Europe 🚴🚴‍♀️ 2024

august - oktober 2024
A 2000 miles cycling trip starting in Barcelona, Spain. Læs mere

Liste over lande

  • Schweiz
  • Italien
  • Frankrig
  • Spanien
  • Forenede Stater
Kategorier
Cykel, Par, Ferie
  • 16,8krejste kilometer
Transportmidler
  • Flyvning14,7kkilometer
  • Tog60kilometer
  • Gåture-kilometer
  • Vandring-kilometer
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  • Hest-kilometer
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  • At blaffe-kilometer
  • Cable car-kilometer
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  • 53fodaftryk
  • 46dage
  • 606fotos
  • 371kan lide
  • Riding Up the NE Valleys of Italy

    7. september 2024, Italien ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    3:56 / 42 miles / 3050 Ft. Mozzio, IT. 🇮🇹 Stunning views as we approach the Italian-Switzerland boarder. Our AirBnB was another climb of 2 mile of about 8%, but well worth it. We brought some take-and-bake lasagna from the grocery store below, and had a picnic style dinner looking over the valley below, with the jagged mountains to both sides. Tomorrow we cross into Switzerland.Læs mere

  • 🇮🇹🚴⛰️Simplon Pass⛰️🚴‍♀️🇨🇭

    8. september 2024, Schweiz ⋅ ☁️ 20 °C

    A tough ride over Simplon Pass into Switzerland through rain, cold, and noisy traffic led us to a perfect evening at our Warmshower home. Brian and Marij with their children Leann (14) and Steven (12) are a truly multi-international family. The Marji is from Belgium and only speaks Flemish to the kids, Brian is from Connecticut and speaks English with them, and in school they learn in German. The kids have 3 passports (Belgium, USA, and Switzerland), and they think they have been to almost 20 different countries so far. We share a rice, carrot, and chicken dinner with apricot sauce for dinner. After dinner we ate apple cake and Lisa and I taught them the card game “dimes.” A truely delightful evening! Simplon Pass was about 18 miles of climbing with tunnels and quite heavy traffic. We started the day about 8:00am to hopefully beat the traffic, but it didn’t really work. One savior was there was a lot of construction which led to large waves of traffic which we would pull over and let pass us, and another good thing was no trucks on Sundays! The rain and cold got worse at the top and we stopped for a warm snack at a restaurant near the top. We also put on dry clothes and almost every piece of warm cycling clothes we had for the descent. The descent was cold! For the first 4 miles we were shivering 🥶 so badly our bikes were shaking under us. Once we got into the valley of Switzerland 🇨🇭 it was a bit warmer and we found a place near the city center to reward ourselves with a large plate of fries. 😀Læs mere

  • 🇨🇭Rain & Headwind, another GREAT day!

    9. september 2024, Schweiz ⋅ 🌧 17 °C

    4:12 / 48 miles/ 1450 ft. Fully, Switzerland 🇨🇭. I got up about 7:30 AM to say thank you to Brian again before he went off to work. We both had a good nights rest, and we knew, even though there pass was behind us, the day was still going be a tough because of the rain and headwind. Lisa slept in a little bit later, but we both joined Marji for breakfast and coffee at about 8:30 AM, and then the departed about 9:15 AM. We can’t say enough about how great our evening and morning was Brian, Marji, and the kids. Our destination for the day was Fully, Switzerland and another Warmshower stay. Even though the weather was not cooperative, the ride was still beautiful. We rode up onto the hillside through the vineyards that were full of purple and white grapes, ready for harvest, found a waterfall that somehow I did not route us by, rode through pear and apple orchards that were luscious with ripe fruit, and Barron apricot trees that had already been harvested. We also rode along the Rhone river that was raging with glacier water and heavy rain water. We stopped at a bakery and grabbed some sandwiches for lunch, and found a place under a tree out of the rain to enjoy our picnic. the temperature was cold, but we had enough clothing to stay warm. Karine our Warmshower host sent us a couple of nice videos explaining how to get into their house if we arrived before they were home. Just as we were retrieving the key from the mailbox, her husband Boris showed up and greeted us with a big smile! We talked with Boris for about an hour before taking the shower. Then when Karine came home, Lisa and her took about a 45 minute walk with the dog into the vineyards on the hillside side. Karine, Boris, and the boys filled our night with stories, great food, and laughter. Another truly amazing connection with our hosts and Lisa and I Couldn’t stop talking about how wonderful experience it was and how we were sure we would be close friends if we lived in the same area. more stories to come about this, but too long to explain in writing.Læs mere

