Tag: Sweden

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?

WarmShowers Forums: Swedish Trains And Videos

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Earlier this week I received an email from WarmShowers, the accommodation sharing website aimed at cycle tourists, about their ‘forums’. Whenever I think of forums my mind turns back to the early days of the Internet when things were a little more ‘clunky’ than they are now. But they must still be a ‘thing’ and the fact that WarmShowers have them on their website would suggest that, actually, they are still widely used.

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?’

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 028 – Simon Parker / Earth Cycle

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Simon Parker is a travel writer, broadcaster and newspaper columnist. He has travelled to over 100 countries on reporting assignments for the BBC, The Daily Telegraph and The Independent. He also has a sideline in cycle touring… In 2016 he sailed and cycled from China to London and in 2018 he set off from northern Norway and cycled 3,000km south to the southern tip of Sweden. His 6-week adventure is now the subject of a documentary available on Amazon Prime Video. PLUS: A message from Tim Moss about the Cycle Touring Festival 2021.

Cycling Day 73: Grimsbu To Kvikne

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I’m about to start writing… And here I am. I’ve showered, eaten, washed the dishes (OK, there aren’t that many) and I’m sacrificing listening to Any Questions on Radio 4 in order to write up about not just […]

Cycling Day 67: Tanumshede To Høysand

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. First up today was a short wander around this reconstructed Bronze Age village just next to where I had camped. It compared quite well to my tent accommodation… Then breakfast at the local supermarket where I bumped into […]

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 65: Myggenäs To Lysekil

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Last night I saved from you the disturbing news that (brace yourself), my third pair of reading glasses spontaneously snapped. Bizarrely, this is exactly what happened to the second pair. I was just sitting there when… crack! Even […]

Cycling Day 63: Ugglarp To Gothenburg

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Every epic cycle trip requires at least one epic day of cycling and yesterday was, probably, that day. 169 km. Not quite the 270 km that I cycled from Tarragona to Valencia back in the summer of 2013 […]

Cycling Day 62: Båstad To Ugglarp

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. Various things put me in a grumpy mood this morning. The internet still wasn’t working (campsite or 3G), I was looking at at a half hour wait for the campsite reception to open so that could pay, and […]

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 […]

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 […]

Cycling Day 59: Vemmetofte To Copenhagen

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Click here to see the detailed statistics of today’s cycle. I’ll be honest. This isn’t going to get written until tomorrow… The pictures aren’t that great either.  —– OK, it’s now cycling day 61 and I am finally sitting down to write this. I will keep it brief […]

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 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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Cycling In Sweden

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Last weekend I wrote about cycling in Norway, the final country on my 3rd pan-European quest next year. I’m purposefully starting at the end and working backwards so as to avoid falling into the trap of thinking a lot about the first few countries in advance and ignoring those […]

Cycling In Norway

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When I cycled from Greece to Portugal in 2013, I spent most of my time pre-trip thinking about Greece, Albania and, to a certain extent, Croatia. I didn’t spend too much time considering the western European countries through which I would be cycling. In France, a country I know […]

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 […]

New Books, New Hope

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Some books of potential interest, especially the one in the middle; Great Cycle Journeys of the World. The blurb reads:  With 34 classic cycle routes covering six continents, through some of the world’s most stunning natural landscapes, this book provides something for everyone planning their next cycling holiday.  Featured areas […]

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!