i brevi sentieri percorsi tra le migliaia di cascate del parco di Plitvice in Croazia. Ho avuto la sensazione di poter rallentare lo scorrere del tempo nelle interminabili giornate in sella alla mia amata bicicletta, percorrendo le strade sterrate nel mezzo della pampa patagonica così come salendo e scendendo per le dolci colline toscane e siciliane. Ho anche imparato ad apprezzare la capacità, l'ingegno ed il genio artistico umani, visitando alcune splendide capitali europee, la vivace Rio de Janeiro, le caotiche San Paolo, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, la surreale Las Vegas e la inarrivabile New York.

Tutto questo cerco di raccontare nelle pagine del mio sito web.

At about 2000 m there is a turn off to a guesthouse from where I had a sight of the last 20 turns - like a rope twisted on a steep mountain wall with the top disappearing in snow mist.

My first tour without a firm objective. I knew I wanted to start from my front door and meet up with my family somewhere in the Ardèche. Barcelona seemed like a reasonable intermediate destination, but the rest was pretty much à la carte.

The resulting -less thorough than usual- planning was noticeable, as the route featured more major roads than I would normally prefer, and even turned around and bit me on the day two when I needed a train to complete the second half of the route.

However, there were still plenty of opportunities to bask in the quality of the French road network and many pleasant surprises, as towns I had given scant regard while planning the route turned out to be fantastic places to visit.

Another shorter than expected tour, this time in Switzerland, generally following Veloroute 2 (the Rhein Route) from Basel past Rheinfall, Bodensee, Liechtenstein and Chur to Andermatt via Oberalp pass, then over St Gotthard pass and onto the Italian border.

In what seems to be the theme of his years tours, events conspired to thwart the original plan of connecting July's tour (Copenhagen to Freiberg) with it's intended destination: Venice.

A freak, non-cycling related, knee injury on the third evening left me unable to bend my left leg; which meant the only way I was getting to Venice was by train.

Despite this (and the fact that it rained solidly for two and a half of the four days on the bike), it was still an enjoyable tour with some great sights and new personal achievements.

In theory this was second stage of a three part trip that was supposed to cover Europe from Nordkapp (the North Cape) to Sicily. The plan being to pick-up from where last year's trip left off in Copenhagen and head south to Freiberg in Germany and then onwards to Venice via the Alps.

The bike was damaged on the flight over, leaving me with a limited selection of gears and the tour happened to coincide with a heat wave the like of which no-one could recall. Most of the trip took place in temperatures close to or over 40 degrees celsius (104 fahrenheit)!

Things got worse at the half way point (just south of Frankfurt) when the loss of my mobile phone, money and credit cards forced me to abandon the trip a day later at Strasbourg. It was only a total stranger's act of kindness that allowed me to get that far.

Another Easter holiday four day, partially supported, mini-tour extending last year's London - Paris trip onto Geneva.

Once again the weather was still what you might expect in April, with the added bonus of snow and freezing rain in the Jura region, but at least last year's constant headwind had subsided into a mere crosswind.

The original plan was to cover Scandinavia from Nordkapp to Copenhagen with a long stretch along Sweden's east coast. However, safety concerns resulted in a hastily arranged detour along Finland's west coast.

My memory will be mainly of glorious sunshine and, another pleasant surprise, the wind blowing North to South for a good few days when I needed it (as evidenced by the grim determination on the faces of the cyclists heading the other way.)

A four day tour from London to Paris over Easter to try and get my fitness back on track for a bigger trip later in the year.

Despite the less than perfect weather and near constant headwinds this was a really enjoyable trip, if only because it totally dispelled my preconceptions of the French and their attitude to us Brits!

The trip improved immensely upon abandoning the notion that it was somehow possible to get right around route one and still make my flight home.

Despite the variable weather, impossible winds, terrible roads, absurd prices and murderous wildlife, Iceland is a fantastic country with genuinely friendly people and some of the most amazing scenery anywhere!

Most importantly, allow more time than you think you need to see it all; for a small country Iceland feels vast!

My first tour and the reason the web site was set up in the first place. The site's original purpose was to help raise sponsorship for an unassisted charity cycle ride originally called the 'Anglo-Swiss Charity Bike Ride', after the nationalities of the two participants.

It was an unforgettable trip of a thousand miles on a pair of poorly equipped mountain bikes that raised over £1,500 for the National Autistic Society.

