Lonely Planet Epic Bike Rides of the World: Explore the Planet's Most Thrilling Cycling Routes

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In a nod at how such information would be presented on a web side, each of the fifty routes ends with brief "more like this" section with another three routes covered in a paragraph. Some of these rides were more interesting to me than the ones covered in details - oh well. An iconic road trip, South Africa’s much-loved Garden Route is even more rewarding when conquered on two wheels. It doesn’t wind through manicured gardens, if that’s what you’re thinking – the route is so named for the gorgeous indigenous forest surrounding it as well as the deep gorges, blue lagoons and secret coves it passes, a landscape that is constantly changing, even over just a few days of riding. If you're looking for long-distance cycle routes with incredible mountain scenery that you don't have to work too hard to conquer, they don't come much better than this.

Lonely Planet Epic Bike Rides of the World: explore the

The longest and arguably best trail in the whole country is the enticingly-named Alps to Ocean, a jaw-droppingly beautiful cycle from the mountains that run down to spine of South Island to the Pacific. It passes Lake Pukaki, the majestic Mount Cook, and more locations from The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings than you could shake a bike pump at. The route itself is a mainly flat and smooth trail with some road segments, and thus suitable for beginners. Lonely Planet seems to have decided to publish more specialized guides - although this isn't a take-it-with-you sort of guide but more of a this-may-inspire-you introduction to possibilities for longer distant cycling (generally at some non-trivial expense, by the way). The mountains offer exhilarating downhill rides and the rolling green valleys of Galicia are a breezy joy on two wheels. Cyclists can camp or stay in traditional pilgrim’s hostels called albergues.RIDING HIGHS: Leaving the Castillan plains behind and climbing up to the famed cross on the Monte de la Cruz de Ferro. European rides include easy-going trips around Lake Constance, along the Danube and the Loire, and coast-to-coast routes; routes in Tuscany, Spain and Corsica; and professional journeys up Mt Ventoux and around the Tour of Flanders.

Epic Bike Rides of the World - Waterstones Lonely Planet Epic Bike Rides of the World - Waterstones

You'll pass through both the Lake District and Peak District National Parks, so you can expect some pretty serious climbs, but the views from the top of each mountain pass will more than make up for the leg-burn taken to get up there. The stories of the rides themselves really lit a fire in me and all of them made me want to start planning an epic ride. Maybe it was due to reading this on my 44th birthday when, I most definitely felt my middle-age made me realize that I'm thirsting for a real adventure: something that will push me and challenge me. However, I think I need to work on my fitness and battery management before taking on an epic ebike ride! Riding to Everest Base Camp itself is a major cycling challenge - the road climbs almost fifty hairpin bends over the Pang La Pass, but up at 5,150 metres you’ll be rewarded with jaw-dropping views of Everest itself, before a marathon downhill cycle to Nepal. This sufferfest soothes its 13,000 feet of elevation gain and roughly 130 miles with waffles and beer. That’s great, but we mostly love it because, unlike some other gravel beatdowns we know, the waffle ride happens in May in sync with Europe’s spring classics, the spirit of which it has been designed to replicate, so you (probably) won’t die of heat exhaustion. This is not the sort of book you read from cover to cover, more the sort you graze on from time to time, while reclining on your chaise-longue. As I dipped into it, I realized that I was unlikely to ever do any of the rides myself. Similarly, I’ve read many books about climbing Everest, but know I’ll never rise to that challenge. Still, reading about other people’s adventures is enthralling and frequently awe-inspiring.Each ride is illustrated with stunning photography and a map. A toolkit of practical details - where to start and finish, how to get there, where to stay and more - helps riders plan their own trips. There are also suggestions for three more similar rides around the world for each story. Each piece shows how cycling is a fantastic way to get to know a place, a people and their culture. I think you could easily subtitle this book "All the places you're never going to ride your bike in this world."

