With tales of 50 cycling routes in 30 countries, from Australia to Bhutan, and 200 ideas for bike EPIC BIKE rides, Lonely Planet’s Epic Bike Rides will inspire two-wheeled travel all over the world. RIDES BIKE EPIC RIDES Rides range from family-friendly jaunts to backcountry expeditions via city tours, classic of the circuits and meandering adventures. Whatever your experience, all these rides are epic. WOR LD 1st edition US $39.99 UK £29.99 - lonelyplanet.com of the WORLD Explore the planet’s most thrilling cycling routes EPIC BIKE RIDES of the WOR LD Explore the planet’s most thrilling cycling routes Easy Harder Epic CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 04 EUROPE 164 Bavarian Beer Ride (Germany) 166 AFRICA 06 Down The Danube (Austria) 172 Tour d’Afrique 08 Monte Amiata (Italy) 178 Riding the Rif (Morocco) 14 The Bryan Chapman Memorial (Wales) 184 Pedalling the Spanish Picos 190 AMERICAS 20 Climbing Mt Ventoux (France) 196 Cuba’s Southern Rollercoaster 22 Beating the Birkebeinerrittet (Norway) 202 To the Tip of Patagonia (Argentina) 28 West Cork’s Wild Coast, (Ireland) 208 The Natchez Trace Parkway (USA) 36 A Corsican Challenge (France) 214 A Circuit of San Juan Island (USA) 42 Circling Lake Constance (Switzerland/Germany/Austria) 220 Family Bikepacking in Ecuador 48 Sierra Nevada Traverse (Spain) 226 Colorado Beer Bike Tour (USA) 56 The South Downs Way (England) 232 North America’s Pacific Coast (USA) 62 Arty Copenhagen Cruise (Denmark) 238 Mountain Biking in Moab (USA) 68 Around the Île de Ré (France) 244 Ride the Whitehorse Trails (Canada) 74 The Tour of Flanders (Belgium) 250 The Minuteman Bikeway (USA) 82 From Sea to Sea (England) 256 Buenos Aires’ Bike Paths (Argentina) 88 The Cévennes: Riding the Rider (France) 262 The Covered Bridges of Vermont (USA) 94 Into the Outer Hebrides (Scotland) 268 Vancouver and Whistler (Canada) 100 All Along the Loire (France) 274 Manhattan Circumnavigation (USA) 106 OCEANIA 280 Julian Love; Courtesy Bridge Road Brewers Julian Love; Courtesy Bridge Road ASIA 112 Beaches and Bicycles in Adelaide (Australia) 282 © Mai Chau Cycle Ride (Vietnam) 114 The Old Ghost Road (New Zealand) 288 Bikepacking in Mongolia 120 Australia’s Atherton Tablelands 294 Cycling the Seto Inland Sea (Japan) 128 The Acheron Way (Australia) 300 High in the Himalaya (India) 134 The Munda Biddi Trail (Australia) 306 Bhutanese Dragon Ride 140 Alps 2 Ocean Cycle Trail (New Zealand) 312 Mae Hong Son Circuit (Thailand) 146 Tasmania’s Wild West (Australia) 318 Sri Lankan Sightseeing 152 Clockwise from top: © Cass Gilbert, © Matt Munro, top: © Cass Gilbert, Matt Munro, Clockwise from China’s Wild West 158 INDEX 324 - EPIC BIKE RIDES OF THE WORLD - INTRODUCTION sk a dozen cycling writers for their most memorable bike hours, others a day or two, a week, or more than a month. We’ve rides and you get many more than a dozen answers. usually not tried to specify times the rides might take beyond the For some, biking was purely about escapism and distance involved – everybody is different; take as long as required. A involved nothing more complicated than packing some Instead, we’ve given a general indication of whether a ride is sandwiches and meandering into the distance with the wind at easy (in terms of terrain, distance, conditions or climate) or more their backs. One or two went a little further and, GPS unit in hand, challenging (bigger hills, longer distances, fewer cake shops). The ventured into the wilds of Patagonia and the Himalaya, powered most important point of these stories is to inspire you to get your by nothing more than their legs and a desire to see what was bike out (dusting it off and pumping up the tyres first if need be) around the next corner. and explore somewhere new with the wind in your hair. Those writers with families recommended flat and accessible Cycling is the perfect mode of transport for the travel-lover, loops around traffic-free islands or along river paths. A few allowing us to cover more ground than if we were on foot, but contributors preferred to case themselves in skin-tight Lycra and without the barriers that a car imposes. We are immersed in our seek out heart-pounding ascents, making ardent pilgrimages to the surroundings, self-powered, independent, and forever pondering sites of classic races to pay their respects. Mountain-biking writers the question ‘I wonder what’s over there?’