Europe (local)

This is a trip through some of the most beautiful mountain scenarios in the French Alps. A great part of the route follows road D902 - Route des Grandes Alpes - and on the way I cross some of the greatest Tour de France passes. The touring bike has triple chainrings, so even the steepest slopes are managed without problems. I ride alone, don't carry much pack and stay in hotels overnight. Using only six days for the trip I spend the remaining holidays at Côte d'Azur.

Mountain pass pictures and information.

Herbst 1987: Die erste Radtour in den französischen Alpen. Col de la Croix de Fer, Galibier, Col d'Izoard, Col de Vars, Restefond/la Bonette (2802 m), Col de la Couillole und Col d'Allos heißen die Eckpunkte dieser Reise. Zwar fahren wir an 8 Tagen gerade einmal 660 km weit, aber dabei überwinden wir über 14000 Höhenmeter.

My first trip to the Alps and Provence is a lightweight tour on a road bike with just a handlebar bag for the luggage. I stay in hotels overnight. The route includes a few passes known from Tour de France. This, however, turns out to be somewhat hasty. At least I get some hard-earned experience - both with respect to gear ratios and my own ability. But it's surely beautiful, and standing at the Col du Galibier summit for the first time is very self-satisfactory.

Wer es nicht erlebt hat, der kann es kaum beschreiben: Ein Ziel so vage, so unkalkulierber, so weit. Und dann befindet man sich auf den letzten Metern.Wer jemals im Norden Europas Urlaub gemacht hat, der weiß, dass im Sommer die Sonne endlos zu scheinen scheint. Aber das täuscht. In der Höhe der Lofoten muss man schon sehr nahe am längsten Tag eintreffen, um von den Berggipfeln die Mitternachtssonne zu sehen. Im August ist es zwar immer noch legendär hell, aber die Sonne taucht bereits für einige Zeit unter den Horizont. Ich bezeichne dieses Schauspiel auch gerne als den Untergang der Mitternachtssonne.

Nordkapp - 4.8.84 - ich bin am Ziel. Das Nordkapp ist zwar schon recht rummelig, weil natürlich Bus um Bus hier hin gekarrt wird, aber es ist nicht wirklich überlaufen. Und Wegezoll gibt es auch noch nicht. Es ist doch eine ganze Reihe von Personen, die auf die sportliche Art und Weise diesen Weg meistern - und da gibt es natürlich viel zu erzählen, auch wenn in dieser Nacht der Untergang der Mitternachtssonne hinter den Wolken stattfindet. Ich schwinge das nun leicht beladene Rad auf den Steinsockel, der die Weltkugel trägt, und mache mit Stativ ein Bild.

One year after intermediate examinations I manage to take two months off my studies to have a dream come true, cycling to the North Cape (norwegian: Nordkapp). Sure, travelling more than 3600 miles to the north of Norway is not everybodies delight. Temparatures are expected to be low and the weather to be unsteady. However, at the end of this journey I may declare the Scandinavian weather beeing not as bad as its reputation.

On the 4th of july I am ready for take off. That time my bike is one of the oldest, heaviest and less reliable bikes that have ever been seen on their way north. 20 kg of additional weight has to be carried: A tent, sleeping bag, camera, 11 color films (300 slides) and other equipement. On this trip, that does not cost more than DM 1800.- in the end, I ruin a shirt, a jeans, a cycle chain, a tyre cover and not less than 9 spokes. Though the bike never has a puncture.

That year, 666 cyclists started. There were 19 women, 17 riding solo and two stoking tandems. I had never seen so many bicycles in one place. I picked up my control book. It had a hand-drawn American flag and a typed English translation of the rules. I found out that seven other Americans were starting.

From June 27 through July 19 [2000] AEDP (Project of Development Education of SOROS Albania) will provide 60-70 people selected from Albania, the Balkans, and the rest of the world with an intense learning experience in Italy and Albania. The tour will promote friendship and understanding between people from a wide variety of backgrounds and demonstrate that ALBANIA is Opening Up to the World.
Participants will bicycle from Rome to Venice in Italy, through Southern Albania and Northern Greece. They will receive guided tours at various stops along the away. A film crew will accompany the trip to produce a video which each participant is required to present in 5 schools upon their return after the end of the trip.

