Europe (all)

Very brief: Auvergne, Dordogne, upper Loire region, Languedoc-Roussilion, Ballon d'Alsace.

Paris-Brest-Paris is the oldest traditional cycling event, started in 1891 by a Frenchman named Giffard who thought it would be a great way to promote cycling, as a test ``not primarily of speed but brains, skill and endurance.'' It was held thereafter every ten years, and since the middle of the century, every four years. Attracting more than 4,000 or so riders from a number of countries, it is a ride of over 1,200 kilometers (about 750 miles) that must be completed within 90 hours.

Wayne rides through France, and has a look at the Tour on the way.

Wayne rides through France, and has a look at the Tour on the way.

In the summer of 1995, my girlfriend Thea and I spent a fortnight on a motoring, camping and cycling holiday in France. Our longest stay was a week camping in Bourg d'Oisans, with the joint aims of seeing the Tour go up Alpe d'Huez, and also cycling up a few mountains ourselves. I was also considering attempting the Marmotte randonee, which coincided with the weekend of our stay.

We'd managed just one ride before getting to Bourg d'Oisans. This, around Annecy, included the Col de la Forclaz, claimed by a local friend to feature ``the best view in the Alps'' from the top. We were sadly unable to confirm this, as it was pouring with rain and visibility was down to 20 yards when we got there. A bunch of people in the cafe seemed very amused by us taking photographs of each other in front of a fog bank.

This route goes from the rainy South-West coast of Iceland right to the North of the country, which is drier and warmer in summer, passing through the interior of Iceland along the Kjölur route. I made it with 4 more friends in 6 days.

From Arrivèe On-Line, Audax UK's quarterly magazine.

A certain Frenchman, Georges Rossini of Thonon on Lake Geneva, has set up four testing Alpine routes, or 'Raids':

• Randonnee Alpine - Thonon to Antibes, 740km and 43 cols through the French Alps.
• Randonnee Alpine - Thonon to Trieste, 1180km and 41 cols through the Swiss and Italian Alps and Dolomites.
• Randonnee Prealpine - Thonon to Antibes, 894km and 47 cols through the French Alps.
• Randonnee Prealpine - Thonon to Venice, 1209km and 69 cols through the Italian Alps and Lakes.

Most of the places we stayed were walled medieval towns, each with histories dating back centuries, and each with its own identity and flavor. One such city was Volterra. Perched on a high plateau, Volterra has been occupied since prehistoric times because of its strategic location. [...] The fields of colorful spring wildflowers, flowed up to the vineyards, which were just starting to spread their new spring growth across the hills, while roves of olive trees added their own unique presence to the landscape. Tall, stately spires of Italian cypress appeared to march across every distant ridge, usually leading to a small farm or a large villa. As we finally entered the ancient gates of the city, we collapsed in the shadows on a cool stone bench.

A gorgeous trip through the Alps, over several passes: Simplon, Furka, Oberalp, Wolfgang, Fluela, Ofen, Stelvio, Mortirolo, Tonale, Mendola, Sella, Fedaia, Gardena, Campolongo and Pordoi. Don't miss this great story!

[...] I saw three bikes being loaded onto the conveyor...two of them were in boxes that looked different than the ones I had so carefully reinforced and packaged back home. Sure enough, my bike and Eric's had suffered terminal damage to our front wheels, and Eric's front pannier racks had been damaged badly. How were they able even to start this tour? Read on!

This is an older version without pictures; the main one is no longer available on the net.

I visited Tenerife in December 1994 for two weeks. [...] We have cycled totally 1400 km, without getting bored. There are a lot of beautiful climbs. Tenerife is really an eldorado for mountain goats, without a flat kilometer.

If there is one single thing that made our trip to Spain worthwhile then it was the people. To put it simply they are the tops. Maybe because of the contrast from what we were used to, I do not know, but they do come across as warm, friendly, easy going people. This is especially true of small Spanish villages where everyday seems like a Sunday.

There are two major roads out of Riva, towards Monte Brione to the east, and south towards Monte Tremalzo and others. Monte Brione is good for short but difficult tours; this hill is roughly elliptic, with the west side nearly on level with the lake and the east end sloping up and then dropping sharply. It looks like a large cylinder buried at an angle. There is a Worldcup trail along the steep east edge and plenty of single trails. A road leads up and ends at a large bunker near the top. Monte Brione was crowded with mountainbikers when we were there, it has terrain for everybody.

