Still thinking about my summer trip, but being inspired by the Trans Continental race i'm having the idea of boxing the bike up, flying to somewhere in Europe, and then just riding home over a couple of weeks.

Any ideas on potential places to fly out to (thinking 1000 miles in total)?
Potential routes. Places to see avoid?

Just looking for a some ideas to start

ta

Hi Chew,
Have you thought about "The Bike Bus" they start from the North East and pick up at various points along the M1, nearest to us is Meadowhall. They have 4 main routes West France down to the Spanish border near Biarritz or down the middle to their hotel in Roses, Catalunya. They drop off at several points and have the advantage of no weight restrictions, no hassle getting rid of your packaging at the airport and no risk of damage by baggage handlers. http://www.bike-express.co.uk/

That looks like a good Idea, I like it

A £145 ticket to the bottom of France then ride home sounds like it could be a worthy adventure ... they pick up in Leeds too.

Yep that does sound pretty good. This could sway me from away from a Scottish tour again :?

Bike express is great, used them once for an Alpine road trip. Bike-geeky chats with CTC tourer types and an old John Tomac-era Norba race video playing on the bus. Comfy seats too.

Rode from Gatwick to Lake Constance via the Black Forest a few yrs ago, well under your 1000 mile aim but a nice ride, N France isn't so exciting apart from some quality pave sections. Looking at a few routes here for a week's riding in the Dolomites this summer - http://italy-cycling-guide.info/regions ... -overview/
Add up a few areas that appeal and there's your route?! The forests of (I think) Bulgaria look good, it was the setting for a lot of 'The Way Back'. Eastern Europe appeals, Slovenia, the Tatras etc.

Are you aware of this site:
http://www.cyclingeurope.nl/index.php

The guy told me once that his maps were easy to read whatever your language. Don't know how true that is though.

There are some established trans-Europe routes that a lot of roadies do, as extended lightweight credit card tours, but would be almost as fast if done with a lightweight bivi set-up. Brindisi - Calais, Trafalgar to Trafalgar, Nice to Roscoff to name a few. Details are probably available on the AudaxUK website, yacf.co.uk or through Google.

HTH.

Having driven through a fair bit of Europe, I'd avoid Northern France, which could prove difficult if you plan to cycle home from Europe.

Given the chance, I'd fly to Romania and then do some sort of loop taking in Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic and then fly back from Austria.
Failing that, Germany is great for cycling and you could fly east and follow the Danube & Rhine back.

Really liking the idea of a bus drop off, then riding back up...
Now I just need to plan my route.. :)

Hi, this is my first post here so please be gentle!
Posting here cos I did just this a couple of years ago - packed my bike into an lbs cardboard box, flew to Montpellier and basically cycled back as far as the ferry near Caen over a couple of weeks.
Pretty much the best couple of weeks ever, French municiple campsites are cheap and really good (best I found was €2.80 for a pitch including showers!).
Thoroughly recommend it!
Even had a police escort out of Caen - it really is a different world!

The bike express looks vaguely exciting and reasonably priced but I just have no experience at all of route planning outside of the UK. Can anyone give me some tips (or links to resources) on planning off road routes in Europe; thinking North Spain and France?

Composite - just started a thread in 'trips and adventures' section for just that, the links to resources. Most of my trips have been inspired by and based on links to known routes so thought it'd be good to have them copied to one place on this site.
ie the Camino Frances or Nord across N Spain.

Composite, I've also had a some helpful responses to route ideas for our Italy trip on the CTC forum, where one chap suggested this for GPS-based route planning -

At this point it would be worth trying to forget paper maps and just load onto your gps both Velomap and TrekMap Italy.
Both Velomap and TrekMap exhibit indeed "fully routable" (that does not necessarily mean "cyclable") tarmac and off-road patterns complete of relevant elevation data. In this case good planning capabilities and a reasonable improvvisation approach are a must.

A bit technical for me but it could be a good way to plan a route?

This http://www.misrutas.net/RutasDe.aspx?or ... nID&tipo=8 is a good site for routes such as the Ruta Del Cid or Camino Frances.If your Spanish is a bit rusty, just click on Rutas and then De Gran Recorrida (varios dias) which are multi day trips. I also swear by Wikiloc which has hundreds of routes for road touring, mountain biking etc which cover the area you are looking in. Both sites have GPS downloads and if you get a Garmin Topo Spain basemap, you can't go wrong. I planned and followed an 11 day off road traverse of the Pyrenees last year and hardly got lost at all

I think it means that the map algorithms favour cycle routes but not necessarily tarmac roads. Bit like the way Sustrans routes are sometimes when you find yourself in a muddy forest on your carbon road bike...

Thanks for the links people. :)

It is quite easy with a basic map and good sense of direction.

2 years ago we missed a connection in Lille as not allowed on TGV (long story). So we just set off for a Belgium, found a cycle marker post to Oudernaarde and followed it. Headed to Luxembourg, Germany and France in the week sleeping in woods and nowhere near a shower. No problems. JFDI and all that.

Eurobus looks ideal. You can also vaguely plan a route that goes near railway lines and hop on one if you are falling behind.

Like that Eurobus link, shame they don't start untill May.

How about TransEurope by the riverside, http://en.eurovelo6.org/rubriques/gauche/whats-ev6