Bicycle Touring

This guy has been livestreaming his cycle touring trips for some years now, i kinda enjoyed tuning in every now and then. With this South Korea trip i don't because his stream time doesn't align with my timetable. Maybe somebody else will dig it, i think he does it pretty good.

What is on your wishlist this year? I have loads of camping stuff but started biketouring recently so big thing for me are bags and few stuff to complete my bike (bottlecages).

I am looking for some other things to complete my list (so other family members can give me something).

Since i have mod powers i am just going to try this.

This topic is meant to be a low threshold possibility for all kinds of discussion. It is not meant to keep anybody from creating a new topic, the idea is that it may enable some discussion that would otherwise not happen at all.

Just a test balloon to see if this will get used. Do you think it is a good idea?

(Title picture: Riding out of the Lathissi high plateau)

Time was running out, i was thinking back and forth on where to go, checking weather reports and ways to get there up to the point where i thought i'd just spend my last holidays this year at home and just do nothing.

Now i am glad i pulled the trigger on a flight to Crete to have a good week at this beautiful place. Been way too long since i've been to Greece.

I am on my last day here, tomorrow i'll head to the airport. Organized some bubble wrap to wrap up my bike for the flight and now just hanging out in Chania, second biggest and supposedly nicest city on the island.

Some more pictures before i start with my lengthy sermon, haha.

!

(Riding up to the Lathissi plateau on some sweet gravel tracks.)

!

(Greek food. They gave me a small bottle of Raki for dessert, i guess it contained six shots but i was good after two.)

!

(Riding up to Spili. From Spili back down to the sea you can pass the Kotsifou gorge.)

!

(Camping by the sea.)

!

(Greek color way. Not really the cretan color way though, i mean there were places in this color way but i think that was only to give tourists some greek colorway vibes.)

!

(Riding out of Paleochora to head back to the northern coast.)

!

(Nice view into the Topolia gorge.)

Positive notes about cyle touring in Crete:

• Climate. I had now about 27° C max temperatures everyday, perfect weather. Sun was still pretty strong, it surely would be too hot for me in full on summer though. Great plant life, still many flowers at this time of the year, fig cactus was ripe and the pomgrenade. Olive harvest was on too, the smell of the south.
• Greek people. Super chill and super friendly
• Greek drivers. Top notch, i have not had a single close pass. I was surprised, was expecting it to be more like Italy or Croatia. I might be proven wrong on the last 15 km tomorrow with tourists rushing to the airport together with me. Generally traffic was very, very low except for a few exceptions (last bit up to lathissi, and along northern coast)
• Infrastructure. Tavernes everywhere, small supermarkets too. Lots of rooms available, would certainly be a good place to credit card it. On the flipside it is probably overly touristic in some places, but i expected that and was more surprised how fast you'd be out of the buzz and in rural places and villages with no tourism to speak of. I am here at the very end of the season, the day after tomorrow i think half the island will shut down, so i guess it was perfect timing to be here with less tourists around (and less people driving around in rental cars i suppose)
• Animals. Cats are everywhere where human settlements are. Love it. Vultures in the mountains, i saw them every day, except for the flatter hills along the north coast. Saw a big flock too, 40 - 50 birds on the way to the lathissi plateau. Goats are absolutely everywhere on the mountains and i like it. They're always scared when you pass and I sometimes worry that on a downhill a goat lying on the road might have a brain fart and jump into me, but they all had the escaping to safety dialed down. Dogs. I heard bad things about dogs in Greece, but every barky, scary dog i came across was either chained or trapped in a yard. All free roaming dogs were super chill, just lying around in front of the butchers or some garbage cans, not even caring about cats.
• Iced coffee. The greek love iced coffee and so do i. Since i have last been here, which is decades ago, they completely switched it around though, it used to be 'frappe' everywhere, which is made from instant coffee, but now they're all about the 'freddo espresso'. While they still serve frappe, they were kinda looking weird at me when i ordered it, i think it's way out of fashion. Took me a while to get the 'freddo espresso' memo.
• Greek food is pretty damn good too. Cretan nut bars with honey were also good snacks.
• Camping is great, although official campsites are not everywhere.

