hhk25

I've only done short tours in Europe. I'm planning a solo, multi-week tour and I'm wondering how everyone plans for:

1) Going home.

I have three choices. 1) a loop, 2) using a train or flight back to my starting point, or 3) flying out of a different city. I would think the ease or difficulty of this part of the trip would weigh heavily on the route decision. For instance, I was thinking of riding from Lisbon to Nantes, but getting back to Lisbon looks tricky.

2) Repacking your bike for the return trip.

I was planning to pack my bike in a cardboard box, discarding the box upon arrival and then somehow trying to pack it up again for the trip home. What does everyone do? What about using those plastic luggage wrapping services?

3) Mapping

What's the preferred solution for generating a GPS map? I've played around with bikemap.net and it looks useful. Is there a better way?

Thanks for any input.

gauvins

1) 2) are closely related. I'd personally mix riding with trains. On some trains you don't have to pack your bike, on others you must use a bag (unpadded folds roughly to the size of a water bottle). AND train stations are typically downtown. Much better than flying.

3) Depends on your system. I no longer go thru gpx export-import cycles. I'd download open street maps for the relevant countries and use smartphone routing/navigation software. In my case Locus pro+brouter/Android.

hhk25

I've been using maps.me as my offline navigator. I've heard good things about OSMAND but this is the first I've heard of Locus pro and Brouter. Can you summarize why you prefer them?

jefnvk

1 - Depends on your route. First trip we did point to point Brussels to Amsterdam, so we flew into Brussels and left Amsterdam. Last trip and next one will fly into and out of same city, doing a circular route last time, and taking the train to/from the start/end point this summer.

2 - If they allow it, after last trip, I have become a fan of plastic bags for the trip home. I zip tied a full (queen? can't remember exactly) mattress bag I bought from UHaul for about $3 under the metal platform on my back rack. Took the bike there in a box, discarded at the airport, and on the way home rolled the bike right into the airport, turned handlebars sideways and took off pedals, put it in the bag and duct taped it all up. Took all of ten minutes to prep. The airline I am using this summer provides bike bags at check-in, so I will be doing that same thing again. The first trip we flew out of Amsterdam, they sell large sturdy bike boxes for 23EUR at the airport.

3 - Really depends on where you are, there are a variety of options. Netherlands and Flanders have a wonderful bike routing system that is easily found on any number of websites, intersections are marked with a number and signed from location to location, you simply build a route of numbers and follow the signs. Iceland had free biking maps provided by the tourism department, very convenient because they identified areas that you wanted to avoid, suggested routes into and out of cities, as well as gradients in area. France, I am taking the Michelin 1:200000 maps.

djb

Are you Canadian? If so, Air Transat flies out of Nantes and has a policy of accepting bikes in plastic bags, easy solution, although personally I prefer boxes for more protection (from my experience)
This would or could make it easier.

usually though, one just has to have the time to scout out for a bike box at bike stores.

If you know people or have family in Lisbon, it is handy to leave a box with someone if you do a loop, one less thing to worry about.

I have used maps.me and it works rather well, although I suspect there are numerous ones that work fine and use OSM maps, and it seems the european ones are very well developed, although the Latin American ones I have used were perfectly fine also.

oh, and you can pick up a paper map too of Portugal and western France either before you go or there (generally easier in your own country, you dont waste time looking), but like gauvins says, just dont plan to go to Tokyo (wink wink)

saddlesores

pick a hotel in lisbon for first and last night(s), preferably one that has
airport service with a van large enough to transport a bike box.
leave box in storage at the hotel, ride to train station.

take train OUT of lisbon to nantes or nearest station.
bike back to lisbon hotel where your bike box awaits.

hhk25

Yes, I'm Canadian and I'm planning to take Air Transat. Looks like I'll be flying to Lisbon and then riding through Portugal and Spain and ending up in France somewhere. Transat flies out of Paris so it would be easy to get to Paris from almost anywhere in France by train.