This blog (still ongoing) describes our experiences, both good and bad, of cycle touring around Europe. It was a long planned trip - about 15 years before coming to fruition - and we decided that as we were between jobs and countries (from Dubai on the way back to NZ) we would explore some of the places we had always wanted to visit and get a culture fix too!

We took the train ``City-Night-Line'' from Zurich (21.00h) to Berlin (10.00h. With some delay, ca.2 hours, due to railway personnel strikes, we arrived, alert in Berlin. In the sunshine we found the way out of the city at once. When we got to the border of Poland at Schwedt, it began to rain for two days with interruption. Fortunately we had tail wind until Masuren. We cycled via Stettin, the Baltic Sea coast along to Danzig, via Elblag and Olstyn to the Masuri sea-plateau until Gizycko. From there through central Poland via Bydgoszcz and Frankfurt/Oder back to Berlin. On the way back we fought against strong head wind. Because we cycled through so many forests, the heat (35ºC) in Masuren and wind on the way back, were not too big an obstacle.

Euskal Herriko itzulia / The tour around the basque country / La vuelta al País Vasco / Le tour au Pays Basque

In the summer of 2007 we cycled a whole month in Bulgaria. We ate al lot of shopska and purenzi kartofi, met a lot of women with beards, heard a lot of sheep and cowbells, saw beautiful woods and impressive canyons. On my webspace you'll find the route and some pictures to tell the story. Enjoy!

This is my tour along the German Donau, from Ulm to Passau, a continuation of my previous tour in 2006.

Viaggio lungo la valle dell'Inn. I primi itinerari sono stati percorsi nell'estate del 2001.

Siamo partiti dal passo del Maloja e abbiamo raggiunto dapprima Innsbruck e poi Kufstein.

Nel lugio 2007 abbiamo riscritto gli itinerari, aggiungendo nuove fotografie e rivisitato il percorso, che è stato modificato nel suo primo tratto in Engadina.

Read about my adventures by bicycle around the world,taking in Europe, the Near East, India, South East Asia, Australasia, and the USA on Route 66.

For something a little less ambitious, I have prepared details of a three-week tour of the beautiful landscapes of central Portugal.

Or if you prefer a central base and some day rides, read about my routes on the Spanish island of Mallorca - a cyclist's paradise, with warm weather, flat hinterland, stunning mountain climbs, and huge ice-creams!

A few days spent exploring County Clare on the west coast of Ireland. I live in the UK and travelled via Dublin on the ferry and train. This was a short and rather windy trip based around the coastal village of Doolin, and included a visit to the Cliffs of Moher.

Starting in the south-east UK we took the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, travelling south west across Spain towards Portugal. We wanted to find out whether we wanted to live in Portugal - after staying there for a month, the answer turned out to be no, but we had a great trip all the same, encountering beautiful mountain scenery in northern Spain and challenging hills (and drivers!) in the Portuguese Douro region.

Journey from south UK to northern Poland on a bike and a recumbent trike. We stayed in Poland for a few weeks and then travelled home via Denmark.

We left our jobs and sold our house to go on this trip - part of the reason for going was to explore whether we'd like to live in another country. The other reason was to satisfy my craving for long distance touring.

The page contains travelogues and pictures from a number of bike trips across Europe, Ontario (Canada) as well as Kansai and Kanto regions of Japan. The trip across European continent has entries written from the road and together with photos it provides the description of the trip day by day. The trips across Japan give a lot of information about local areas (places to camp, onsens, roads, what to see, etc.) as well as many photos. There is also some general information on cycling, wild camping and hiking in Japan. Hope it will help.

Read about the difficulties/triumphs of a first-time touring cyclist. I traveled through Austria, Germany, and Czech Republic for 16 days. Although I was credit card touring, I encountered obstacles throughout my trip. I had no plans or routes for this trip... I went wherever I felt like. I have had many people (family, friends, & co-workers) question why I am riding my bike alone across Central Europe... my answer has been: change. I needed to experience the unknown... hence the lack of planning of where to visit and stay.

Info pratiche su dove fare downhill, freeride, cross in Italia con segnalazione di 4 percorsi per l'estate: Oropa, Livigno, Pila e soprattutto Val di Sole sede dei mondiali di downhill 2008. Anticipazioni sui mondiali Mtb 2007 e 2008.