Can't really think of negatives. I guess if you don't like climbing this is not the place for you. Some roads had a lot of trash lying around. Some places are overly touristic, but kinda easy to avoid or leave fast. Traffic in the big cities is annoying, the greek all go by car or on mopeds. Still the drivers are great. I certainly will be back cycling in Greece soon, absolutely enjoyed it.

This was my route. Unluckily i've had a cold since i arrived here, so i didn't get to ride what i thought i would. Guess i'll be all good when i'm back in the office on thursday. I think it was down to not sleeping at all the night before i arrived, and only halfway the night before that, because leaving home didn't go as easy as expected. Woke up at 4:00 to get to the airport, then realised i had forgotten to loosen my pedals beforehand. Tried too hard with my multitool to remove them and it broke. Now i couldn't even remove the handlebar anymore. Tried for a brief bit to organize some tools at the airport with no luck and then just rescheduled the flight for the next day at 4:30 in the night from a neighbouring city. So i didn't sleep all night and arrived in the capital Iraklio kinda dizzy.

I am quite happy with my new setup, even though the old one had it's own advantages. It is now somewhat lighter, and the weight is more evenly distributed, so lifting it over barriers and pushing uphill felt better. Rides pleasantly but tbh i didn't mind the riding part with the old rear heavier setup either. Pretty sure i will do my next tour with this new setup again though.

I was cyling from Freiburg, Germany through the Jura, Vercors, Drôme, Verdon to Nice, France.

Title picture is in the Drôme area, which i absolutely loved.

!

Most of Jura i cycled on the swiss side, weather was not great but it was still nice, basically following the cycle route 7 until i reached the grand tour de jura section on the french side after the lac du joux. I kinda liked the french part better, seemed wilder. Photo is in Switzerland on the col de l'aiguillon, from there was a fantastic downhill to the village Baumes.

Approaching the Vercors it was all full of walnut trees and i rode to Pont-en-Royans with the plan to ride up the Goulet:

!

(Pont-en-Royans)

On the way to Goulet i learned that it was not passable because there was a tunnel construction and i returned to Pont-en-Royans to ride up the Gorge de la Bournes instead. I had read up a bit about those crazy vercors roads beforehand, mostly on this site, which i guess is aimed at motor cyclists. Amazingly the road up the gorge was calm, not much traffic at all, i guess the season was over already in September in the Vercors.

!

Later that evening was a heavy rain storm, next day was still raining hard, tried to wait it out to climb up the col de Rousset, which would lead me out of the Vercors, but it was hopeless and so i rode up to the col in the clouds and pouring rain.

!

(Col de rousset before the tunnel)

At the col there's a tunnel and on the other side of it, the clouds were less dense and you could get a glimpse of a view. A gang of middle aged moped drivers from Grenoble were on the other side, we chatted for a bit and a french guy on the first day of his first bikepacking trip showed up as well. We chatted and made an appointment to meet for a coffee and talk some more in the town 'Die' which was at the end of the descend, then we descended. Weather cleared up and it had these amazing heat swells on the way down. After the downhill you can very much feel and smell the south already. Ithought Die is a nice town with a hippy vibe.

Next day i went into the Drôme area or Dioise (i am confused myself) and it was amazing, weather started to be great and it felt southern. I cycled along the Roanne valley:

!

(There is a "tunnel" hidden in this picture)

Next day continued going south, to go on a campsite in Buis-les-Barronies, which was still less then six Euros in 2021. The municipal campsite, right by the town, there's also a privately run one which i assume must be more expensive.

!

(Buis-lesBarronies in the valley, Mont Ventoux in the background)

Buis-les-Barronies is kind of a tourist hub in that area, but still a beautiful town, has an outdoors sports store where i could get some gas for my stove. Big Pizzas in town.

I then wanted to cycle to the gorge de meouge, but on the way there i saw a sign by the road announcing another scenic route along a different gorge, so i took that too and had a nice lunch snack / swim at the Gorge d'Aulan:

!

