Touring - Cycling around the Baltic.

I was wondering if anyone else here has cycled the route I shall be doing this summer or indeed any part of it. Any advice or pointers would be appreciated.

I will be setting off from Birmingham England and taking the ferry from Harwich to the Hook of Holland then along the Dutch coast up to Germany then Hamburg, north to Copenhagen across to Malmo, along the coast to Stockholm, then all the way around the coast to Helsinki before getting the ferry to Tallinn in Estonia, then across Latvia, Lithuania, Poland Germany, Holland and home.

This will be my third major long distance fully self contained solo tour, so know where I stand equipment wise. Any advice on the route though would be great.

If you are doing part of the North Sea route, check out this page: http://www.cycletourer.co.uk/cycletouring/nscrinfo.shtml

Some information on Lithuania: http://homepage.mac.com/isaetterry/pagescountries/pagelithuania.htm

Some information on Latvia: http://homepage.mac.com/isaetterry/pagescountries/pagelatvia.htm

Ray

Thanks for the links Ray, most helpful :)

Stockholm is fairly bike friendly with routes posted all over the place. English is fairly widely known, so getting by that way isn't too much of a problem. The northern part of Sweden has some gorgeous areas. The High Coast is beautiful. Other than that, all I can say about the route up there is mosquitos. Enough of them that they drove a husky into laying in any water he could find and he hates water. :p If you're following the coast, those might be less of a problem.

Also there is an cycle route (Kustlinjen) that runs from around Västervik in the mid-southern part of Sweden, along the coast up through Stockholm to Öregrund. It follows a combination of roads and cycle/foot paths. It's 565 km long.

Out of curiousity, are you going to be camping on your trip?

Pete Jones will sell it you. http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/?o=3Tzut&doc_id=3647&v=Iz

I rode from Stockholm to Oulu 2 years ago, got a light write-up of it up on crazyguyonabike. Also rode from Stockholm to Malmö, though not along the coast since the E4 highway is a bike-unfriendly for most of the stretch, "safety" middle rails on the road for many parts(my route, loosely was Malmö - Kristianstad - Växjö - Hultsfred - Norrköping). If I'm home when/if you pass near Vaasa, Finland, let me know and you have a place to stay and a local guide :-)

I've toured Estonia, but that was a decade ago. Back then the roads were in good shape and the traffic was light outside the cities. Don't know how that may have changed in the last 10 years. It was flat, but the winds were a bit strong at times. Plenty of good places to eat and at least back then, finding a cheap place to stay was easy. I didn't notice many campgrounds, but I wasn't camping so I didn't really look for them either.

Estonia's Vanta Aga Cycling Club has been involved with mapping and signing cycling routes around the country. It may be worth getting in touch with them. It shouldn't be hard to find them through a google.

Thanks aenlaasu (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=145521)
And yes I will be camping

Thank you Black Shuck (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=32276)
A generous offer

Thanks for that tip PurpleK (http://www.bikeforums.net/member.php?u=20598)