  • 4:58 / 49 miles / 6,630 ft. Near Saint Gervais-Les-Bains, France. Boris and Karine have the quietest family. Lisa and I slept in the open loft above the kitchen, and Karine and the two boys were up about 6:30 eating breakfast and getting ready for school. I think they left about 7:30, but we didn’t hear a peep and slept in until about 8:00. They left us everything we needed for breakfast including some fresh apricot juice from a near by orchard. Boris came back to the house a bit before 9 AM and we chatted with him for quite a while. As we were loading our bikes and lubing our chains, Boris was cleaning both my bike and Lisa‘s bike, this was SO nice! We always find it hard to leave our Warmshower hosts when we have made such a nice connection. We knew we were going to have a beautiful day ahead, but also some tough climbing. We had a nice 5 mile warm-up through the valley, and then we hit our first climb of the day which was 6.2 miles of an average gradient of 10.2%.😵‍💫 The Col de la Forclaz. It’s always fun looking back at the valley below to see how high we have climbed. We felt we were being cheered on by the cows and their bells as we climbed through the crisp mountain air toward the sunny sky. At the pass we took a rest in a grassy field, and absorbed some sunshine. After our break, there was a 4 mile descent which led into our second climb of the day. Col des Montets was 4.7 miles long with an average gradient of 4.7%. Near the top of the col we could see the snowcapped peaks of some of the higher mountains in the Alps, and Mont Blanc, the highest peak of the Alps. From the pass we cruised down to the touristic town of Chamonix-Mont-Blanc. We decided to put on our casual shoes and take a stroll through the city center and grabbed some supplies for a picnic. We found a place in the sun where we could see the glaciers of Mont Blanc. This was Lisa’s first time seeing a glacier. After lunch, we continued onward with the stunning view of the glaciers on our left side. We never tire of the sites of the Alps; old churches, Alpine houses, cows, farms, sharp mountains, cold streams, villages in the valleys and high on the mountain sides,and too much to capture in writing or pictures. Again, we ended the day with about a 2 mile climb to our cute Airbnb on the mountain side. We made baked potatoes in the microwave for dinner and topped them with fresh olives and some various cheeses. I was thinking it would be funny for me to make a cookbook for bicycle touring. Also, some type of shopping list for when you get to a grocery store and you are a tired and hungry cyclist.Læs mere

  • 🇫🇷🍇🚴Rest Day Ahead CHAMBÉRY🚴‍♀️🍇🇫🇷

    11. september 2024, Frankrig ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    5:35 / 64 miles / 5,040 ft. Chambéry, France. The Savoie Region 🇫🇷. On the recommendation of Jeff Barnes “Rock” our day would end in Chambéry, France where he used to live and do a lot of riding. A cool morning on the mountainside started with a 5 mile climb of a gradual 4% gradient after our staple breakfast of yogurt, granola, bread, coffee, and a bottled smoothie. Also, I have become addicted to these little sweet muffins that are kind of like Twinkies without the filling. 🤤 The climb, had us warmed up quickly, and again we loved the views over the valley and of the jagged mountains in the distance. The cows continue to greet us with their giant bells, and the sharp steeples that are present in every small Alpine village are a treasure hunt for our eyes. We both like to ring our bells on our bike whenever we spot one and point it out to each other. At mile 14.71 we hit our 1,000 mile mark. 🙃 It was a beautiful day and there were a lot of workers out in the vineyards harvesting the grapes. We rode behind a tractor for about 2 miles that was pulling a wagon full of green grapes. It was the first time I had ever drafted off a tractor pulling grapes. 🚜🍇🚴🚴‍♀️. The traffic was a little heavier as we approached the city, but as usual I had routed by a grocery store so we could get supplies for our Airbnb. We loaded up on supplies for dinner and breakfast. During the last couple of miles, it started to rain and it was getting cold. Getting to our Airbnb was a bit challenging as the key box was located at a different address, and you had to watch a YouTube video to try and find it. Definitely a bad idea for a cyclist that is wet and ready to be done for the day. We eventually got into the Airbnb, and both took nice long hot showers. The view from our place was overlooking Chambéry, and we could not stop looking out over the balcony at the city and mountains as the sun was starting to set. We made some appetizers, had a wonderful pasta dinner, and enjoyed some of the. Savoie Region wine. 😀Læs mere

