Europe (all)

Coraggioso, intoned the bar-keep as he pressed two steins of beer to a couple of very hot American cyclists escaping the gaudy sun over the Lombardy plain. It was a word (courageous) we heard often on our three-week bicycle jaunt from the French- Italian border on the Riviera to Venice on the Adriatic.

After seeing photos of Norway's famous fjørds, I decided it would be a great place for bike touring. As it turns out, I was hardly the first one to think of the idea as the area was teaming with cycle tourists from Germany. If you decide to visit, you will see why it has become so popular.

With photos, and useful and well-organized information.

Sion is start and finish for this mountain bike tour through the cantons Valais og Graubünden. Most of the riding is on tarmac, but occasionally I leave the pack behind and go off-road. This turn into a tour across some of the highest passes in Switzerland with detours to Stelvio in Italy and the Silvretta ski arena in Austria. Primarily I camp, but because it is raining a lot I sometimes stay in hotels to dry my clothes.

Le violente eruzioni dei vulcani Erciyes (3916 m) e Hasan (3268 m) avvenute tre milioni di anni fa, avevano ricoperto l'altopiano intorno a Nevsehir con tufo, una polvere composta da lava, cenere e fango. I venti e le piogge, erodendo queste rocce friabili, hanno creato dei paesaggi surrealistici spettacolari a forma di cono, di pinnacoli, di burroni scoscesi, dipinti con dei toni che variano dal rosso all'oro e dal verde al grigio.

Lucia comes from Brazil to have a taste of cycling, both on-road and off-road, in Italy. She first visits Lake Garda, one of the great areas for mountain biking in Trentino, very popular with German bikers, and rides among others one of the Tremalzo trails. She then moves to Tuscany, and visits places like San Gimignano, Siena, and Volterra. After an intense cycling day, she treats herself quite rightly to the delights of Tuscan cuisine... In August 1997 Lucia added sections on the Amalfitan Coast and Sardinia.

Qu'est-ce que le cyclotourisme ? C'est de l'amour ambulant dont la nature est l'objet. Nous devons cette d´finition à Henri de la Tombelle , dans son manuel du cyclotourisme ´dit´ en 1943, et je n'en connais pas de plus satisfaisante.

Pour ma part, même si le cyclotourisme demeure une activit´ ayant ses exigences d'effort et d'endurance, il n'est pas question de devenir esclave de la moyenne kilom´trique. Dans la pratique du v´lo, je vois essentiellement une façon agr´able de se d´placer dans la nature, de d´couvrir des paysages, des r´gions, de r´viser sa g´ographie en allant sur place ressentir la profondeur d'une belle vall´e ou l'altitude d'une montagne. Le Pyr´n´es, lorsqu'on habite Toulouse, sont l'objet de nombreuses conversations entre amoureux de la nature. Très nombreux sont les adeptes des randonn´es durant l'´t´, et du ski durant l'hiver. Pour notre part, peu attir´s par le ski et occup´s à bien d'autres activit´s en ´t´ (du v´lo par exemple), ces montagnes, pourtant si proches, demeuraient ´trangères à nos p´r´grinations et du coup globalement m´connues.

Ein Blick auf die Uhr verriet uns, daß wir bereits im Oslofjord sein könnten. Als wir das Deck erreichten, zogen bereits die ersten Berge an den Seiten des Schiffes vorbei. Das war also das Land, das uns für die nächsten Wochen beherbergen sollte! Berge, Berge, Berge. Und Inseln. Ich war begeistert - aber auch ein wenig besorgt, wie in dieser Topographie die Straßen aussehen mögen.

One day: 26 July 1996 from 09:00 to 15:30 - Km 90.

26 July 1996 from 09:00 to 15:30 - Km 90.

Most years, Reading Cycling Club organises a week-long trip to see the Tour de France. We hire a minibus, drive down to an approriate part of France, where we camp for a week, go cycling, and see the Tour when it comes past. [...] The Vercors is a great area to cycle in. The terrain is varied, and the scenery is lovely. The climbs are not as steep or as difficult as those in the high Alps, but provide enough of a challenge. I'd definitely recommend it as a place for a holiday.

