Tag: Denmark

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 048 – A Mountaineer’s Guide To Cycling From Spain To Norway

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The Cycling Europe Podcast mainly features, well, cyclists. The interviewee in this episode, however, is first and foremost a mountaineer. But he’s not just any mountaineer. His name is Tim Ralph and he’s a seven summiteer; a man who has climbed the seven highest mountains on each of the continents. In the last few years, he’s also taken up cycle touring and has just published a book called ‘A Life Accomplished: From Spain to Norway on a Bike’. So what can mountaineering teach us about cycle touring? What can cycle touring teach mountaineers about climbing mountains? And what happens when an experienced mountaineer sets off to cycle from Europe’s geographical southernmost point at Tarifa in Spain to its northernmost point at Nordkapp in Norway?

Welcome To 2022… And Back To Cycling Europe

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On October 31st last year, I posted a short message to Twitter (and similar messages on Facebook and Instagram as well as on CyclingEurope.org itself) that I intended taking a break from the whole ‘Cycling Europe’ thing to spend a bit more time doing everything else in life. I signed off saying that I would be back on January 1st 2022 and, right on cue, here I am. Happy New Year! I hope you’ve had a good Christmas and are all set to make the coming year better than the previous two…

brown and white concrete houses under gray sky

On Your Marks… EuroVelo 10: The Baltic Sea Cycle Route

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October 2021 has been a quiet month on CyclingEurope.org; just two substantive posts, one about episode 40 of The Cycling Europe Podcast and the second reflecting upon the possibility of embarking upon a cycling trip around the Baltic Sea in 2022. Well, after quite some considerable thought and an in depth chat with a German chap called Bernd who cycled the complete route in 2019 (that will be published as an episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast later in November), I took a significant step in committing myself to heading off on a long Baltic cycle tour next week by buying a ticket for the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam on Monday 20th June 2022…

sea city dawn landscape

Something To Write Home About: EuroVelo 10?

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Anyone (well, almost anyone…) who has ever embarked upon a long cycle journey will recognise that there is a flaw in the process. It comes at the very end of your travels – perhaps even a few weeks or months after the end – when it dawns upon you that you no longer have a big cycling ‘thing’ towards which you can look forward. I replaced my doomed trip to Japan (scuppered by COVID) with a cycle around the UK in 2020 and, more recently, a trip to the Outer Hebrides in 2021. But I now find myself back at square one and I’ll be honest; I’ve been struggling to answer that all important question ‘where next?’

Meanwhile In The Civilised World…

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A couple of European cycling-themed videos from Brut Nature FR, a French ‘new media’ company that seems to exist on social media but nowhere else. Anyway, I digress. Both are short and both worth watching; the first about the EuroVélo 6, the second about how the bicycle has […]

Cycling Day T+10: Hamburg HBF, Germany

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A more organised second day of train travel (compared to the last-minute complexity of the trip from Hirtshals to Hamburg). Hamburg to Rotterdam by train – 3 of them – and then the ferry tonight at 9pm. That said, Deutsch Bahn decided to replace the first cycle-friendly IC […]

Cycling Day T+7: Bergen

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The MS Lofoten docked in Bergen earlier this afternoon and I spent the afternoon having a good old wander around Norway’s second city and my new favourite Norwegian place. It’s charming! Tomorrow morning I catch the ferry to Denmark for an afternoon and overnight voyage south to Hirtshals. […]

Cycling Day T+2: Honningsvåg

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As the sun peeks over the hill at 5am, it’s just me and a certain bicycle waiting by the quayside in Honningsvåg for the start of our long and hopefully leisurely journey back to Yorkshire. The MS Lofoten has yet to dock but when it does it’s a […]

Cycling Day 66: Lysekil To Tanumshede

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. The bad news: I never did get my clothes washed. The good news: who cares? It’s be a fantastic day of cycling in a magnificent corner of Sweden under a bright blue sky. There isn’t a great deal […]

Cycling Day 61: Helsingør To Båstad

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Båstad. The Rough Guide to Sweden sees fit to give the pronunciation: /bow-sta/. It didn’t prevent me from smirking when I saw the town on the map this morning when still in Denmark and choosing it as my […]

Krongborg Slot, Helsingør, Denmark

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So, shortly after arriving in Helsingør (see previous post that I have yet to write but hopefully by the time you see this, I will have done… such is the world of running a travel-related website) I returned to the centre of the town. The main attraction is […]

