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Old 01-05-05 | 10:37 PM
  #9  
PurpleK
Velocipedic Practitioner
 
Joined: Nov 2004
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From: North Carolina

Bikes: Specialized Sirrus, Bianchi Volpe, Trek 5000, Santana Arriva tandem, Pashley Sovereign, among others

Originally Posted by 77Univega
-- The opinions of those of you who are contributing to this thread are VERY interesting. While we're at it, I would also like to hear from U.S. cyclists who have visited overseas, what comparisons can you make?
I found Ireland to be positively gorgeous cycling country. There are very few bicycle specific facilities in the western portion of the country where I toured, but neither are they needed. Lots of narrow lanes with low volumes of traffic whose design makes it almost impossible for anyone to drive faster than 45mph at the most. Very friendly people who all seem to have a distant relative in the States. Ireland is definitely a bicycling paradise.

Estonia is one of my absolute favorites. Country is mostly flat and the roads are pretty good, though I did run into a few pretty long stretches of poorly maintain hard surface or even unpaved with loose sand and gravel. Some long straight stretches of highway had pretty fast moving traffic, but the volume was light most of the time. Don't recall much in the way of bike specific accommodations while I was there, but I understand there has been recent work on signing national bike routes. All in all, though, Estonia is an excellent choice for a bike tour.

Netherlands..can't say anything about this cycling nirvana than what has already been said many times in the past. The bike rules, the people are sincerely friendly and tolerant, can't think of anything unflattering to say about The Netherlands or its people.

Berlin in Germany...well, I like the city, but I am not too keen on their bike facilities. Much of their bikeways consists of striping on sidewalks. Personally, it looked to me like there was more motivation to get bikes out of the way of cars than to create a bike friendly atmosphere. Having said that, there are a lot of people there that use their bikes daily for transportation....much more than most places in the USA.

Hungary is another ideal cycling destination. Not too much in the way of specific facilities (except for a few in Budapest), but the country is flat with excellent roadway network. Nearly every train I saw allowed bikes on board.
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