From Fietspad langs de digitale snelweg

From Fietspad langs de digitale snelweg

From Fietspad langs de digitale snelweg

Welcome to the first "wired" human-powered (bicycle), land-bound circumnavigation of the Mediterranean Sea. The team have concluded their journey, but they are continuing to add reports to this site.

A great photo archive. Each page includes no more than 3 photos, on average, 25,000 bytes. We hope you enjoy them. There is a help page if you are having difficulty viewing the images. The photos are not of printable quality - if you wish to use any of these pictures in a hardcopy publication, please contact us and we will supply a high-resolution file.

A huge collection of altitude profiles of cols and climbs.

Passes in Switzerland, in France and in Italy are described on this site. The most important information for cyclist in figures and texts, of course some pictures and partly historical backgrounds. In addition tips to accommodations, maps and (at the moment mainly german) links.

Read the exciting story of the middle-aged couple who cycled over 6000 kilometres around Europe. Travelling from their home in southern England, they rode down the west coast of France before peddling on into Spain and Portugal - enduring the best and worst of Europe's weather! Their adventures are described here for you to enjoy, and maybe encourage you to do the same!

Il giro è molto bello e non eccessivamente faticoso. Si trovano delle ottime cartine fino a Maribor (Da Dobbiaco è tutta ciclabile, la Drauweg), un po' meno in Slovenia e Croazia, dove ciclabili praticamente non ce ne sono, ma ci sono parecchie strade secondarie senza traffico. In Slovenia agli uffici turistici si possono trovare cartine della zona decenti (noi ci siamo accontentati di quelle, ma consigliamo caldamente di procurarvi una carta almeno al 200.000, possibilmente con le curve di livello?) e un paio di pubblicazioni interessanti, anche in Italiano, su ``Slovenia in bicicletta'' e ``Le strade secondarie sono più accattivanti di quelle principali''. Aiutano molto. Non fate troppo affidamento sui cartelli segnaletici delle presunte piste ciclabili (``kolesarska pot'', in sloveno) che a volte mancano. Sulla strada che abbiamo scelto noi abbiamo incontrato traffico solo in alcuni punti che non avevano alternative, andando a ficcarci in strade impossibili solo un paio di volte, evitabili.

The Coast-to-Coast Route covered 1000miles (1600km) beginning in Hendaye on the Atlantic Ocean and finishing in Collioure on the Mediterranean Sea.

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

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

Translated from the original French version by Barbara Leonard.

Armenia, do you know it? Is Armenia a people or a religion? We forget about the strong sentimental or familial ties that unite us with this small, distant country (the size of Belgium) in the Caucasus, bordered by Europe and Asia. Who doesn't have, among friends and acquaintances, a good friend who is Armenian? Armenia is not well-known to western travelers, who lack sufficient information to discover this former Soviet republic whose population is 3 500 000. Armenia is a country of mountains, served on a high plateau, bristling with extinguished volcanoes, and circled on all sides by the powerful mountainous systems of Asia minor, Persia, and the Caucasus. It has its economic ``lung'', Erevan, the capital, whereas the rest of the country is a tangle of mountains higher than 3000 meters, notched with deep valleys. Who says ``mountains'' says ``passes'' (obviously), and the small area of the country allows us cross it from top to bottom. The program consists of 10 stages, the first week autonomously (totally by bicycle), and the second, climbing passes but travelling the long distances between them via auto; 14 passes, of which 12 are higher than 2000 meters.

These were our initial worries: the trip was too easy, it was too crowded, and the scenery would be monotonously the same for the length of the river.

