Touring - 3 month All EU Tour Suggestions

Any websites which outline pretty good plans for this?

First trip I have planned and I have a list of cities I want to go to but wanna see a trip others have done on the web to see what kind of routes they used and the relative difficulties...

Just wanna get an idea

Right now I am compiling all the cities I want to go to... in the starting stages and would rather have as much info now as to not be shocked later

This one seems to have lots of info: http://www.cycletourer.co.uk/index.shtml

But really, I just want to ask if I can come with...

The EU is 27 different countries, you might want to narrow down your selection of where to go.

There are some great localized route planning websites in Germany. A couple I have used while living along the Rhine are:

http://www.radwanderland.de/ for Rheinland-Pfalz

and my favorte (since I'm usually teaching in a NorthRhein-Westphalia city) is:

http://www.radroutenplaner.nrw.de/RRP_karte_02.html

if you don't speak or read German, it may take a while to figure this one out...I use it in conjunction with Google Earth to plan day and single overnight rides out of Bonn & Duesseldorf. Bikeways are classified and once you route one, it will give you very detailed elevation profiles. The 'Links' portion on the Main Page will get you to specific cities around the country including Utrecht.

The German cycling site for general into is:

www.adfc.de. (the German cycling club Allgemeiner Deutscher Fahrrad Club which is a play on words of the auto club like our AAA that has acronym of AFDC) There are many links to local clubs from this one

There are also many many websites that give info on specific countries like these:

http://www.aero.lr.tudelft.nl/~bvo/fiets/nlbybike.htm

http://www.bicyclegermany.com/

Good luck!

The EU is 27 different countries, you might want to narrow down your selection of where to go.

Well I am trying to do as much as I can in 3 months.

I definitely want to land in Ireland, then go to England/France/Belgium/Luxembourg/Switzerland/Netherlands/Italy/Austria/Czech

so 10 countries, mainly Western Europe

I might add in Spain... if time becomes an issue I will hop a train for the long ass rides (like if I were to go all the way into Spain)

This one seems to have lots of info: http://www.cycletourer.co.uk/index.shtml

But really, I just want to ask if I can come with...

Come on a leg of it if times an issue ;p

Check out crazyguyonabike.com click on the European section, there are some great tours there. One of my favorites is Mountains, Rivers and Rivieras (http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=lt&doc_id=878&v=5jv). There are a few others also just as good.
cheers

Start in Stockholm and ride the Camino de Santiago to Galicia!

Start in Stockholm and ride the Camino de Santiago to Galicia!

This is why I cannot read threads like this. Now I'm going to be daydreaming about this for the next couple of hours. (My summer touring goal is a big loop through Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and maybe a week tour in southern France)

Get a map, seriously. Fly into London, ride to Ireland, take a ferry to the continent.
From there, it's your call. I would suggest not missing Vienna, spend a couple days,
if you have never listened to classical music, it is the best place in the world to listen to classical live. They have lots of little shops, look for burcher shops with
pig on a rotisseries, the wonderful dessert shops, etc.

Italy is culturally rich. It is an expensive pain doing Venice, but it's worth it if you can affford it. There is a little town called Gubbio, I wanna go back! :)
Everyone should see the David once in their life.

I could keep going, but you get the idea, plan carefully, work in what you can without turining it into a treadmill. Stop and savor, often.

Thanks for the replies

It looks like the British Isles is easy riding, yes?

And I definitely want to hit Vienna!

But... keep in mind guys its more important to me to get everywhere I want to go.

So if its between not seeing a country, and taking a train to cut out a 5 day bike leg out of the trip, I will get on a train in a heart beat.

So if northern italy is REALLY REALLY hard to bike ride, I should consider getting a train through that area then, yes?

It looks like the British Isles is easy riding, yes?

...Never been there, but I buy Cycling Plus, and that's just like staying at
the Best Western :)
You will find a lot of hills and a lot of rain, and you need to be extremely careful
of what roads you take.


And I definitely want to hit Vienna!

... +1

But... keep in mind guys its more important to me to get everywhere I want to go.

...You have to balance quantity against quality. You will also simply want some rest days. I suggest taking a couple days off on a regular basis. When you fly into London, a couple days will get you over jet lag, and give you a chance to
check out the city. This is an experience, not a race. You don't want your memories to be just of the road.

So if its between not seeing a country, and taking a train to cut out a 5 day bike leg out of the trip, I will get on a train in a heart beat.