. The bike rider is free to wrote of thrills and spills on rugged trails on every continent. And follow a whim, discover the limits of their endurance, or stop and more than a few authors agreed that a good ride wasn’t complete settle for while. Hopefully, this book will prove that there’s no better without a beer or two afterwards with old friends or new. way of simply experiencing a place, a culture and its people than What was clear, though, is that everybody has their personal by bicycle. And as some of these tales tell, arriving on a bicycle interpretation of ‘epic’. You can have an epic adventure straight opens doors, literally and figuratively. from your front door and be back in time for tea. Or you can follow in the tyre tracks of adventurer Alastair Humphreys and pedal HOW TO USE THIS BOOK around the world, through 60 countries, for four years. The main stories in each regional chapter feature first-hand This book attempts to reflect that diversity and those varying accounts of fantastic bike rides in that continent. Each includes levels of commitment. We can’t all take a sabbatical for cycling! a toolkit to enable the planning of a trip – when is the best time We’ve sought out some of the most entertaining experiences you of year, how to get there, where to stay. But beyond that, these can have on a bicycle, whether you’re a casual rider or a cyclist stories should spark other ideas. We’ve started that process with with a stable of carbon-fibre machines. The settings of these the ‘more like this’ section following each story, which offers other experiences range from some of the world’s most remote places – ideas along a similar theme, not necessarily on the same continent. Mongolia, Bhutan and the Outer Hebrides – to its hippest cities Many of these ideas are well established routes or trails. The index and dreamiest islands. Some of these rides take just a couple of collects different types of ride for a variety of interests. Enno (top) © Cass Gilbert; Marcus 4 - EPIC BIKE RIDES OF THE WORLD - THE TOUR D’AFRIQUE Tour d’Afrique lives up to its name: a ride across the entire continent of Africa. It’s tough on the bike and gruelling on the body. hrough stinging beads of sweat I looked ahead and the road shimmered into the distance – a thin grey line with START endless plains of sand on either side. We’d cycled 50 miles EGYPT T (80km) so far and had the same distance to go. The sun was beating down, and the desert wind was relentless. It was like riding into a hairdryer. With added grit. What a crazy place to go cycling. This was my first day on the Tour d’Afrique, a long-distance SUDAN race from Cairo to Cape Town, Africa’s traditional northern and southern extremities. This annual test of endurance covers around 7500 miles (around 12,000km) divided into eight stages of 14 days, ETHIOPIA giving four months to ride the continent end-to-end. And while some pedal the whole distance, those with less time can ride just a stage – which is no mean feat in itself. There’s also a team relay KENYA option, and in 2009 I was part of a Lonely Planet team, with two riders completing each stage then handing on the baton. TANZANIA The Tour d’Afrique starts at one of Africa’s best-known landmarks, the Pyramids of Giza, on the edge of Cairo. After obligatory photos in front of the giant monuments, and one for luck in front of the Sphinx, the peloton heads south to begin its epic ZAMBIA MALAWI journey. Route details change each year, as new roads are built or ZIMBABWE borders close, or when countries become too volatile to visit, but NAMIBIA the Tour d’Afrique follows pretty much the same overall pattern. From the Egyptian capital, riders head to the Red Sea then follow BOTSWANA the coast road before tracking inland to reach the Nile Valley and cycle through a landscape of palm trees and crop fields that have barely changed since Pharaonic times. SOUTH AFRICA A ferry ride along Lake Nasser brings the riders to their second FINISH country, Sudan, and a demanding few days on sandy roads © Martyn Colbeck | Getty Images AFRICA 8 - EPIC BIKE RIDES OF THE WORLD - - EPIC BIKE RIDES OF THE WORLD - through the Nubian Desert, an eastern extension of the Sahara. In this remote part of Africa, where travel is hard at the best of times, cycling adds an extra level of endurance and excitement. CAIRO TO CAPE In Khartoum my own adventure began, as I joined a Lonely TOWN RECORD Planet teammate on that heat-soaked highway through the endless BREAKERS desert landscape. Distances between towns were long, so we often stopped for a drink and a rest at basic roadhouses, some The first Tour d’Afrique little more than a lonely shack surrounded by sand. We enjoyed in 2003 set a new small glasses of sweet black tea, and an unexpected bonus was benchmark in long- the availability of glucose biscuits.