No family in Portugal so I'm just going to have to figure something out in Paris.

This is the plan right now but it could change.

spinnaker

I don't see where planning a Euro tour is all that much different than one in your own country.

The only differences I see:

1. You might ship your bike within your own country.

2. You might want to learn a bit of the language in a foreign country if you ar not familar.

markf

If your airline will accept a bike in a clear plastic bag then that's a great way to go. Baggage handlers can see what they're handling, they'll handle it more appropriately, and plastic bags are easier to deal with than boxes or soft cases. If your airline will accept an unboxed/unbagged bike, that's even better. No bag to deal with, and it's easier for the baggage handlers to move your bike around. Read your airline's rules on baggage very carefully, and have a copy of the airline's rules with you at check in if you try either approach. Another benefit to the plastic bag/no bag approach is that you can cycle into and out of whichever airport you're using, which simplifies your logistics quite a bit.

3) Mapping: Paper maps still have their place. Michelin maps are great for France, and the National Geographic Adventure maps are quite good, too. Using your smartphone's mapping apps will save you the trouble of hauling a GPS around. Google Maps has a cycling option that can be helpful in getting in and out of big cities. I spent a fair bit of time on Google Earth planning my tours, just to get a picture of where I was going to be cycling.

Going home: Flying into one airport and flying home from another is always an option, and sometimes it's no more expensive than going to and from one city. Otherwise there's trains. Again, go to the website of whichever rail company you're using and find out exactly what the rules are. Sometimes you can get a break on train fares by booking in advance, especially on longer trips. The high speed long distance trains like the French TGV trains tend to have stricter rules about bicycles than the short haul trains.

hhk25

Not a bad idea but trainline.eu is only coming up with buses to either Nantes or Bordeaux. 17 hours and then 25 hours respectively. Doesn't sound like a fun way to start a trip.

hhk25

The main difference is that I'm familiar with the routes and options in my own country. My long rides in Ontario have always been loops or on the VIA Rail corridor so I can easily get back.

hhk25

Thanks. I've been online non-stop since I originally posted and the plan is coming together. Air Transat is bike friendly and offers plastic bags. That's the approach I will take. If there's damage at the other end, I will have to deal with it. But from what I've heard, Transat is fairly respectful with bikes.

At this point, it looks like Lisbon arrival and Paris departure.

BTW, fellow Marinoni owner here. Love my Tourismo Extreme.

gauvins

I don't have first hand experience with maps.me. Have tried OSMAND a long time ago. IIRC, these apps are good at navigating, but have limited if any routing capabilities.

I picked a solution 3 years ago. Wanted to be able to navigate worldwide and to generate cycling routs offline. Two candidates -- Locus with the bRouter companion app, and OruxMaps. Fiddling a wekk or so with both systems, Locus felt much easier to master and better integrated with offline routing.

If you can generate and edit a route offline, on your phone, without having to attend an advanced seminar, there may not be reasons to switch. But I suspect that you have to use a computer-based soft to generate the route and export/import a gpx. Not practical, in general, and not flexible in particular.

fietsbob

I've never had a concern over not using a return ticket, because a one way ticket is expensive enough to not be much less..

there are Open Jaw Tickets, if you want to book both, and leave from a different city..on schedule..



Last tour was Ireland, from Dublin, ended tour flying home from Aberdeen Scotland..

I bought paper maps as I went along, because I can read maps, and love collecting them..

I don't work in IT, as so many on here must do, since more of it is their solutions..






...

jefnvk

Air Transat was actually the airline I was referring to in the post above, they are who I am flying with to Paris this summer. They provide plastic bags as part of the $30 bike fee. Roll up, grab one and be done with it

Sorry I missed your route earlier, I would suggest just booking a flight flying into Lisbon and out of Paris (or whatever French city you prefer, they fly to quite a few). Much easier than trying to transit yourself back to Lisbon, and probably not any more expensive than RT to whichever city is the pricier. Do it as a multi destination/open jaw/whatever they call it, not two one way tix tho.

