Cycling on places far away from home

Clemond wrote:

Thx for all answers.  Did you ask yourself  something like, where is here the best road to ride for and see something interesting? I am looking for an app or web page, where I should just post my start location and app will tell me all other thing, what to see and where to ride? Am I the only one who would like to have all informations on one place?

Provided it has the local basemapping, some GPS units (Garmin, Mio, maybe others?) already have a feature like this – tell the unit how far you want to ride and it’ll churn out 3 route options (usually a hard, medium and easy if it can although that’s obviously dependent on the terrain wherever you happen to be!)

Otherwise, I use a combination of articles/routes from magazines, Strava, local clubs, internet forums, Google maps/Google Earth and sometimes a visit to my favourite shop of all, Stamfords in Covent Garden – the biggest and best map seller in the world, they can get you any type of map for anywhere in the world. Did a lot of route plannings based on maps bought from there in the pre-GPS era.

Strava route builder is good

Strava route builder is good if your going somewhere hilly as you can use that to make a route around those hills…. but if your not going for the mountains i can see why it would be of limited use and the club knowledge would become important.

I rented a couple of times

I rented a couple of times but that means you have to make guesses about setting the bike up properly and is not cheap for a reasonable bike. So I bought a bike box and now always take my bike. I look up routes on MapMyRide and RideWithGPS, strava is usefless for this and has no route search. I then look up local cycling clubs and ask if a visiting MAMIL can join them on socila rides.

I normally ride early in the morning so when I get back after 1-2 hours my wife is just getting up, I get to ride and we still get our holiday. I ride with the local clubs on their weekend social rides. In Australia the Byron club arranged a special weekend ride up Mt Riley for me. In Florida we went out for dinner with the members and partners. It really adds something to the holiday.

The key points for me are:

1. Make sure you know the airlines rules for bike boxes and print them out as the check in staff often don’t (I had to ‘discuss’ it with the EasyJet checkin at Fuerta Ventura). I use Singapore Air for flights to Australia because they allow any numebr of bags, have a 30Kg per person allowance and the bike box is just considered a bag.

2. Make sure you understand what you are allowed in hand luggage and what has to go in you hold baggage. Pedals in hand luggage is good, especialy if renting, but airlines don’t really like it. Helmet and basic clothes go in hand luggage so if they delay bike box I can still rent and ride. You are allowed up to 4 CO2 cartridges in hold luggage.

3. Find and load the OpenStreet map area onto Garmin if not part of the loaded maps, e.g. USA or Aus. Garmin maps are stupidly expensive.

4. Make sure you know the local laws. Most of Australia you have to have a bell. I know its stupid, I can shout louder than a bell, but its the law and you will get fined if you don’t have one. Germany has rules governing the type of lights allowed (have to have D shaped beams). Many US states insist that you ride on supplied cycle paths if they are there, even if you are doing 50kph.

5. Have fun and make new friends.