Cycling UK Forum

It seems a long time before next spring and warmer weather,and i am wondering what other cyclist do this time of year?. Do we all just hope for a decent day to get the bikes out or put up with being cold and wet just for the sake of a ride.Does anyone out there have plans or ideas of where to go and how to get there.I fancy somewhere warm and dry ish thats not gonna cost a fortune. Camping or Hostels i dont mind.Please help if you can summer is too far off. Thanks Tim.

This is the start of the best time to go to Laos and countries around there - which are cheap once you arrive. But getting there does indeed cost a fortune!

Buy a cheap football sized globe and black marker.

Black out everything North of the tropics of Cancer and everything South of the tropics of Capricorn. You now have your winter destination map

I'm heading to lapland this winter but there are people out there that question my sanity

In employment, a dependant son and mortgage = just get on with it and accept what gets thrown at me Helps that I now have a fancy turbo trainer set up with dvds I can run so I can imagine I am riding the sunny roads og Majorca..... just need a UV lamp and I can get the suntan......

But would always prefer to be out on the road whenever I can.

Majorca has a fairly ambient climate all year round and certainly some of the professional teams start their training as early as January out there.

Madeira is a place people often go to train in winter:

http://www.madeira-web.com/pagesuk/weather2-uk.html

I am in Gran Canaria and cycling every day on quiet roads with the sun on my face. I can't think of a better place for winter riding. Cheap flights and cheap accommodation. I've seen a few cycle tourers out the last few days. You can find gps routes on www.free-motion.net or www.cyclegrancanaria.com

Saxo Bank are currently out and about training here.

Get out there with decent clothing and stay warm and only a little damp sometimes. Tomorrow should be dry, good jacket and you'll be toasty.

Thanks for the suggestions as to where to go during our coming winter. I have decided to stay put in Dorset and get out as and when,if its cold and wet so be it.I intend to save some pennies and think of a trip round about May time for maybe 3 weeks and also something later in sept. I have my bike and my tent all i need is a route. Thanks Tim.

newbootclimbco wrote:Thanks for the suggestions as to where to go during our coming winter. I have decided to stay put in Dorset and get out as and when,if its cold and wet so be it.I intend to save some pennies and think of a trip round about May time for maybe 3 weeks and also something later in sept. I have my bike and my tent all i need is a route. Thanks Tim.

Ryanair fly to Girona in Spain and Carcassone in the south of France. Last year I flew to Girona and cycled back to St Malo where I got the fast ferry to Poole. It was so easy taking the bike to Hurn, Girona airport is also very quiet and within 2 hours you are slapping on the suncream

ossie wrote:Well being in Dorset you have Hurn airport on your doorstep. Ryanair fly to Girona in Spain and Carcassone in the south of France. Last year I flew to Girona and cycled back to St Malo where I got the fast ferry to Poole. It was so easy taking the bike to Hurn, Girona airport is also very quiet and within 2 hours you are slapping on the suncream

This time last year I was in Sicily where it chucked it down for day-after-day for most of the month. Outside of summer, weather in the Mediterranean can be very unpredictable - it can be lovely and sunny and pleasantly warm, but when it rains, it rains hard - and that happens quite often. It's a good option for late or early-season riding but in winter proper, if you want to be fairly sure of good weather, head for the tropics or southern hemisphere.

I can vouch for climate in Madeira.

Always nice and warm, and pretty constant all year round. Went a couple of winters ago. Unfortunately had torrential rain and some mud slips off the mountains. Also had a branch fall on my head on Christmas Eve outside a church (I took it as a sign , Omen style)

By the way, the flight there isn't to long but my word the runway for landing is something else!

shane wrote:Buy a cheap football sized globe and black marker.

Black out everything North of the tropics of Cancer and everything South of the tropics of Capricorn. You now have your winter destination map

No, this is not a very good description of how to find suitable localities during the northern winter.

During the northern winter, the southern summer is happening, so weather is nice in far southern locations, and rather unpleasant near the tropic of Capricorn. You'd hardly go to India (except high altitude) during their summer, would you? Nice latitudes during the northern winter are those around the tropic of Cancer, and those well to the south of the tropic of Capricorn. Equatorial regions are (too) hot all the time, but if you are going to go there, then the northern winter may well be the time.

Also, no need to go quite so far south as the tropic of Cancer, provided you have some oceanic influence to assist. Which is a good thing because a lot of land in and around the tropic of Cancer at nearby longitudes is the Sahara Desert, Arabian Desert, etc. I've had good midwinter holidays in Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan, though it can from time to time be cold and wet, or even snow, in midwinter there. A friend had a nice time in Cyprus in midwinter: not nice every day, but nice weather with intermissions. Far south of Spain and Sicily is similar. Much of Africa south of the Sahara is not cheap to fly to, won't save you much or anything in comparison to alternative longish-haul winter destinations like India, SE Asia, Caribbean, Central America.

iviehoff wrote:

shane wrote:Buy a cheap football sized globe and black marker.

Black out everything North of the tropics of Cancer and everything South of the tropics of Capricorn. You now have your winter destination map

and rather unpleasant near the tropic of Capricorn. You'd hardly go to India (except high altitude) during their summer, would you?

Errm I cycled around the Tropics of Capricorn during Jan - March this year through the Kalahari and Namib and loved it!!

Not everyone's cup of tea but far from impossible.


Guess where Shane is by shanecycles.com, on Flickr

Sooper8 wrote:I can vouch for climate in Madeira.... Went a couple of winters ago. Unfortunately had torrential rain and some mud slips off the mountains.

Nuff said.

shane wrote:I cycled around the Tropics of Capricorn during Jan - March this year through the Kalahari and Namib and loved it!!
Not everyone's cup of tea but far from impossible.

This is of course the danger of trying to generalise globally on climate. I gave as fair a summary as I could in a couple of lines. In general at tropical latitudes, the hot/wet season is feasible for the cyclist, since it isn't covered in snow, it is just often hotter/wetter than it would be at some other time of year. Though some places, like the Sahara and the Australian interior, it really does get so hot as to be dangerous. In some places, eg, Madagascar, the wet season makes most of the road network impassible. Another reason to avoid sub-saharan Africa in wet seasons is that the risk of malaria is about 100 times higher in Africa than anywhere else that is nominally malarial, and the tsetse belt is another issue. But in a few places, notably Peru, Namibia and Morocco, cold oceanic currents make coastal locations much cooler than they are generally at that latitide.

Ultimately whilst you might well have loved the Namib and Kalahari, surely they would have been more pleasant at the other end of the year when inland av max temps are in the low-mid 20s rather than the 30s you must have experienced, except right on the coast.