I set out to make a good and complete tour to the High Tatras. We took part three of us in this thin two weeks planned expedition: Zoltán Maráz and R´dei from Szolnok and me, from Budakalász. Based on the guys experiences we planned the tour for the middle of august. Zoltán Maráz, with whom I got acquainted in the tour in 1993, had already cycled 6 times to there and back the highest mountain-range of the Carpathians through the years, the other guy had only one. I had left 28000 kms behind me by bike in the last 5 years before 1995. We agreed to meet in R´páshuta in the Bükk mountain-range. For me it meant 200kms for the first day with the pack of about 20 kgs. At dawn of the 9th of August 1995 we started at the same time, at 5 am. It was dark. On the whole rainy and grey day I tried to get used to the 20 kgs heavy pack. After the tiring, hilly area before Eger I had to climb on a long ascent up to the 700m high Bükk-plateau, and after 200 kms I arrived at the Hunter-restaurant in R´páshuta, where my tourmates had already waited for me.

One day: 6 September 1994 from 6:30 to 20:00. Chiasso-Airolo by train then: Airolo - Nufenenpass - Ulrichen - Briga - Simplonpass - Domodossola Domodossola-Vergiate by train then: Vergiate - Azzate - Vedano Olona Olgiate Comasco - Drezzo - Pedrinate - Chiasso Km 180 (only cycling). Find more of Marco Buffa's tour reports here.

1367 km in 13 days with a vertical height gain of 11,165 m with two ``rest'' days in the middle on a cycling trip from Elba to Glashuetten.

A brief description of a bike tour which we undertook in Portugal in September '94. We started from Faro at the Algarve coast, proceeded via Sagres to Lisbon and terminated our journey in Coimbra in middle Portugal. [...] The overall distance was about 800 km. We took (including rests) three and a half week with 16 days of cycling. As a whole, the trip was one of the most magnificent and wonderful holidays we ever had ! If you plan to do something similar, do it as soon as you can!

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

Saturday, August 13, was a nice day, none too cold. The summer of Central Finland was gradually coming to an end but one could still wear shorts and other summer stuff for cycling.

• 9 August 1994 from 8:30 to 17:50: La Salle-Chamonix by car via Tunnel, then Chamonix - Col des Montets - Col de la Forclaz - Martigny - Col du Grand St. Bernard - Aosta - La Salle; Km 153.
• 12 August 1994 from 7:30 to 20:00: La Salle - Col du Petit St. Bernard - Bourg St. Maurice - Albertville - Beaufort - Col de Saises - Megeve - Chamonix Chamonix-La Salle by car via Tunnel; Km 207.

One day: Tour 21 July 1994 from 8:00 to 20:20. Pontresina - Zernez - Ofenpass - S. Maria - Umbrailpass - Bormio - Passo Foscagno - Passo Eira - Livigno - Forcola - Bernina - Pontresina, Km 180. Find more of Marco Buffa's tour reports here.

Bicycle tour thrugh the Czech Republic, riding 1100km in two weeks.

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

It was Thursday, June 7, and I found myself in Lappeenranta, a town of some 60,000 inhabitants in southeastern Finland, only about 20 km from the Russian border. [...] So, on a most beautiful hot summer day, I set out on my own, panniers fully loaded, to the northwest and Jyvaeskylae, where I live.

Karl and Karin travel with two children (age 3 and 1) in trailers. Now who was talking about ``anchors''...

The report of a 25 day bicycle tour of Sweden and Norway near midsummer 1994, by Dave Dermott. Includes the Vättern Rundan 1994.

The report of a 37 days (from July 21, 1994 to August 26, 1994), 4240km tour of the Baltic See along the route: Hamburg - Schleswig/Holstein - Denmark (Border-Frederikshavn) - Norway (Moss-Ostby) - Sweden (Sorsjoern-Grisslehamn) - Aland-Island (Eckeroe-Mariehamn) - Finland (Naantali-Helsinki) - Estonia (Tallinn-Valga) - Latvia (Valka-Bauska) - Lithuania (Salociai-Lazdijai) - Poland (Sejny-Kostrzyn) - Brandenburg - Berlin - Magdeburg - Hannover - Paderborn.

