Cycling to Germany

I am thinking of cycling to Germany within two days. Just a rough idea so far. Leaving london in the evening, getting to Dover early in the morning. take the ferry over to Calais. try to make it to Gent by the evening. stay overnight. next day to Venlo on the Dutch / German border which is where I am from. 335 miles in total.

The longest I have done recently is the Dunwich 120 miles. Should be doable in 2 days but its a long long way.

Anybody got experience? How long to dover? Anyone cycled in Belgium and Netherlands? What are good maps for route planning (can't afford loosing time getting lost)?

Not fixed I am afraid but no carbon neither. steel frame.

Not done this but sounds perfectly feasible, Avoid the main trunk roads to Dover like the A2, A20, etc. I have ridden on both and the experience is not pleasant. Try to go via Biggin Hill and Tunbridge Wells.

it's feasible, but a little ambitional if the recent DD is your first long ride thought.

why don't you add 3 days instead of 2?

120k London to Calais
150k Calais to Ghent
200k Ghent to Venlo

You could do it in two days but it'd be more sensible aiming for 3. It's a little bumpy to Dover.
If you want to do it fast.. take the A2 or A20 (I think) not the M2 unless you want to be pulled over by the cops like I was.

Thanks for the advice. I will avoid the A2 or A20. I have done long distance rides but not much this year. So I might spread it to 3 days. Or just see how it goes.

Good luck, definitely interested in reading your experience afterwards, even though Im not a long distance rider (yet!) :p

I cycled to Germany last summer for a friend's wedding in Leer (right on the west side but much further north than where you are going). I thought about going from Calais but in the end opted to go via Hook of Holland (getting the ferry from Harwich). By the time I got to my destination my total distance was about 400 miles or so.

Even though Holland and Belgium are flat I'm not sure that 2 days is achievable if only because you'll have to stop every so often to do some route finding, eat, rest, etc. And if you follow the (very nice and often scenic) cycle routes you'll find that what looks straight on a map is frustratingly bendy so perhaps the 330 will turn out to be a fair bit more :-)

I did it at quite a leisurely pace and so took about a week with a couple of rest days (including a trip to an outlying island - Terschelling - which was really cool). I did about 70 or so miles per day (which was pretty easy) and averaged between 15 and 17 miles per hour (which was brought down to that level by the slowness of urban riding and easing off the pace to navigate and sight-see). I could have covered much more distance and started from somewhere like Calais and gone through Belgium but I had the luxury of being able to take my time and so made the most of it.

The Dutch word for bike is "fiet" and if you start googling you should find lots of resources. A company called ANWB publish an extensive range of bike route maps although they tend to be designed for people doing short rides and are of a scale (1:50,000) which is unlikely to be particularly useful. I ended up just getting a regular road map and it worked well, although have seen just seen this which includes some of the long-distance routes that span Holland.

I've just found this link which should be useful. I pretty much followed the LF1 which was a great ride. Perhaps LF13 would be handy for you? The advantage of using an "LF" is the ease of navigation (it will be signposted) and the fact that you'll be on a quiet route; the disadvantage is that the route will wiggle about all over the place!

Anyway, that's enough waffling. Hope you have fun!

Hi Dougal, Thanks so much for all the very valuable info. Thats brilliant. I was thinking about going from Harwich to Hook of Holland. Getting to Harwich would take me a day. Then the ferry is about 6 hours from what I have read. Then Hook of Holland is much closer to my place in Germany than Calais but it would all depend if I get some good sleep on the ferry to be fit for another day of cycling. So trying to make it to Gent and then have a proper night sleep in a hotel might be better.