A cycle touring thread - sorry no politics here!

[Tigerbiten]

I've done a lot of the european rivers on my recumbent trike over the years.
Loire, Rhine, Danube:- Very good and easy to follow. The ability to get a train back to your starting point make the return easy.
Canal de Midi:- Forget if your not on mountain bikes.
Rhone:- I found the cycle path very patchy.
Elbe:- Not bad, just up to the big three.

I'd just open the OSMcycle map and just join some routes together starting and finishing at a ferry port.
That way you will have an idea of what's over there on the ground.

[Galloper]

The town of Prum, in the Eifel mountains is within a few hours drive of Dover. There is an excellent Youth Hostel with family rooms and it is at a junction of several very enjoyable traffic free paths.

The Mosel valley is also well worth considering, the Mosel Radweg is one of my favourites and offers largely traffic free cycling with quiet roads through villages in places. Lots of varied accommodation available.

Lots more to explore here: http://www.germany.travel/en/leisure-an ... cling.html

[mjr]

Ostende, Bruges and Ghent are easily reached by following rivers, you can head to Oudenarde and Tournai also by following the rive from Ghent. Belgium is beautiful and very cycle friendly. Has the option of train bail outs between cities. Ferry to dunkirk is nice and easy.

In fact, the main difficulty in that plan is finding the nicer road to cycle out of the ferry port and a child-friendly route into Belgium. The route either side of Dunkirk is bad old British style gutter cycle lanes (Loon-Plage to the first Synthe and Dunkirk station to Lefferinkoucke have been improved) and the nearest cross border trains are in Lille, I think.

Crack that and it'll be good cycling!

[eileithyia]

Holland is a good option.
Another might the New Forest?
Rhine?
The short bit of the Danube route we did do one day (as part of a trip in the Black Forest area) was not a paved route but more of a track with embedded stones. Not sure if it is that suitable for a youngster or a 'bent.
Not sure about the car / ferry /drive option being too long? We drove with 4yo to Poland, to Ireland, and he did several trips on the bike bus to europe (Italy, Southern France and Black Forest).. all taken in his stride.

[whoof]

Alsace vineyards route is very family friendly. Pretty flat, paths through vineyards or along rivers with either no traffic or just the odd tractor a short distances between town. Not easy to get to just an option. A long drive or you could fly to Strasbourg if you are willing to take something otherf than the recumbent it show be easier.

[pwa]

One option we did a couple of times when the kids were kids was the fixed base thing with day rides and other activities. One year we hired a yurt at a donkey trekking place in Limousin: https://www.anes-de-vassiviere.com

There were lanes nearby and the possibility of putting the bikes in the car for rides a bit further away. The Lac de Vassiviere is only a few miles away (not on a good cycle route unfortunately) and has artificial beaches and boat hire etc. But the big novelty is the donkeys. You can pay to go on family friendly treks, leading your own donkey. Adults can't sit on them but children can. Our kids loved it. They also loved panning the streams for gold, though what we found was actually lots of attractive minerals and crystals. The yurt was a joy too.

[Cyril Haearn]

You live in the most beautiful corner of England, you should take a staycation at home, take day trips to Nine Standards Rigg, Lovely Seat, Cauldron Snout

And Blackpool of course, I want to go there sometime too

[Tangled Metal]

We drove to Devon from north Lancaster in one day but cheated. An incredibly early start so must of the travel was during his sleepy time, ours too but wet suffer to make it easier for son. Two hours drive in one hit without stopping is no problem. Each stop and the travel time following it decreases I find. So after three stops we might only have driven 5 hours.

Cycling distance, well last summer 3 months after son left stabilizers behind did 10-20 miles per day, perhaps longer one day but he had a bad spill through tiredness that day. I think this year 20 miles in a day with enough stops is possible but really I don't know. We tend to do shorter rides at home.

I've heard France isn't as child friendly in summer for cycling. That's from family who live in nice parts of France and family who travel through a lot of France over the years (admittedly in a motorhome). They recommend Germany. Which is why Danube came up again (it was an idea for last year but wet chickened out for Holland).

Denmark is definitely one destination we want to visit. A friend is Danish so we've had an education about cycling being normal. Her response to queries about whether it's safe to cycle in.Denmark (as adults or kids) was kind of "of course! Why wouldn't it be?" Then she brought her bike across and learnt why we asked that question!

