Places to take a cycling holiday in Europe
Mt Ventoux? The legendary climb. For whatever reason everyone kept talking about it. “Have you ridden Mt Ventoux yet? It’s awesome” If you google famous Col’s in France this one always pops up high up on the list. I had to find out why! Could it be even harder than the holy grail of the French Riviera – Col de la Bonette?
Take on this classic bike packing tour in the Alps. If you’re after a real adventure, then this could be for you. There’s some bike hike along the way, but the rewards are epic. Either a hardtail MTB or a Gravel Bike is the ideal way to travel this route at speed.
The Jeroboam Franciacorta 300km is Beauty and the Beast, gravel riding redefined between the shores of lake Iseo and Lake Garda. Spectacular riding and views awaited us, but not without earning them via some hefty climbing.
We want to help you to get back to what riding is all about -adventure. In the first of a new series of blogs, we’re visiting Elterwater Independent Hostel in the English Lake District, to show you some amazing mountain bike routes from the door.
During the Covid pandemic, sales of bikes have risen exponentially, with more and more people seeking the freedom and adventure that cycling brings. Riding our bikes takes us back to days of childhood, gives us the opportunity to explore new challenges and new places. And, if you’re looking for real adventure in spectacular surroundings in the future, then there’s only 1 Trans Alp race.
Yesterday’s journey to my first crack at a UCI Marathon Series started about fifteen years ago, after seeing Miguel Martinez solo to a marathon win on Eurosport, having ditched his punctured back tyre and ‘rimming it’ from about 5km out. I’d been an armchair fan of Cape Epic and loved the footage of the dust covered athletes racing MTB’s in dramatic landscapes. I’m in my fifties. I still want to be that man. Tragic I know.
This is an unbelievably beautiful ride through rolling meadows, taking in steep climbs and fast descents on tree lined roads. History is around every corner, with abbeys and castles and country houses. Helmsley serves superb cake and coffee too, and is an ideal holiday base.
Over the last thirty five years of cycle racing, I’ve often considered my peers and their contentment at riding the same disciplines, indeed the same races, year in year out. Each to their own and all that, but it’s not for me. It’s probably a Myers-Briggs personality thing. Firstly, I like new experiences; secondly, as a very average amateur athlete, I have never really found a discipline that has offered fame and fortune. Riding the same races over and over again holds little appeal.
Sitting at an altitude of 1968m the Cormet de Roselend connects Beaufort(744m) in the Beaufortain valley in the west and Bourg-Saint-Maurice(840m) in the Tarentaise Valley to the east. The climb has a rich TDF history. It was first featured in the 1979 Tour de France and ten times since. In 2019 the climb was cut from the tour as a mudslide rendered the climb impassable. It returns in 2020 for stage 18 and just happens to follow our preferred route over the Cormet!
One of the classics of the alps and steeped in history, it is believed the Carthaginian general Hannibal used this very route. The road connects Bourg st Maurice on the edge of the Isere in France with the Aosta Valley in Italy via the french resorts of La rosiere and La thuile on the Italian side.