The Tour du Mont-Blanc is a circuit of 322km based in the northern French Alps, but visiting Italy and Switzerland as well. Run as a permanent route by the Cycle Touring Club of Chambery, it carries a maximum time limit of 4 days, as it crosses five fairly high passes. Sheila and I considered our options carefully. We decided to join the circuit at Beaufort, at the foot of the Cormet de Roselend, deposit some of our touring luggage at a hotel and ride round in two days.

Includes photos, route descriptions and tips for bike touring in Iceland.

Why Iceland? I heard that question more times than I could count before my first trip to Iceland in July of 1996. Well, plain enough, I didn't know anyone that had been here, I had at least a passing interest in viking stuff, and I was always interested in the far north (even if Iceland isn't really in the arctic). It also was a good time for an adventure. I'd been a good little worker boy for too long. And I'd been thinking about all those lengthy climbing trips I'd made back when I was fumbling my way through college. Anyways, I did it by bicycle and I had a great time. Have a look...

Includes a photo album.

Our tour started at the Venezia airport. Naturally the first destination was Venice downtown. It is somewhat hard to find the two-kilometer bridge that connects old Venice with Mestre, we had to use some very congested freeway-like bridges and roads. In Venice, no bicycles or cars are allowed (or practical), the road ends at Piazzale Roma. To park the bicycles, make a U-turn when reaching the piazza and ride down a steep driveway just before the first of the two small bridges, right across from the parking garage building. Then walk back to the piazza and take the vaporetto (shuttle boat) #82 north (south is much more scenic but requires switching boats at San Marco) until the Zitelle station, which is one block south of a very pleasant youth hostel.

I cycled around the Baltic Sea from mid-June to mid-July 1996, starting in Stockholm and going clockwise, finishing in Stockholm a month later. It was a great trip!

The aim of the raid is to cover the 710 kms (440) miles from Hendaye on the Atlantic coast of France to Cerbere on the Mediterranean coast within one hundred hours. Eighteen cols are classified on the route issued by the organising club, the Cyclo Club Bearnais of Pau, and include some of the most famous cols tackled by the Tour de France each year such as the Tourmalet, the Aspin and the Aubisque.

Take good rain gear! seemed to be the unanimous recommendationof everyone who had been to Ireland on a bicycle. "There's areason that everything is so green over there"! Our experiencewould be different - a single day of rain in two beautiful weeksexploring the South and West of Ireland on bikes.
My sister Anne and I had been planning to tour the land of ourfather's ancestors for years. Both of us being avid cyclists, bicycleswere the only mode of travel we considered.

Brian's trip starts out miserably, with a double puncture before even hitting the road. The rest is ``downhill'', and the report is packed with many enlightening observations:

``I was also suffering a double dose of culture shock--an American urbanite in rural Ireland. It took me a day or two to adjust [...] If you are from the city, start in Dublin, if you're from the country, start in Shannon. This will help you make the transition better.''

In 1996 we chosed to bike straight across Sweden, from our home town Nyköping south of Stockholm to Marstrand north of Gothenburg and back again. We weren´t neither well-trained nor well-prepared and at least Eric (who had used his new driving license a bit too frequently the last year...) got a ``slight'' feeling of cramp in all muscles after just about 40 kilometres... Through the county of Östergötland we rode along Göta Canal, a very pleasant road which formerly was used by horses draging boats but now is rebuilt to cycleway. Many chose to cross Sweden along Göta Canal, both by boat and bike.

The adventure has been born in circumstances having a little in common with generally conceived tourism or ``communing with nature'' pattern; namely, in front of the computer screen in which I tried to find through the Internet links something which could have become a seed of future voyages. And I did - hundreds of pages of stories written by people for whom the Alps and bike were something more than just a holiday idea. [...] Such stories are extremely infectious, therefore it wasn't long before I have sketched on the map of Switzerland my route of dreams. The idea was even more encouraging for me, as the tour was supposed to run very close to numerous summits which I read about so many times - symbols of pioneer and contemporary alpinism.