As it turned out, there was some small truth in each of these worries, but none was nearly as bad as we had anticipated. [...] I had read that the Danube bike path is very crowded in the summer months, and that since all riders start from the same intermediary points (the same hotels) at about the same time, there are traffic jams on the path. As it turned out, this worry was greatly exaggerated. The path was reasonably crowded, particularly near the towns on the weekends, but there were other long stretches when we wouldn't see another cyclist for perhaps ten minutes. We did get in ``synch'' with certain other small groups that we would encounter from time to time, but we never saw any of our own tour group after the first morning. About once an hour we would be passed, or would pass, a ``peloton'' of perhaps 20 to 30 cyclists, and every fifteen minutes or so a solitary biker, looking like he was doing the Tour de France, would pass us at great speed. On balance, I wouldn't have called the path particularly crowded.

This is the Pilsner tour, covering Germany, Hungary, Austria, and the Czech Republic. The terrain is rolling hills and the routes traverse famous rivers and the towns and cities that formed along their banks.

La pista ciclabile dei Tauri, dal nome della catena montuosa austriaca, si snoda lungo le valli dei fiumi Salzach e Inn partendo dalle cascate di Krimml, attraversando la città di Salisburgo fino a giungere a Passau (D), dove si congiunge con la pista del Danubio. L'itinerario di circa 400 km è stato da noi percorso in una settimana (AGOSTO 1999), dedicando un po' di tempo alla visita di cittadine e altri luoghi interessanti. Il materiale utilizzato per organizzare l'itinerario (in italiano) ci è stato fornito dall'Ente Austriaco per il Turismo.

Nice pictures but not a lot about bicyles: ``On this summer sunday, after months of travel, I was riding my bicycle through lush, green, central Austrian farm country. The narrow unmarked country roads carried little traffic and provided enough space and quiet for me to stop whenever I wished to play my penny whistle or take pictures of poppy fields. As I was riding along, letting my mind wander across open fields, the steady spinning of my legs and feet, the rotating wheels and the rhythm of my own breath all fused together into a meditative gestalt - with me at the center.''

Two days: Green meadows and scattered masi (wooden small houses for the storage of hay) is the characteristic landscape of Comelico valley; the road continues along the Piave river (mild climb) up to Salafossa mines (closed) and a tunnel puts us on the climb to Sappada. This reach of road is excavated on the rocky side of the valley which here is a very narrow gorge and there is the impressive sight of the Orrido Acquatona in which the river Piave flows on the bottom of the gorge (here very deep and narrow).

Fiets Vlaanderen is een initiatief van de Vlaamse Overheid, gericht aan recreatieve en woon-werkfietsers. De fiets die bijdraagt tot de leefbaarheid van onze samenleving, het milieu spaart en het mobiliteitsprobleem helpt oplossen staat centraal op deze site.

Cycle touring is an excellent way to see the world. It's fast enough to cover great distances, yet slow enough to take everything in. This years ride aims to raise money for UK registered charity Motivation.

from Donauworth in Germany through Austria to Ostiglia and Altino in Italy includes cycling information

Few words, many photos.

Nicely illustrated. Italian versions.

Nicely illustrated. Italian versions.

Describes a 3000km route joining the cities of the Hanseatic League.

Dass die Kinder mit dem Rad schon auf weiten Reisen waren, versteht sich von selbst. Aber dass sie ihr Rad dabei selbst bewegen müssen, ist neu. Von dieser allerersten mehrtägigen Tour mit eigenem Antrieb durch das ebenso einfach zu fahrende wie landschaftlich reizvolle Rheintal erzählt dieser Bericht.

Wir starten am späten Vormittag des Pfingstsamstags in Bonn. Das Wetter ist besser als die Vorhersage. Allein das Hochwasser am Rhein, das wir noch des öfteren auf dieser Tour durchfahren müssen, macht uns etwas Sorgen. Aber bis auf einige spektakuläre Flussdurchquerungen erleben wir keine Einschränkungen hinsichtlich der Reiseroute. Und das ist gut so, denn die Fahrt entlang der viel befahreren Bundesstraße 9 ist mit Kindern nicht gerade sehr angenehm.

A tour in Germany along the Danube