...That is prob a good idea. Vienna might be a good place to take the train to Italy.

So if northern italy is REALLY REALLY hard to bike ride, I should consider getting a train through that area then, yes?

...You need to do some research. Northern Italy is very nice, but you couldn't hit every corner in Europe if you had 3 years. So pick a rough itinerary, and then start filling it in. You will find many of these choices happening because they are easy; or too tough to fit in the alloted time.

For example, were you planning on hitting the northern countries like Demark, Sweden? I suggest you take in the Benelux countries, I liked Amsterdam especially. Bordeaux and southern France would be nice, but you will notice hitting the high spots involves some ziggin and zagging. The train can help there. Oh, Lichtenstein is worth a visit. I just spent an afternoon there, but it's an interesting experience to be in a country the size of Rhode Island.

If I understand correctly you want to fly into Ireland. If so you can make your way up to Larne (should visit Newgrange and do a loop north of Larne to the Giants Causeway) take the ferry across bike through Dumfries & Galloway (lots of early Christian sites) to the Carlisle area and take the new Hadrian's Wall cycle way to Newcastle (North Sheilds) take a overnight ferry to Ijmuiden, Holland and go from there. Or you can take the ferry to Gothenburg, Sweden bike south and get over to Copenhagen and continue various ways south. You could also go to Stockholm from Gothenburg but beware the regional trains in Sweden do not takes bikes. I would say, if you go this way, once you get to Copenhagen head straight west to the west coast of Jutland (visit Ribe if you can) and get on the North Sea route and I think you can follow it through Germany and into Holland. From there meander through Holland into Belguim and on to France ( you could pop into Lux.) with an understanding you want to get on the the Mosele River at Trier and follow it to the Rhine at Koblenz. Head south on the Rhine to either Mainz or the headwaters of the Rhine. If Mainz then head east on the Mainz River to Bamburg to catch the canal to the Danube then on to Vienna (I would take a side trip up to Cesky Krumlov a Bohemian town in the Czech Republic -- well worth it!). If to the headwaters then the headwaters of the Danube are not far away though it appears to be rather mountainous around there. You could take the Danube all the way to the Black Sea. Although the route given misses Italy altogether so another side trip would be in order! My head is spinning now because I fancy eventually doing all of those routes and more.

Well that is a couple of ideas but wherever you go happy trails.

o wow awesome reply

thanks

do you have a MSN possibly?

I just did 6 months in Europe. It was awesome. Here's my travel blog, it was created primarily for family members who couldn't give a few ****s about biking, so it's not terribly bike-centric: http://evansallee.typepad.com/tourblog/

If you want to chat a bit, shoot me a pm (and i hope you have aim...).

A few brief thoughts on the subject: the english are the worst drivers when it comes to respecting cyclists, but there are a lot of fantastic rides.

Belgium (flanders) and the netherlands are amazing, flat and beautiful with dedicated cycle paths for almost everywhere you want to go. western germany is quite nice as well. however once you get about 60-90 miles east of hannover (in the north at least), the cycle lanes drop off and it becomes much more difficult to find your way around.

cycling in the czech republic is nice, but i would advise against following the greenways. they're beautiful, sure, but the routes are incredibly meandering. you can catch most of the beauty and get places faster by planning your own route. southern poland is a pretty nice cycle as well.

slovakia: don't go through the tatras. just don't. the only way to go if you don't have a mountain bike is on the motorway, and it's pretty awful. amazingly beautiful, and a super fun ride at times. but the constant feeling of impending doom is in no way worth it. cycling from budapest to bratislava (and vienna) is a boring ride. it's easy for the most part, and you can stay off the main roads very well. but it's flat and not terribly pretty. especially the trip between bratislava and vienna. there are a few parts just outside of budapest that are quite nice.

spain: getting your bike around on trains is nearly impossible. the trains that allow bikes on them are few and far between, and coordinating a trip of any distance so that you can get there in a reasonable time frame is nearly impossible. for instance, i realized that if i wanted to take my bike it would take me about 5 days by train to get from barcelona to granada. i ended up leaving my bike at a hostel and training about spain for a while without it because of this.

bringing your bike on trains in italy is a bit of a hassle but doable in the north. it's doable in the south but a much bigger hassle.

i didn't do much in france, but i've heard decent things. bringing your bike on trains is very doable, but not as easy as in some other places.