Our tour took us through several of the rural areas of central England, and we experienced very pleasant and relaxing cycling on the B and unclassified roads. This may come a bit as a surprise regarding that the area crosses the central urban and industrial belt stretching from Greater London to the Midlands (Birmingham).

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 report of a 37 days (from July 21, 1994 to August 26, 1994), 4240km tour of the Baltic See along the route: Hamburg - Schleswig/Holstein - Denmark (Border-Frederikshavn) - Norway (Moss-Ostby) - Sweden (Sorsjoern-Grisslehamn) - Aland-Island (Eckeroe-Mariehamn) - Finland (Naantali-Helsinki) - Estonia (Tallinn-Valga) - Latvia (Valka-Bauska) - Lithuania (Salociai-Lazdijai) - Poland (Sejny-Kostrzyn) - Brandenburg - Berlin - Magdeburg - Hannover - Paderborn

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

The rain is relentless in beating against me. There is no way of enjoying the scenery but my memory tells me it is rather nice. [...] At times the rain falls down ever harder, the drops hurt my face and my bell keeps ringing faintly. I see no other cyclists. Sissies.

A 25 day bicycle tour of Sweden and Norway near midsummer 1994. So why am I on a bike tour of Scandinavia? ( Norden) A long time ago, I was on a trip there with my parents. If I ever went on a bike tour of some foreign land I thought it should be to Norway and Sweden. Some features of the Nordic lifestyle appeal to me- the love of outdoor sports for example. After bicycle touring my big passion is nordic ski touring. I was curious to see that if those old Participaction Canada ads about the 60 year old Swedes were true . THEY ARE TRUE!

Also the climate, vegetation etc of Sweden and Norway are much that of parts of Canada ( Sweden like Nova Scotia, Norway like British Columbia). It would be interesting to see a how another society has developed in the same environmental conditions as Canada. It would be both exotic and familiar.

The report of a one-month, 3018km tour of Spain, beautifully illustrated.

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

The dark forest envelops me and welcomes me home. Telephone poles have large heaps of squirrel-processed cones at the bottom. Large boulders speck the forest floor, remnants of the ice age. [...] At home I feel happy at my first ``century'' after nine months of ankylosing spondylitis.

For Kurban BayramI (``Sacrifice Feast'' in English, ``eid-al-adha'' in Arabic, in honor of Abraham's pledge to sacrifice his son (though God then bade him to sacrifice but a sheep), i.e. the Islamic holiday in the middle of ``Hac'' (``Hadj'' in Arabic), the Islamic pilgrimage month to Mecca), I drove with my Turkish friend TuGrul to the Mediterranean Sea for a mountain-bike tour in the Taurus Mountains. Here's an account of how we braved physical adversity and faced the impeccable logic of rural Turks.

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

Spring was on its way, finally. With the arrival of April, I had discarded studded tires and other winter equipment. Riding had been chilly and dirty, the scenery bleak but then the snow really started melting and the ice fishers were driven off the lakes (or drowned). Monday, April 25 was a pretty day for my traditional 100 km spring test run.

A very detailed tour description in three chapters: Paris - Rambouillet - Tournoisis - Onzain - Chinon - Ingrandes - La Roche - La Rochelle - Saintes - Morcenx - Biarritz - Cambo - Oloron St. Marie - Lannemezan - St. Girons - Limoux -Carcassonne - St. Pons - St. Rome - Pont de Montvert - Vallon Pont d'Arc - Avignon.

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

Sunday March 13 appears uninspiring. The sky is grey. The snow is dirty. There is slush, it is +1 C. The breakfast newspaper is dull, the oatmeal bland. Finland is depressing. What can save the day? A bike ride!

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

Sunday February 27 was another glorious winter day here, Jyvaeskylae, Finland, above the 62th parallel: clear blue sky, sparkling snow and the sun low above the horizon. Time for a bike ride. [...] The temperature is very pleasant, -9 C, the wind unpleasant, in my face.

Markku Tuomi has written up beautiful reports of severals rides he did in Central Finland in 1994, one per month, partly on-road, partly off-road.

[...] four months of illness and recovery (and no cycling) at the end of 1993 evaporated whatever fitness I used to have. I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis (a rheumatoid disease of the spine) and for a while it looked like I might not be cycling again. [...] It is overcast and not so cold (- 8 C) on January 23.

A family goes cyclo-camping and brings back valuable experience, great stories and beautiful pictures.