Anyone got any ideas for routes to ride in France/Spain/Switzerland e.t.c that take about a week to complete with good travel links (ports/stations/airports) near the start and finish for this summer?

Yeah, in Spain you have the Camino de Santiago. Check out the various routes (Ie Camino Frances, Via de la Plata, Camino Mozarabe, and more). Also look at the TransAndalus and TransMurciana - both close to good airports. You've also got the Trans-Pyrenees.

In France, do a little research on the GR routes (long distance paths).

What sort of riding so you want to do?

Wilderness/countryside? Singletrack/fireroads Mountains/flat?

Lots to chose from.

gairym wrote:What sort of riding so you want to do?

Wilderness/countryside? Singletrack/fireroads Mountains/flat?

Lots to chose from.

Preferably mountains and a majority fire road but some singletrack

I would look at this web page.

https://gypsybytrade.wordpress.com/2014 ... ng-routes/

I think Nick did a fair job of covering a lot of the options out there.

There are a bunch of routes on GypsyByTrade's page on European Bikepacking.

From routes that I've done... if you went lightweight and relatively fast you could do a good chunk of one of the the Camino de Santiago routes, as Lee says above, or most of the Grand Traverse du Massif Central... It took me longer but I was carrying four months worth of gear - laptop etc, and I'm generally not that quick!

In Switzerland there are also three mapped and waymarked long distance mountain bike routes through various parts of the coutry. I've done the one through the Jura, but the others look vaguely exciting....

As for Swiss trails, Alpine Bike route from Scuol to Aigle is by far the best suggestion here. Just head over the range at Kandersteg. If you like some technical single tracks Lötschenlücke is great. Gemmipass is very scenic and easier up to the pass, but the ride to Leukerbad is nothing but dangerous, but you could take the cable car down. Many have ridden it, but I can't advise it.

Once over the Lötschenlücke however, a ribbon of never ending single track takes you to the vines of the lower Valais. Beautiful trails with views of Switzerland's highest peaks. Then there more distance to be covered along the 'Suone' or 'Bisse'. Give me a shout if your considering Switzerland. I live here.

You might want to try making it out of Hafren forest first

After some suggestions.

We've a week's mountain biking in Chamonix this summer but also have the week before this as holiday. We plan to drive down to Cham. We had thought of taking the road bikes as well but as an option does anyone have any suggestions where we might do a bit of bikepacking/touring for two or three nights out? Ideally not too far from the route between Calais and Chamonix, i.e. not the Pyrenees!

whitestone wrote:After some suggestions.

We've a week's mountain biking in Chamonix this summer but also have the week before this as holiday. We plan to drive down to Cham. We had thought of taking the road bikes as well but as an option does anyone have any suggestions where we might do a bit of bikepacking/touring for two or three nights out? Ideally not too far from the route between Calais and Chamonix, i.e. not the Pyrenees!

Tour du Mont Blanc...
Only down side are the hordes of hikers July-September.

Might be a bit too similar to the ground we'll be doing in the second week. Also it would be nice to ride somewhere different.

The Swiss Jura mountainbike route runs down the west edge of Switzerland from Basel to Lac Leman....

I was thinking of the Jura as a possibility. Might just be able to persuade SWMBO

Makes leaving the car parked up somewhere a little less fraught as there wouldn't be two bikes left in it.

Ta

Firmo's recommendations are good ones - the Camino Frances is lovely if busy at times and the GR5 between Geneva and Nice was a general-direction base for the best ride I've done so far, you could cover the best of it from Grenoble/Briancon to Nice in a week, Turin airport to Briancon looks to have a great link via the Strada del Assiette and Col Montgenevre if a bit of tarmac is OK. It needs a few diversions (happy to offer advice there if needed) but is worth it - so many variant options that you could ride it 3 times and cover quite different routes each time.

Inspiredrambling's Swiss link looks interesting, I had a look around the Swiss-Italian area last year and posted up a few links that I found on this thread - http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpBB ... route+tips