Then on via gorge de meouge (great swim too), sisteron towards the Gorge du Verdon. It is a very popular tourist site, but traffic was fine, all people in cars are also there to look out of the window and drive real slow. The village Moustieres-Sainte-Marie is also a tourist hotspot, but it is also an amazing village, would recommend a stop.

!

After having a swim, a view down to the Lac de Sainte Croix on the way to the Gorge route, from the town Aiguines, you can also see the Plateau Valensole on the other side of the lake, which is probably pictured on the cover of you Provence travel guide with its lavender fields.

!

(Gorge du Verdon)

I was riding the southern side of the gorge even though everybody told me the northern one with the loop would be better, but it was longer and i was getting to the end of my trip and didn't want to put myself under time pressure, so kept going south which was also very nice. Tons of Herbes de Provence, mostly thyme on that mountain.

I was figuring out a lot of my routes with a michelin map and their marked scenic routes. I was riding along a mountain plateau and wondered why it had beeen marked scenic, then i saw a sign "clues de greolieres" the plateau opened up with a fantastic view into the valley and it, an amazing experience riding down this to greolieres (beautiful village).

!

Then i basically just rode to Nice via Coursegoule and col de vence. Gotta send this post now before it is wednesday :)

edit: damn, 10 seconds late, haha.

another edit: Sorry i am a bit drunk and wrote this on the train back home, hope you can still enjoy the photos. Absolutely love cycling in France and i want to cycle all of these areas again, just a bit different routes, especially i think the Dioise / Drôme, i thought that was just gorgeus there, not too overrun by tourists, super calm small roads, perfect cycling.

Route if anybody's interested.

Got to take my ladyfriend on an overnight trip at the weekend. It just so happened that the campsite we had booked sat a little before the halfway point on an overnight bike packing trail that I had bookmarked for a later date - links below for anyone that might be interested. We got a late start saturday, so we arrived in the dark with just enough time to get to pitch and do a shop run before a bbq and drinks next to a campfire. We didnt rush the next day, left a little before noon and made the most of the sites en route. Some bird watching and a pub lunch put us a bit behind schedule with the shorter days so we had to cut out the main loop in Epping Forest by Loughton, but we will go back for a day trip to finish that part of the ride. A really enjoyable route for anyone looking for a 2 day excursion from london, largely off road so better suited for a gravel bike but some hybrid tyres should get you round if you dont mind a slower ride.

Lee Valley Almost Wild Campsite, Broxburne

London Olympic Gravel Overnighter

Ok so not completely sure this is allowed here, but not against any rules on the sidebar so I’ll give it a go. @mods please remove or message me if not appropriate

I’m always looking for cool new routes (mainly focused on Europe), even if I won’t get to do them in the short-term. I came across this post on Tumblr and really liked the photos. I included one of them in the post. Then I googled it and there is a whole website dedicated to it, complete with an awesome PDF and a lot of GPX files. I want to add that I am in no way affiliated or reimbursed by them for this post. I highly encourage you to check it out!

By the way: it’s a lot of gravel, but they have an asphalt only variant on the site as well.

Why March? I live in London and will be getting the Caledonian sleeper train up to inverness. Tickets are drastically cheaper in March than April. And im also hoping I might get to catch a glimpse of the northern lights on the orkney islands. Ive already decided to delay the trip, so I could put some extra money aside for a more expensive ticket. Maybe someone with experience of the region can give me some advice?

Didnt start well, a storm stopped me halfway from london to portsmouth, the first day here I dedicated as a rest day as I get problems with my knee when I overdo it. It was a beatiful day which made me optimistic for the week, but there were storms eveyday. I did my planned rides anyway. My running shoes got sodden wet but I had fun regardless. Got a dry day today, so did the main north-south trail, started in my flip flops stopped at blacks to get a dry pair of waterproof hiking shoes on clearance. Got to a closed path, asked a cyclist coming the other way if id make it through, he said yes just keep your feet up. I did, my bike stopped in the middle, had to peddle out with these shoes I had only worn for an hour under the water. Wet weather touring is .. a challenge, but still enjoyable. Going home tomorrow, if it is raining I am getting the train back from portsmouth, ive had enough water for this week.

