Europe (local)

A self-contained cyclecamping tour of Brittany in September 1999, lasting eleven days and 600 kilometres, with photos.

``The payback for the long uphill stretches came later on, when the last ten kilometres of the day's run to Carhaix was very fast indeed, down superbly smooth highway. Thus it was that I made good time in getting to Carhaix-Plouguer, stopping at the Intermarch´ supermarket to stock up on foodstuffs, toilet rolls and wine. I had been forewarned that the supermarket stood at the top of a very long hill which led down to the Les Hyères campsite, where we would be setting up camp that night, and so it would be wise to stock up there before heading down to the campsite. The bike made a comical sight when I had managed to stow the toilet paper (see picture).''

Lake Kerkini is a wetlands wildfowl reserve in Northern Greece, with a large variety of bird and other animal life, as well as a virtually traffic-free dirt road for most of its circumference. Ideal for a day's cycletour and some birdwatching. This is a description of the area, with photos, and some hints on making the most of a trip there.

The Axenstrasse is noted for its rugged cliffs that drop steeply to the dark green lake. The Gotthard railway lies below the road near the water, mostly in tunnels, while the road wound its way through short tunnels on the way to Flüelen in the Reuss valley. The Axenstrasse can best be appreciated from a bicycle with its view of towering snow capped peaks above the lake.

Quest'anno mi sono spostato un po' più ad est, visitando il piccolo Liechtenstein e la parte occidentale dell'Austria, sino a Salisburgo, con un ulteriore sconfinamento nella Baviera meridionale. Sempre con la mia fida Cannondale F600, e con lo stesso bagaglio dello scorso anno.

Welcome to Jørn's cycling homepage. If you are searching for ride reports from The Great Trial of Strength and the Tour of Jotunheimen and general information about tours in Norway, you have come to the right place. You can also find information and result from the local races in Trondheim. You can also read more about Velocipede (tm), a Windows based training log program for cyclists, and the Rec.Bicycles.* FAQ file. If you are cycling the net, I also have a list of other cycling related sites around the world. Want to know more about my bikes?

Several times I have made cycle tours in Germany. The first time I had planned a route which went straight on, regardless of the landscape. I was soon told that it was wiser to follow rivers. Then I would have more gentle gradients, and the cycle tour would become much more pleasant. In summer 2004 when Turid and I made a cycle tour in Germany, we stuck to river valleys. Since my first cycle tours in the 1960s there has been a tremendous development regarding the infrastructure for cyclists in Germany. You will find cycle routes which go through the most interesting landscapes, and those cycle routes are even sign posted. Thus we could avoid roads with much traffic and stay on pathways where we met other cyclists, and we came closer to the nature.

The big picture was to fly into Amsterdam, take the train to Cologne, and then bike in 50km legs to Colmar (Alsace). Our intent was to bike up the Rhine from Cologne to Eltville (just shy of Mainz), leave the Rhine to continue south along the Weinstrasse (“wine road�) through Bad Durkheim and Wissembourg into France, on to Strasbourg and then to Colmar. Our ultimate objective was the village of Eguisheim about 7 km outside Colmar, for a total distance of 500 km. If we made it that far we’d rest our legs and play the return by ear; if we didn’t, we would park ourselves in a vineyard along the route and send postcards saying we’d made it to Switzerland! We decided to go “up� the Rhine rather than “down� for a couple of reasons, not the least of which was the north-to-south direction of the prevailing wind in the Rhine valley, which we judged would compensate for the slightly rising elevation .

Because we wanted to see the small villages, as well as select big cities, we decided that our best route through Italy was to zigzag across Umbria and Tuscany. The big cities on our list were Venice, Assisi, Florence, and Rome. Some of the surprisingly pleasant small towns in between included Urbino, Gubbio, and Poppi. Not a real straight line. We had planned on 60 mile days to give us time to be tourists. We discovered however that some days clocked in closer to 80 miles, and many days had between 4000 and 9000 feet of climb. Luckily the weather was conducive to riding - Sunny and 75, but in retrospect we would have preferred fewer miles each day. Italy is a country to savor.

Welcome to the diary from our 2004 trip to Italy. Our planned route was to travel up from Rome, following the coast for the first few days, then cutting in to Florence through Tuscany. We'd get back to Rome by looping down through Umbria.