Cycling Day 60: Copenhagen To Helsingør

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Just as it was yesterday, rain has been a theme of the day, but when I ‘woke’ (for the third or fourth time) there was no pitter-patter of raindrops upon my tent. That said, dampness was still in […]

Copenhagen: Cycling City? First Impressions… 

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The question mark is a touch rhetorical… Of course it is! There are bicycles everywhere and cycle lanes take you from anywhere to anywhere. That’s really not surprising, but… Contrary to what the ‘everything-about-cycling-in-Britain-is-rubbish’ crowd would have you believe, there’s a large minority here who wear helmets, a […]

Cycling Day 58: Møns Klint To Vemmetofte

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I usually write these updates while I’m sitting next to the tent. Tonight I’ve found somewhere rather more beautiful and even more peaceful…    I’ll be honest. I’ve now returned to the campsite – only a couple of […]

Equipment Update

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The last couple of weeks have seen various items of equipment meet their maker, not just on the bike but other bits and pieces as well… Let’s starts with the bike however:  Replacement chain, cassette, brake pads and rear wheel in Hamburg. A new set of Schwalbe Marathon […]

Rest Day 10: Møns Klint, Denmark

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“One of Denmark’s most famous landmarks…” according to the Lonely Planet guidebook. They – the cliffs that is – are impressive although you wouldn’t want to bring a group of school children here; the paths are perilously close to the cliff edges and rock falls are not uncommon […]

Sunday: The Day Of Rest (In Møns Klint)

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Fear not! I haven’t suddenly gone all religious…    …but after a full week of long, strenuous and flattish rides (ones that rarely give you an opportunity to sit back in the saddle and relax), I’m taking an impromptu day off. Møns Klint with its allegedly spectacular cliffs […]

Cycling Day 57: Ulslev To Møns Klint

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Now before I start, I forget to mention something yesterday. I got my tyres pumped up in a shop! [That it?] But there’s more… I asked the chap who did the pumping what he thought about the tread […]

Cycling Day 56: Spodsbjerg To Ulslev

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I have found an idyllic place to camp tonight on the eastern side of the island of Falster on the shore of the Baltic Sea. This is the beach, just metres from my tent: How I managed to […]

Cycling Day 55: Fynshav To Spodsbjerg

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I’ll try and keep it brief tonight, for my sake just as much as yours. I’ve said that before however and always find a few tangents… First up (after two muffins for breakfast) was the ferry. Actually (first […]

Cycling Day 54: Flensburg To Fynshav

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I chatted late into the evening with Franziska and Klaus whilst sitting on their garden terrace sipping wine and eating Scandinavian chocolate. They had left me alone at the house for a couple of hours earlier in the […]

Cycling Day 53: Missunde To Flensburg

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. The campsite at Missunde really was a gem. Every box on the Cycling-Europe-travelling-cyclist-ideal-campsite list was ticked. Twice. The previous number one site of the trip had been in Orléans; but it didn’t have this:   By the time […]

The Start Of Part II: Hamburg To Denmark

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I’m going to be following (hopefully) an ox herding route (now an official cycle path) called the Ochsenweg up through the northern German region of Schleswig-Holstein towards Flensburg, the final town in Germany. The vague route is highlighted in green on the map below but I’m hoping that […]

Cycling Day 44: Cologne To Düsseldorf

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Over the last ten years I’ve visited Germany on quite a few occasions; twice to Stuttgart, twice to Hamburg, once to each of Munich Berlin and Bonn. I have a very positive view of the country based upon […]

Germany: The Plan (Ish)

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Today was a little bit of a wake-up call; arriving in Germany I expected the place to be full of campsites. Aachen certainly wasn’t. Although it does have a ‘camping platz’ just out of town, it’s not for tents, just motor homes. The woman in the tourist office […]

Cycling Day 5: Sevilla To Monesterio 

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle This risks being quite short as I’m very tired… I really want to avoid cycling 100 km + days but I’ve just my first. There will, inevitably, be others, but with the average distance that I need to […]

Ready To Take On Europe (Again)

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Tomorrow morning, Tuesday 7th April, it’s a relatively short ride to Gibraltar and a final night of luxury in a hotel. On Wednesday it’s an even shorter ride to Tarifa and a campsite just to the west of Europe’s most southerly mainland point. Then on Thursday 9th I […]

Ditching The Rough Guides In Favour Of… 

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I would happily class myself as an enthusiastic early adopter of technology, especially when it comes to cycling. Back in 2009 when I cycled along the Pennine Cycleway as a shakedown of my skills as a first time touring cyclist I blogged as I travelled having moved on from writing […]