This was an amazing lake in Sweden, about 40km east of Askersund. There was a shelter here and a fire pit, and no one else around! Sweden and Finland were definitely the highlights on this trip.

Booked a week off work and I will be spending it cycling around the isle oi wight. We have the worst possible weather forecasted but ive booked the ferry and the first two nights tent pitch, so just going to go brave the storm (a literal storm) and enjoy being in a new place.

It was december and raining a lot. I made a route using both komoot and RWGPS (the latter to confirm tricky spots with streetview). Still, information wasn’t up to date and had to make a huge detour.

!views were beautiful though

!pretty gnarly gravel

!roads were very calm

Rode from somewhere in northern Italy to Nice, France. It was september, roads were very quiet, weather was mostly good (almost froze my hands right off on a rainy descent, but the rest was quite good). Slept in hotels as I only had four days and was doing like 2500-3000m elevation every day.

I would thouroughly recommend crossing the alps on a bike. I don’t know if credit card bikepacking is frowned upon on this forum, but it can be an amazing experience. 

I am actually cycling in the Czech Republic right now, but slept tonight about 20m over the border in Germany. Definitely feel now like this tour is coming to an end. Still a good week to go.

I've had the fries with fried cheese in the Czech Republic. They also didn't salt the fries, like sometimes in Belgium, haha. The supermarkets along the border here in the ore mountains absolutely suck, they're all some 'duty free' type shops for the Germans coming over the border to buy something cheap. Handbags, liquor, cigarettes, huge packs of Haribo. Was not able to find any joghurt for my müsli, so i will have a snickers for breakfast.

I got aware of this project when the community developed app for warmshowers got suddenly shut out of the site. People from the orbit around the app started the sleepy.bike project and it is now accepting people to sign up. The functionality is apparently still a bit bare bones, notifications are not working yet, I think also no e-mail forwarding of requests etc. But messaging on the website should work.

I have not understood how it all technically works, but I have managed to create an account. Very few people are on there still, but you are now welcome to join. Would love to see this project succeed. Come and sign up!

*edit: some more info about the project here: https://pad.kanthaus.online/sleepybikeproject?view

TLDR: Denmark has a cool free shelter and camping infrastructure, check it out here and learn some Danish while you're at it. There is also a 'shelter' app for it (I think it is called shelter), I just used osmand POI's. Some of the shelters require registration, I'm not sure how that process works. The photo shows my shelter for tonight.

On Monday morning I took a ferry from Larvik in Norway to Hirtshals in Denmark. I had camped right by a beach at the harbour and only had to ride 600m through the pouring rain to the ferry terminal to buy a ticket. Weather report for Denmark looked even worse with kinda frightening wind speeds.

Since I was planning to ride along the east coast, I had the wind diagonally from the back. I had not followed any news and was not aware that storm 'Hans' was causing a scare in the whole area. I navigated towards some of the infamous Danish shelters and luckily nobody else was there. I was cold and wet and really happy to not have to test my tent in that wind. Actually I was 100% certain that it would not withstand it, if I was setting it up without cover from the wind.

Tuesday morning I cycled straight south, the plan was to ride to Aarhus. The wind was full on from the side and at times it felt quite sketchy. It was so bad that i actually found it funny again and was in a good mood. In Hals I wanted to take a ferry for the 500m bit to Egense. After I bought a ticket at the machine, I found out the ferry won't be going since it was too windy. That meant that I'd have to cycle about 35 km west, right into the wind. This seemed impossible, I think that would have taken me two days so strong was the wind. So I decided to take a bus to Aalborg instead. Bus had charging for my phone, that was neat. Watching out of the window, i saw several fallen trees and thought that it would probably not be really safe to cycle in this wind. So I decided to catch a train to Aarhus instead and have a look around the city.

I have never before seen so many cycle tourers at a train station. Pretty much everybody who was in the area must have skipped their plans and tried to get somewhere by train. Most trains were cancelled due to the wind but not mine. Took a room in Aarhus and enjoyed the city. I had somehow forgotten how cool the danes are, i was really happy to be here now even though the weather was not optimal. Had a many pleasant encounters.

