Summer beach touring holiday

Hi,
I've been thinking about doing a cycle tour this summer. Have a serious craving for sunny beaches so was thinking some kind of coastal cycle tour on the mainland would be in order. I need to keep it as cheap as possible as i'm pretty broke. Anyone got any suggestions of potential destinations/routes?

Hi,
I've been thinking about doing a cycle tour this summer. Have a serious craving for sunny beaches so was thinking some kind of coastal cycle tour on the mainland would be in order. I need to keep it as cheap as possible as i'm pretty broke. Anyone got any suggestions of potential destinations/routes?

Head for the coast...

really? is that where they keep beaches these days?....

Hi,

I've been thinking about doing a cycle tour this summer. Have a serious craving for sunny beaches so was thinking some kind of coastal cycle tour on the mainland would be in order. I need to keep it as cheap as possible as i'm pretty broke. Anyone got any suggestions of potential destinations/routes?




South Wales coastline is beautiful. From memory, the roads aren't massively hilly and would make for a good workout. There are several really nice beaches/coves along the way and lots of cheap campsites if you can fit a small light tent on your back. I would suggest starting at a place called Gower and going round to a city called St.David's (smallest city in England and Wales if my memory is correct). You could go further round to Milford Haven though I've not been further past there so couldn't tell you any more. .

Milford Haven - though I've not been further past there so couldn't tell you any more.

There be dragons there...

Cheers Hanson. will keep that in mind for a future trip, although for this one i was thinking somewhere genuinely warm.

So far i've started to check out France, Italy, Spain and Portugal as options. Has anyone done a costal tour recently in these areas? any info or tips on road/path conditions and terrain would be great!

At this point i was thinking i would use trains to get down to the coast (eurostar etc), 1-2 weeks of riding along a sunny coast line and then get the train back. This would potentially give me time for a multi-country trip (eg. France-Italy or Spain-Portugal) but i do want the pace to be quite relaxed, as its a holiday after all!

Go to Mallorca, great infrastructure for cycling, awesome velodrome, great hills, roads, beaches, food and scenery. Cheap accommodation and £100.00 return with BA for you and your bike.

I did some of the west coast of France, very nice, lots of nice well mark routes on quiet roads.

http://www.voiesvertes.com/

Would love to do Bordeaux to Bilbao one day.

+1

Some more routes here.

[ame]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroVelo[/ame]

I think all of these routes are pretty well way marked from what I understand so it can be useful to incorperate them into your trip.

Route 8 on Eurovelo would be rght up your street

+1

Some more routes here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EuroVelo

I think all of these routes are pretty well way marked from what I understand so it can be useful to incorperate them into your trip.

cheers for that! route 8 does look good, especially the sections through spain, france and also croatia. also like the look of the bottom section of route 7, from Florence southwards. will have to start planning properly now...

i would recommend Finland (i know i generally bang on about it in almost every post i do) - but you can get relatively cheap flights there.

The summer is HOT. Much hotter than ours....and although not masses of coast, Finland has more lakes than anywhere else in the world. You can swim out for hundreds of metres and still stand up, look at your feet and see frikkin huge crayfish - grab one, cook the shit out of it!!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hauska/3950441920/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hauska/3949664827/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hauska/3950445382/

The roads are amazing too, they cut through breath-taking countryside as you'd imagine, just watch out for elk!