Cycling The Eurovelo 1/3

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If you hadn’t noticed, I’ve posted these country-specific commentaries about the upcoming Eurovelo 1/3 trip from southern Spain to northern Norway: Cycling in Spain Cycling in France Cycling in Belgium Cycling in Germany Cycling in Denmark Cycling in Sweden Cycling in Norway

On Your Marks, Get Set…

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Under two weeks now until departure and I’m finally beginning to piece things together in a serious way. The flight is purchased and the Spanish course booked but you already know that as you have read this, no? Yesterday I spent the day in Leeds in search of […]

Cycling In Spain

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So finally, after Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium and France… I arrive at the beginning (if that makes sense), in Spain. If you remember, my posts about cycling through each of the countries of the Eurovelo 1/3 route that I will be following later in the year were […]

Cycling In France

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So, after Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Belgium I arrive in France on my pre-Eurovelo 1/3 quest to have put at the very least a bit of thought into the planning of the route. Only one country to go – Spain – which will be the first of […]

Cycling In Belgium

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My journey across the continent continues… I have already posted planning notes on cycling through Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Germany. Here are my planning notes for Belgium after which only France and Spain need to be considered before I set off from Tarifa in Spain shortly after Easter. […]

Cycling The Eurovelo 1/3: The Maps

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While maps are on my mind (see previous post)… I have a newly discovered love for Marco Polo maps. But before I get on to them, let’s back track a little. I can’t imagine there will ever be a day when I ditch paper maps altogether; when I cycled […]

Cycling In Germany

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I was managing to write one of these country commentaries at the rate of one per weekend earlier in December but I’ve had a break for a few weeks over Christmas. Remember that they are not a complete overview of cycling in the particular country through which I […]

Cycling In Denmark

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I have arrived at country number three – in a reverse sense – after previously writing about Cycling In Norway and Cycling In Sweden. Denmark will, of course, be country number five after Spain, France, Belgium and Germany but in my quest not to neglect the latter part […]

Copenhagen: Cycling Nirvana?

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I hope to visit Copenhagen next year when I cycle along the Eurovelo 3. Well, it will mean deviating a little from route 3 – see the official route through Denmark – but I think it will be worth it. A cycling nirvana? It’s what would be suggested […]

EU Wide ECF Cycling Barometer Launched

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Here’s an interesting press release from the European Cyclists’ Federation. The UK doesn’t do too badly in their European Union-wide ranking. Full list of countries and their ranks below the statement from the ECF; “The European Cyclists’ Federation (ECF) is using the run up to next week’s Velo-city […]

Australian Bob & Californian Wade

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A couple of Warmshowers visitors have passed this way over the last few days; first there was Bob, a novice touring cyclists in his 60s and then there was Wade, a novice touring cyclist in his 20s. I’m a novice touring cyclist somewhere in the middle! Bob is […]

Nine Steps Towards Safer Cycling

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As promoted in today’s Independent newspaper; The London Cycling Campaign, which promotes safer cycling in the capital, has produced a nine-point-plan for reducing the toll of death and injury among cyclists: * Enforce speed limits and clamp down on drivers who use mobile phones. (A young woman in […]

Cycling To The (Arctic) Circle

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The article below is from this week’s Times Educational Supplement. Interesting choice of a bike. Her website is here. This summer, geography teacher Lisa Baum will cycle from her school, Ernest Bevin College in south London, to the Arctic Circle, with the aim of encouraging more pupils to […]

Laura Birchenough in Figures

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Laura Birchenough has just returned home from a cycle ride that took in the last part of the Eurovelo 5 – she stayed with Massimo Mazzone in Benevento – and then most of eastern / central Europe back to the UK. It seems to be the done thing to […]

Can’t Fly? Cycle!

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Pan-European cycling might catch on a bit more if this volcanic cloud hangs around much longer. Mark Beaumont is stuck in the French Alps; I did suggest via Twitter that he cycle back (see feed to your left…), as did lots of other people by the sound of […]

Friday Morning 3am…

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Middle of the night catch-up. The ticket for the Mark Beaumont lecture arrived – see left. No information from AW Cycles as to which bike they have ordered for me; the 52 cm or the 54 cm frame (I’ll call in after work later today if nothing is […]

Puglia 2010 Worldwide!

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Canada, The USA, The UK, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg, Denmark, Switzerland, Poland, Austria, Portugal, Greece, Sweden, Finland, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Thailand, Australia, Japan… plus all the others who have been and now gone from the map. Amazing who is interested in this drivel!