Today the wind was still strong but far from yesterdays levels. Took a ferry from Aarhus to Odden and cycled towards Copenhagen, will ride there tomorrow morning and have a look around, then later take a train over the Øresund bridge to Sweden. In the coming days I hope the summer will make a shy comeback. My plan is now to take a ferry from Sweden to the island Rügen, then cycle through eastern Germany to Czechia then ride the mountain range on the border westwards. After that I'll decide what to do next. I scratched the idea that riding back home is super important, over a week ago I felt like my vacation were basically over and i was just riding home, even though I still had a month to go. It bummed me out. Really liking my new plan to go to Czechia now, I might ride home afterwards but maybe something else seems more interesting and I just take a train home. Does anybody read all this? I hope that me spamming this community is not more off putting for others than if I posted nothing.

Rain jackets intended for road cycling tend to be just jerseys with a waterproof membrane, which sucks in every other situation of life. I'm looking for something more versatile.

MTB gear is usually quite fully featured, often just not very packable. E.g. I really enjoy my Endura MT500 II rain jacket. It has pockets, ventilation zips and a helmet compatible hood. In my vision the perfect travel jacket would be similar but from a more lightweight/packable fabric.

The best I've found so far is Montbell Versalite, which checks all the boxes except over the helmet hood, as it's not intended for helmet wearing sports. (Sure one can wear the hood under the helmet too, but it would be nicer to wear it on top.)

Are you aware of any alternatives that would have a helmet compatible hood? Or just otherwise good jackets with different compromises?

Hi all, sorry for disappearing for a while, I lost access to my account. I'm hoping to spruce this place up a bit, so am looking to implement a banner and icon, but rather than just pick one myself, I thought I would get your opinions. If you have any photos you think would fit the bill post them here and after a week or so I will upload the most popular.

Spending all day everyday on bike saddle puts a special emphasis on comfort. Share your trusty favorites! (And why not the ones that didn’t work too)

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2122492

> The San Juan Islands are beautiful! Beach access at both, the islands break up the waves so they just gently lap at the shore. Lots of hills. It was challenging for a first timer who hates climbing but I'm ready to go suffer again 🦵🦵 > > !First ferry ride > !First hiker biker campsite, San Juan County Park, Friday Harbor > ! > ! > !Second hiker/biker site Odlin County Park, Lopez Island > ! > !Palindaba Lavender Farm > !

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2120674

> cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/2110225 > > > ! > > > > First, if anyone uses ridewithgps, let me follow you! > > > > Today's ride and my progress this year. I've been riding pretty seriously for about 2015. At one point I was working for a bike powered composting service, where I hitched a trailer to my bike and picked up food scraps from peoples homes to bring them to a site to get composted. I'd end up with 200+ lbs on my bike, at 14-20 miles, on my 26+ lb Surly! > > > > Alas, for the past 5 years or so I've become more of a fair weather rider since I moved and it's my rainier where I'm at. Couple with bouts of pretty intense depression and gaining 35 lbs, and I end up back at point A after I build up some muscle and a bit of endurance year after year. I also hate hills lol. > > > > I went on my first bike camping trip a couple of weeks ago, and it was magical. I had no choice but to climb and climb and climb again; the Elevation wasn't that wild but it was just challenging enough. Since then my love of riding has been renewed and I'm going to give myself the lofty goal of 1,000 miles by January. That will pan out to 914.8 miles after today, so close to 200 miles per month. We will see how that goes! I did ride some before I started tracking but I'm going to challenge myself and not count those miles...but now I gotta start recording every ride!

The first two days have been great. I feel like i really made the right decision taking that flight, the weather is just so much better for me.