In spring 2004, I spent 21 rewarding days cycling the most scenic sections of these picturesque German rivers that meander past historic towns like Tuebingen, Heidelberg and Koblenz. Nearly all the way, I rode on car-free bike paths that were mostly paved and free of big hills. Each night I stayed at a budget-priced hotel, often in the pedestrian-only center of medieval towns full of rambling, cobblestoned streets lined by half-timbered houses with tall, rakish roofs. And day after day, I pedalled along riverside bike paths that wound between steep, craggy hills with crenellated castles perched on cliffs high above the sparkling river. Half travelog, the rest of this report is packed with everything you need to know to duplicate my trip on your own.

I followed roughly the coastline of the Ireland, but I didn't see the sea in the first week because I cycled trough the interior of the island, from Dublin via Kilkenny to Cork. Between Cork and Killarney I cycled mostly right next to the sea, along the coastline of the south-western peninsulas. For me this was the most exciting part. I took the bus from Galway back to Dublin. In the end I had cycled 1004 miles.

Pictorial personal diary, equipment list, and route guide for a 4.5 month cycle trip, Boston, England to Gibraltar.

In 2003 I attempted Paris-Brest-Paris. I didn't finish due to knee troubles, but had a wonderful time nonetheless.

This report covers my first tour of the Alps with three other people, starting in Grenoble and ending in Nice- including my first-ever mountain: l'Alpe-d'Huez. A beautiful 10 days' ride in beautiful weather, over a beautiful landscape.

Eine Radtour in 5 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 483 km zumeist den großen Flußläufen von Moldau und Elbe folgend, Tagesetappen zwischen 67 und 130 Kilometer.

Die fast 800 Kilometer lange Fahrradtour führt von der Isarmetropole in die Rattenfängerstadt Hameln. Die Route orientiert sich größtenteils an Flußläufe. Es sind zwei Wasserscheiden zu überwinden: die europäische Wasserscheide zwischen Donau und Rhein sowie die Wasserscheide zwischen Rhein und Weser.

In the summer of 1999 I cycled a little over 7000km across Europe, from Nordkapp, at the northern end of Norway, to Calabria, the southernmost region of Italy. It was the best bicycle ride and adventure of my life so far. This is my attempt to share what I saw and felt.

``The Great Heart Travelers'' promote the blood donation riding around the world. They made a Europe tour of 5400 km in 2004, and a tour in New Zealand in 2005. (Follow the archive link at the bottom of the page to go to the European tour.)

A record of my progress from Alkmaar to Aix; by pedal power. From Netherlands to France via Belgium.

Most important is perhaps to point out that this for me was a most enjoyable thing to do. It was also an easy thing to do, and required remarkably little advance planning. I checked the bike and did the necessary repairs and changes, I drafted a route though the low countries and through France, estimated how long it would take me to do it, and with the minimum physical preparations I set off from Alkmaar on the 5th June.

I benefited of course from previous bicycling experience, I was aware of possible (physical) problems that might turn up, and was very careful not to let minor problems develop into more serious ones. Also extensive travel experience over the years (not much of it on bicycle) has taught me that there is always accommodation, there is food and drink to be found on the way. I climbed from Bonnieux up the hill [...] there was the most fantastic ride down the narrow valley towards Lourmarin, narrow hairpin bends, and again a downhill ride that seemed to go on forever.

A 2 week tandem tour of the Abruzzo and Puglia regions, taking in the Gran Sasso region (Campo Imperatore), and the Gargano Peninsula. Includes daily ride reports, maps, photos, planning and packing info.

We are 2 18 year old students. We made a tour across Europe from Holland to Sweden and Great Britain. After this we took the boat to Holland and set off to the south of Portugal.

In the spring (2006) we are going to make a trip from Anataly Turkey to Holland.

In September 2003 I organised and led a charity ride in the Pyrenees. A group of 14 braved the elements, and gravity, to raise £12,000 for Intermediate Technology Development Group. The two-week trip involved tears and blood, food and wine, 2000m cols and 50 mph descents. What follows is the record of that trip.

A self supported relaxed bike tour along the beautiful Loire valley. Pretty villages, nature, castles, delicious food, nice hotels - a report of a nearly perfect tour.