  • Resting, Walking, & Cleaning Bikes

    12. september 2024, Frankrig ⋅ ☁️ 15 °C

    Our rest day in Chambéry was spent with a relaxing morning in the Airbnb. Then we took about a 5 hour stroll in the city center. Eating lunch at a kebab shop, buying bread and baked goodies for tomorrow’s breakfast, and a bit of gourmet chocolate for an evening snack. On the late afternoon we gave the bikes a good cleaning (amazing how dirty the were.) and wrote some postcards. We are headed toward Plum Village, France, A Buddhist center for mindfulness founded by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, about 466 miles in the next 8 days for another rest day. The next 5 days we have Warmshower hosting. Excited to see what lies ahead. 😀🚴‍♀️🇫🇷🚴😀Læs mere

  • Cold + Wind + Climbs = Tough Day

    13. september 2024, Frankrig ⋅ 🌬 15 °C

    5:03 / 57 miles / 4,646 ft. Another early climb, the Col de l’Épine (7 miles of avg, 6.4%), cold temperatures, and rain on the descent started our day with a challenge. On the way down the pass we were so cold we stopped at a church for refuge from the chilling wind and light rain. The sun popped out occasionally to warm or chilled bones, and we enjoyed shorter climbs as they helped warm us up. We found a nice bakery and got a cappuccino, sweet treat, and baguette for later. We actually ate half the baguette in the bakery as we were warm and the bread was warm and yummy too. Lisa went to the grocery to pick up a few various cheeses for our Warmshower house that evening. Tough headwinds and crosswinds made the next 30 miles quite rough, but we got a bit of reprieve on a bicycle trail that was sheltered by trees near the end of our day. The houses have changed from Alpine style to large farm houses, and the crops from grapes and fruit trees to mainly corn. The cool air, scenery, corn, and farms, give it a feel of Iowa and the smell of the oncoming fall. We had a nice evening with our Warmshower hosts. Marie-Pierre and Yves they provided us a nice private bedroom with a bathroom, a hot dinner of chicken shish kebabs, rice, and a tomato,onion, and squash sauce. After dinner, we sampled various cheeses, had some digestive tea and chocolate. Lisa and I were both exhausted and fell asleep right when we hit the bed. Another amazing Warmshowers family!Læs mere

  • 🇫🇷🌉Crossing The Rhône🚴‍♀️🚴🇫🇷

    14. september 2024, Frankrig ⋅ 🌬 16 °C

    5:18 / 53 miles / 5,354 ft. Veauche, FR. The day ended perfectly with an awesome meal of cheesy rice with chicken and veggies, a cheese sampling, and a gooey personal chocolate cake. Jeff, Séverine, and their kids Tom and Lou were amazing hosts. Tom. Greeted us outside the Optic2000 shop were he is an optician and immediately we were welcomed into his home which was behind the business. We had a private room and our own bathroom and shower, laundry, and we sat sharing stories of travel, raising children, education, and a bit of politics until almost 11:30 pm. 😴 The riding to Veauche, FR was not the easiest. We have heard numerous times, “The weather is never like this.” It was cold again and a lot of north wind which caused us to pedal even on the downhills. Marie-Perrie and Yves provided us a breakfast of breads, coffee, yogurt, and fruit. Then at about 9:25 AM Marie-Pierre led us about 6 miles out of La Verpillière. Chilly Saturday morning riding with low traffic led us to a small village where we found a nice sunny spot out of the wind for a break. we each had two granola bars, and we’re about ready to get back on the road when a man on a mountain bike approached us. He was on holiday from Holland, and his wife also joined us in the town center. We chatted with Ard and Miriam for about one hour as Ard treated us to a coffee. They are a super couple and we hope someday we can visit them north of Amsterdam. We crossed one of Francis major rivers, the Rhône River, in Givors about noon. The Rhône flows from the Alps in Switzerland through Lake Geneva, and then through Southeastern France into Mediterranean sea. In was still cold and windy, but the sunshine was great! Once again, long climbs, led to beautiful views over the valleys. On one of the longer climbs we joined a French junior cycling club as they were having a training day. We joined in the fun and I chased some of the coaches and enjoyed the challenge of racing to the top. This definitely helped us knock off one of our harder climbs with the bit of speed and fun. About 2 miles outside of Veauche we found a nice spot in a farm field entrance to take a break and have a snack. This is one of our favorite times of the day when we know we will make it to our destination on time and we still have a little time to relax and enjoy time together. ❤️Læs mere