Sun's been out for most of the days, i've been cycling in my croatia clothes, shorts and t-shirt. Yesterday evening it was raining and had storm gusts that make me question if my tent is norway ready. As you can see in the picture some rain was coming in now too, just a drizzle though. Earlier today there was a thunderstorm, but i had absolute perfect timing, got on a ferry when it started and got off when it ended. Got my phone to charge up to 100% in the last minute of the ride too. The ferries between the islands here are indeed free for cyclists. We saw whales on the ferry, and we saw whales from next to the spot where i camp as well. Watched them with a german family who are here with a van, they had binoculars and they gave me some water so i could set up camp here.

Everything here feels like it's 2000 m higher up, when you ride into these fjords it feels like some high alpine plateau with a big reservoir, tree line between 0 and about 250m, fresh air, cold wind. Cold tunnels. But different plants and gulls instead of marmots. There's quite some tourers on this road, almost all are coming towards me. This place seems really easy to travel, lots of tourists around, drivers are considerate and slow anyway.

The thing with the sun not going down definitely needs some more getting used to, kind of hard to fall asleep still, but i will try to do that now. I think i'm not going to post any more updates until i reach a different country.

On wednesday i have made the decision to not ride further into the southern european heatwave but booked a flight to Tromsø way up north in Norway, then try to make my way home from there. I can't deal with the heat and the idea that it's only going to get hotter (40+ in bosnia).

So i headed back north to Krk (airport is here). Cycling on roads on Krk really sucks, traffic wise, but there's a bunch of MTB and hiking tracks which are a lot nicer although not really the most direct connection to places.

!

Spent all morning gathering materials and trying to find someone to help me loosen my pedals. Then i went again through terrible traffic to a campsite 2km from the airport, arrived at around 1:30.

The fact that this campsite then asked 47 € and i actually paid it will be a secret that i will take with me to my grave. I was just so done with organizing stuff, criss crossing around the island. Just wanted to eat something, relax, get out of the sun and be close to the airport, my flight goes in the morning. To be fair, this camp site is some crazy holiday resort with luxury sanitaries, super beach access, new cool looking pool, everything new here basically. Animation for the kids. Never seen anything like it. I also got a large area to put my tent on, in between the camper vans. No shadow though.

I will post a picture of my 'box' here as a reply when i lumped it all together tomorrow.

The last days i had been following the slovenian part of the trans balkan race route, then thought i can't go through croatia without going to the coast at all. Took a very cool route through the forest to the sea, thought i'd check in on a campsite and spend half a day on the beach. Quickly found out again that i just don't like it, too many people, most expensive campsite i've ever been on (27 €). Immediately looked forward to going up inland again.

So yesterday i cycled the whole day on a stretch of what i believe to be a popular Eurovelo route (EV8 mediterranean route). It's high season. I have not met a single tourer on it. Incredible. I met one roadie earlier in the day, still down by the coast. I can only assume that people avoid this part due to the climbing and do the island hopping instead? The grades are really fine though, you could also do this part in two days, one climb a day, and have a similar camp both days. You'd need to check your supplies though, i misjudged it and had to descend a fair bit in between to get food and water.

Usually i'm not the biggest fan of ev routes, but this part (from somewhere south of Rijeka, going south) looked promising, riding along the mountain side with views on the croatian islands, and it really delivered. Once you leave the coast, the route was absolutely calm. Kind of strange for such a scenic road. Like i could count the cars i encountered on one hand, one motor bike. Seems like everybody's here solely for the beaches.

That was a couple weeks ago on a part of the mountainbike route 66 in Switzerland. This part was still all ridable for me, only the last two or so km before the border to italy i was basically just pushing .

Switzerland has a very good overview over all kinds of bicycle routes, very much recommend it for planning tours there.

Hey there. I am currently on tour from my home in Germany in a south eastern direction. I have been on the road for a good month now. It has been fantastic so far. Currently taking a day off in Ljubljana, Slovenia after some rainy days, trying my best to do some bike maintenance and i need to plan my further route from here. I have been posting a bunch of stuff to the @bicycles@lemmy.ca community from my trip so far.

This has been my route so far.

Have met some cool people on the road and will most likely meet up with one of them again in the coming days, he is also going the same direction.

Photo from earlier this year for a cheeky overnighter shakedown ride.

Hoping to ride this down the country come the summer time but we'll see where life takes us