Additional infos about travel by train in France.

In this page you can find some links to my bicycle tour in Switzerland, Austria and Liechtenstein, from year 2000. From 2004 there are some photos available.

A tour of the French Alps, from Geneva to Nice, returning via the Piemont plains of Italy, followed by a visit to various climbs in Switzerland.

Six days - eight fjords - nine mountains.

Glaciers, waterfalls, white nights, trolls...and 200 great-spirited cycling enthusiasts sharing the Fjordland fairytales.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour in 6 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 480 km durch typische Toskana-Landschaften, Tagesetappen zwischen 58 und 104 Kilometer.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour in 5 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 439 km durch bergiges Gelände, Tagesetappen zwischen 59 und 107 Kilometer.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour in 5 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 491 km, Tagesetappen zwischen 61 und 151 Kilometer.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour auf Sizilien in 12 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 1025 km, Tagesetappen zwischen 50 und 120 Kilometern.

This is a photo illustrated chronology of a six day bicycle trip from Prague, Czech Republic to Vienna, Austria in September, 2004.

Follow the adventures of Kevin, Tom and Paul, three Canadians as they tour through scenic countryside through towns with place names they could not pronounce.

This tandem-bike tour led us from Prague in the Czech Republic via Tabor, Ceske Budejovice and Cesky Krumlov to the border at Horni Dvoriste. The trip continued along Austria's Tauern bike route (Tauernradweg) from Krimml, Austria, up through Bad Reichenhall, Germany, and ending at Salzburg, Austria. The trip report contains many useful links and resources to assist other tourists in their trip planning.

A week-long tandem bike tour on the Tauern bike route (Tauernradweg) from Krimml, Austria to Passau, Germany. Daily trip notes, useful trip-planning links, and a comprehensive resources page with information about touring in Austria and Germany, using the train systems, etc. Tour report published in Oct. 2005.

This journal describes the tour of the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean in Aug/Sept of 2005. We criss-crossed the French-Spanish border a few times. It includes several passes that have been part of the the Tour de France in 2005 and years past. It includes a link to a more complete set of photographs.

In September 2005 my wife Carol and I returned to France with our bikes for our 17th cycling trip in that wonderful country where the food is great, the wine is great, the cycling is varied and interesting, the roads are good and the weather is warm and sunny ..... normalement! Because we have criss-crossed the southern half of the country so often it had become difficult to find a route that we had not traveled before. But the Auvergne was an area as yet undiscovered by us so I planned a route that would take us through this lightly populated rugged region that makes up a large part of the Massif Central. Although we had done little training for this trip I was not concerned because I assumed, from the map at left, here, that we were essentially starting at the top and going to the bottom so it should be basically downhill all the way. It turns out that there is absolutely no correlation between north/south and up/down. As usual this trip report is far too wordy, dull, uninteresting. I need to develop a more concise, readable, enjoyable writing style. And you will find interspersed in the travelogue asides in which I attempt to educate the reader, my career in the classroom forcing me to seize every ``teachable moment''. Finally, I wrote much of this as we were experiencing it. I have tried to make the verb tenses coherent but there will be times, I'm sure, when ``rode'' slips into ``ride''. Please accept my apologies for all the above.

A photo diary of a 210 mile bicycle trip from Passau,Germany to Vienna,Austria in May 2005 with an initial stop in Regensburg, Germany.

>Viewing the Pyrénées stages of the 2003 Tour de France inspired me to choose this itinerary. I knew that replicating the actual TDF stages would be much too long (as the stages are not interconnected) but at the end of the day, I rode 2,488 km which is more than 2/3 of the actual length of the Tour: 3427 km! Having said this, my general average was 82.7 km/cycling day, a very small number by TDF standards.

The general game plan for the demi tour was sketched on a map of France (1/2,000,000). The trajectory chosen as I rode was varied, never dull, grandiose in the Pyrenean cols and valleys, and sprinkled with a number of spectacular towns and cities (Bourges, Toulouse, Poitiers, Chinon, Blois, Chartres, Versailles to name only a few).

Stayed in hotels (generally 2* which is admittedly pricy!), B&B’s and in a Youth hostel (10 Euros/night). Travel can be cheap in France, even without camping. I carried 17 kg of gear.

Moldovian photo album.