Epic Bike Rides of the World - Planet Lonely

A pilgrim’s route since the middle ages, the 480 mile-long Way of St James meanders along the whole top of Spain and through the green mountains of Galicia on the way to Santiago de Compostela. There are multiple possible routes for so-called bicigrinos to follow, but the well-signposted Camino Frances is the most famous - beginning in Roncesvalles and pitstopping in Pamplona, Burgos and Leon on the way to the west. If you're new to cycling, we're probably recommend starting elsewhere however. This is a tropical treat of a trail, but a tough ride if you take on the Cerro de la Muerte (literally, the ‘Summit of Death’), so it's one for cyclists with a decentlevel of fitness.

Barry-Roubaix

The world’s best mountain bikers are coming from Switzerland these days for a reason. It’s the riding, people. And this year, the Swiss Epic, a five-day, 155-mile stage race, heads to Graubünden in the country’s southeast, near the ski towns of St. Moritz and Davos. Pro mountain-bike racers consistently tell us that the Swiss Epic is the hardest—both technically and in terms of climbing—of all the mountain-bike stage races, and we expect more of the same from Graubünden, which has over 10,000 miles of rideable trails that pass through pine forest, along treeless high-Alpine ridges, and across cold mountain streams. Sign up for this year’s race, August 20–24, only if you’re crazy serious. Everyone else should use the race route as a guide for an epic ride at their own pace. The rewards however make all the the lung-busting climbs worth it a million times over. You'll pass monasteries and temples where prayer flags flap in the wind, ride through steep-sided valleys, and stare up at impossibly beautiful mountain vistas. You really are on top of the world, and when you've caught your breath, you'll feel like it too. Let’s be clear: this is a subjective list, and you’re going to curse us on social media before you even read it. But just know that this roundup of the best rides on the planet—culled from my own personal experience of riding bikes for the past 30-plus years, as well as the advice of passionate cycling friends—is just gravy. My favorite rides have always been the ones that leave from my garage. But even though bikes are a great form of environmentally friendly recreation and transportation doesn’t mean we all don’t daydream about century-distance rides through the European countryside and fat-tire epics across the Mountain West. There’s no landscape more lushly rewarding than Costa Rica, and if you can handle the heat, it’s best explored by bike. The Coast to Coast cycle path takes in rainforest, volcanoes and coastline on its way from San Jose, on the Pacific side to Tortuguero on the Caribbean. You'll cross over the 3,400 metre-high Cerro de la Muerte pass and meander through the coffee and banana plantations of the Orosi valley, making this simultaneously one of the best cycle paths on this list both in terms of diversity of landscape, and metres climbed.

Epic Bike Rides of the World by Lonely Planet | eBook Epic Bike Rides of the World by Lonely Planet | eBook

I genuinely found it so interesting that I read it from cover to cover and loved spotting the Hebridean Way that runs the length of my home islands the Outer Hebrides in it :) The photography throughout the book is stunning and I loved the artwork style. RIDING HIGHS: Some of the sections of this already-challenging route call for technical mountain biking – an amazing wild ride if you’re fit enough. Arriving at the lip of the Grand Canyon on your own steam will fill you with pride. Epic Bike Rides of the World is a fitting title for this book. Rides are graded as Easy, Harder and Epic with pretty much a three-way split of content. But the grading, of course, depends on the fitness, motivation and endurance level of the reader. I liked how the trips, while they do show a total distance, do not give any estimate of time needed to complete them, leaving the reader to make their own decision on this. Being an older rider, who appreciates the stops, more than the cycling, this feature appealed to me. I tend to enjoy the Lonely Planet books. They are often coffee table type books, as is true with this one, and they are often good or discovering new places to visit, new adventures, or simply to fantasize about living a life with enough money to travel to places the Lonely Planet writers seemingly go on a daily basis.Similarly, while I found the "toolkit" to be helpful in a general sense there was never really a differentiation regarding when these were actual "trails" and when these were simply rides along lonely highways that might not be as friendly to walkers, runners or, in my case, wheelers. The Dolomites, in northern Italy, are worthy of the hype, but that’s not all the country has to offer cyclists. The Piemonte region, in the northwest, is also riddled with great climbs and is perhaps even more steeped in Italian cycling culture. Start from the town of Susa, in the Cottian Alps, find your way to the town of Fenestrelle, and if you have the legs, include the Giro d’Italia’s famed Colle de Finestre climb, an 11-mile haul that averages a 9 percent grade and gains some 5,558 feet.