MarcusT

Were you not planning to do Venice-Dubrovnik?

hhk25

I was originally but getting home from Dubrovnik looked to be problematic. Lisbon to Bordeaux means I end my trip in France and I can easily take a train to my departure airport.

fietsbob

look for Adriatic Crossing ferries to get you back to Italy? Dubrovnik To Bari , for example?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari








...

axolotl

Just in case you're expecting to follow a flat road along the Atlantic coast from Lisbon through Spain to Bordeaux, you need to be aware that the vast majority of the Atlantic coastline in Portugal and Spain is not at all flat, and there is quite often no road right along the coast. The road closest to the coast is often extremely hilly. I usually preferred the scenery and riding in the interior areas of both Portugal and northern Spain. I especially liked the Douro valley, the Minho valley, and the Picos de Europa region.

Also, SNCF (the French national railroad) has recently made it much more difficult to take bikes on some trains. They recently made a change on TGVs between Paris and eastern France, for example, which essentially disallows all bikes except for folders. Friends & I took our folding bikes on the TGV between Bordeaux & Paris last September (2017). At that time, you could take a regular bike on that TGV route but it required an advanced reservation and a small payment for a bike. The number of bikes which could be accommodated was quite limited. We had to fold up our bikes since the baggage car had no more space for additional bikes at the time we purchased our tickets.

We also found last September that some regional non-TGV trains in the southwest of France could not accommodate a non-folding bike at all.

Tandem Tom

Mattress bag!! Great idea!!!
I was going to buy a plastic bike bag from Wiggle but it is only 2mil. I see mattress bags up to 6mil,that is what I am going for.

MarcusT

If it is a multi week you want, you can still do Venice-Dubrovnik, then take the ferry to Bari, and ride the same Ciclovia Adriatico (or train) back to Venice. Going at an easy pace, should be around 20 days. Or if that is too long, you can take the ferry from Split to Ancona, that should be 12 days

jefnvk

Yep, dirt cheap and pretty tough, and even if you don't get one from UHaul, they are available at nearly any home improvement/big box store. Fairly certain I got away with a twin sized, but it was a tight fit, queen may be a bit easier. Plus, if you fly there that way, as i mentioned earlier they are pretty easy to fold back up and ziptie under your rack, completely getting rid of that issue of how to deal with storing/obtaining packaging.

Only downside is they aren't as easy to move around an airport as a box, if you have to move it around still packaged. They don't stay on carts all that well :/

djb

and I still believe that one has to be realistic that a bike in a bag is going to be more open to damage than in a box.
Friends flew back from Venice last year with Air Transat with bagged bikes, and they did see their bikes that had obviously toppled over, with other stuff put on them, at the end of their trip. There was no damage, but as someone who works on my bikes very intimately, and is aware of how things can be damaged, these sort of situations, even if unintended by the baggage handlers, are simply increasing the chances or percentages of spoke damage, derailleur wacking, crankset forcing (not great for bb if a really hard knock happens).

I know this topic gets discussed every time box vs bag comes up, but if given a choice, I'll spend the time doing the box thing, as I know that an unintentional fall over will be easier on a properly boxed bike--and this is what it comes down to--the actual treatment or mistreatment done by the actual baggage handlers that specific day, its a crap shoot.

and yes, Im bringing this up just to put the "box is probably safer" counterpoint out there.

in the end, its Alex Trebek who will spin the wheel and who knows what will happen.

hhk25

Thanks for all the great info. I was going to book this last night but got a call in the afternoon with a job offer. I'm semi-retired right now and was looking forward to a summer of touring but this offer is too good to pass up.

So it looks like I have to delay until the fall at least.

djb

man o man, we spent all that effort debating this and debating that!! ;-)

oh well, think of it as money to put aside for a fun adventure at some point.
cheers