A 1203 km tour in Norway, Sweden and Denmark in May 1996.

The splendidly organized (Ha, the Web!) report of an extensive tour of Scotland. A must-see!

Balloch, Lochearnhead, Oban, Glenfinnan, Sleat Mountains on Skye, Portree, Shiel Bridge, Inverness, Loch Lochy, Kingussie, Elgin, Fraserburgh, Aberdeen, Aboyne, Bridge of Cally, St. Andrews, Edinburgh, Galashiels, Gretna, Parton, Ayr, Johnstone.

This is the great report of a tour in the Alps that Jobst Brandt did in the summer of '96.

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...

Dieter flies back to Munich from South America, and jumps without waiting on his bike to conquer the Alps. It is not going to be easy...

From the moment we started, we knew this was going to be a holiday with a difference. Maybe it was the envious looks we got from British cyclists on the way to Heathrow, or maybe it was the stares from shocked Spaniards as we did a sudden strip-tease beside the baggage reclaim in Madrid, revealing if not our true colours, then at least our lycra-clad limbs. Full of gorgeous pictures well worth waiting for...

David does it again. His now complete report of his 1996 Nordic bicycle trip consists of five chapters:

• Swinging through Telemark, Norway
• Denmark
• Shivering in Sweden
• Tripping in Troll-land, Norway
• Rallarvegen and More, Norway.

First part - the second part is available as Stralsund-Schwerin. A family cycle tour in 1996 through the German province of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. During the tour memories from a cycle tour in the same area in 1971, when this area was behind the iron curtain, come to mind.

Not your average text-cum-pictures tour report: along with the textthere are gorgeous watercolours. Highly recommended.

This 1996 trip through Italy was our second 1,000 mile bicycle tour. Our first 1,000 mile cycling trip was in Ireland the summer before. Italy proved to be a delightful challenge. We accomplished one goal, which was to crack the myth that Southern Italy was not a good place to travel, especially by bicycle, something we repeatedly heard in California. Our second goal was more nebulous. We knew we would ride 1,000 miles, but we weren't positive which route we would take. As you will see, the route evolved as we went along. Our experiences were all positive, and the people we met were extremely helpful and hospitable. One important feature of our trip was that I took the time to learn some basic Italian (including grammar) beyond phrasebook dialogue. It made all the difference in the world, because people knew we were trying to speak their language and they appreciated and respected that very much.

Von Bozen nach La Spezia auf der Straße.

A report of a 50/100/200km event (pick your own) in the Italian Dolomites, by Sheila Simpson. Sheila is Editor of Arrivee, the magazine of Audax UK, the Long Distance Cyclists' Association in the UK.

Milosz describes six itineraries in this prime cycling territory. The text is accompanied (off-line, with inline thumbnails) by some gorgeous pictures.

Four weeks, 2500km, 30000m gain... a great ride in a great bicycle touring country.

Eine ausführliche Tourenbeschreibung unserer zweiwöchigen Radreise durch die großartige Wüstenlandschaft Andalusiens - zu Füßen der schneebedeckten Gipfel der Sierra Nevada. Besonderen Wert haben wir auf genaue Informationen für Radfahrer gelegt, wie Dauer der Tagesetappen, Höhenmeter und zurückgelegte Kilometer. Natürlich kein Ersatz für Reiseführer und Karte.

Unsere Etappen:Cabo de Gata - San Jos´ | Rundtour San José - Las Negras und zurück | Ausflug: Almería - Strände von San Jos´ | San Jos´ - Nijar | Nijar - Turillas - Mini Hollywood - Tabernas | Tabernas - Olula-Paß - Los Navarros | Gergal - Guadix | Guadix - Paß - Granada | Alhambra | Konditionstest: Granada - Parador - Granada | Granada - Beznar - Castel de Ferro | Castel de Ferro - Roquetals del Mar | Roquetal del Mar - Flughafen .