I'm new to recumbent but third ride (first with all gears working and boom to nearly correct length) I got up to 19mph on a rough, flat canal towpath. Very pleased with it. Hills next test. I'd really like to tour with it because that's why I got it. Although my partner thinks fly and hire s bike. If we did that the Danube would probably be our favoured option. It seems there are a lot of accommodation options there and its flat. It's likely the German section suits us. There are German recumbent manufacturers. I wonder if there's any place renting them? I know there's places in Holland that rents out recumbents. Surely Germany has them too?

[Tangled Metal]

Blackpool? That cesspit, why? Fleetwood, lytham st annes and the coastline near there is nicer I believe (not been there for at least 30 years.

[ANTONISH]

Alsace vineyards route is very family friendly. Pretty flat, paths through vineyards or along rivers with either no traffic or just the odd tractor a short distances between town. Not easy to get to just an option. A long drive or you could fly to Strasbourg if you are willing to take something otherf than the recumbent it show be easier.

I can agree with most of that although not everybody would describe it as pretty flat.
We stayed in Turckheim last year and rode the Colmar club vineyard randonee.
Obviously the Ballons wouldn't be ideal for a child but there are flat roads near the Rhine and Strasbourg has good cycle paths.

[iandriver]

Ostende, Bruges and Ghent are easily reached by following rivers, you can head to Oudenarde and Tournai also by following the rive from Ghent. Belgium is beautiful and very cycle friendly. Has the option of train bail outs between cities. Ferry to dunkirk is nice and easy.

In fact, the main difficulty in that plan is finding the nicer road to cycle out of the ferry port and a child-friendly route into Belgium. The route either side of Dunkirk is bad old British style gutter cycle lanes (Loon-Plage to the first Synthe and Dunkirk station to Lefferinkoucke have been improved) and the nearest cross border trains are in Lille, I think.

Crack that and it'll be good cycling!

Think I'd take the car over and leave it in Brugge or something like that. Once the economics of multiple passengers come into it, it probably wouldn't cost any more.

[Tangled Metal]

Alsace vineyards route is very family friendly. Pretty flat, paths through vineyards or along rivers with either no traffic or just the odd tractor a short distances between town. Not easy to get to just an option. A long drive or you could fly to Strasbourg if you are willing to take something otherf than the recumbent it show be easier.

I can agree with most of that although not everybody would describe it as pretty flat.
We stayed in Turckheim last year and rode the Colmar club vineyard randonee.
Obviously the Ballons wouldn't be ideal for a child but there are flat roads near the Rhine and Strasbourg has good cycle paths.

I think I stayed in that region once, petersbach or le petit Pierre or somewhere like that. Isn't the Vosges mountains (hills) in that area and don't they have enough snow for skiing unlike parts of Scotland in some years?

[Vorpal]

Think I'd take the car over and leave it in Brugge or something like that. Once the economics of multiple passengers come into it, it probably wouldn't cost any more.

Brugge is likely to be an expensive place to park. Outlying arear are likely to be better, and if you go outside the main urban area, you are likely to be able to find a hotel or B&B that will let you leave your car, or at least rent a space for a week or two. And most of the outlying villages have decent cycle facilities to get into Brugge.

Oostkamp, for example, is not far off the E40, so offers a reasonable place to get to and from the ferries / or Channel Tunnel. It's far enough out from Brugge to make parking reasonable, yet close enough that even with a child, you can cycle into Brugge in under an hour, mostly on off-road or canal paths.

[whoof]

Alsace vineyards route is very family friendly. Pretty flat, paths through vineyards or along rivers with either no traffic or just the odd tractor a short distances between town. Not easy to get to just an option. A long drive or you could fly to Strasbourg if you are willing to take something otherf than the recumbent it show be easier.

I can agree with most of that although not everybody would describe it as pretty flat.
We stayed in Turckheim last year and rode the Colmar club vineyard randonee.
Obviously the Ballons wouldn't be ideal for a child but there are flat roads near the Rhine and Strasbourg has good cycle paths.

I think I stayed in that region once, petersbach or le petit Pierre or somewhere like that. Isn't the Vosges mountains (hills) in that area and don't they have enough snow for skiing unlike parts of Scotland in some years?

I was thinking of something like this which is to the East of the Vosges mountains.
http://www.cyclinginalsace.com/en/cycle ... te-36.html

This is the main page with a various routes, 2500 km in total.

http://www.cyclinginalsace.com/en

[Tangled Metal]

We were just a few miles to the N by NW of the northern end of that route. Nice area IIRC full of trees and woods. Or at least at la petit Pierre/Petersbach area at the northern end.