Lonely Planet - Epic Bike Rides of the World

A sk a dozen cycling writers for their most memorable bike rides and you get many more than a dozen answers. For some, biking was purely about escapism and involved nothing more complicated than packing some sandwiches and meandering into the distance with the wind at their backs. One or two went a little further and, GPS unit in hand, ventured into the wilds of Patagonia and the Himalaya, powered by nothing more than their legs and a desire to see what was around the next corner.

Those writers with families recommended flat and accessible loops around traffic-free islands or along river paths. A few contributors preferred to case themselves in skin-tight Lycra and seek out heart-pounding ascents, making ardent pilgrimages to the sites of classic races to pay their respects. Mountain-biking writers wrote of thrills and spills on rugged trails on every continent. And more than a few authors agreed that a good ride wasnt complete without a beer or two afterwards with old friends or new.

What was clear, though, is that everybody has their personal interpretation of epic. You can have an epic adventure straight from your front door and be back in time for tea. Or you can follow in the tyre tracks of adventurer Alastair Humphreys and pedal around the world, through 60 countries, for four years.

This book attempts to reflect that diversity and those varying levels of commitment. We cant all take a sabbatical for cycling! Weve sought out some of the most entertaining experiences you can have on a bicycle, whether youre a casual rider or a cyclist with a stable of carbon-fibre machines. The settings of these experiences range from some of the worlds most remote places Mongolia, Bhutan and the Outer Hebrides to its hippest cities and dreamiest islands. Some of these rides take just a couple of hours, others a day or two, a week, or more than a month. Weve usually not tried to specify times the rides might take beyond the distance involved everybody is different; take as long as required.

Instead, weve given a general indication of whether a ride is easy (in terms of terrain, distance, conditions or climate) or more challenging (bigger hills, longer distances, fewer cake shops). The most important point of these stories is to inspire you to get your bike out (dusting it off and pumping up the tyres first if need be) and explore somewhere new with the wind in your hair.

Cycling is the perfect mode of transport for the travel-lover, allowing us to cover more ground than if we were on foot, but without the barriers that a car imposes. We are immersed in our surroundings, self-powered, independent, and forever pondering the question I wonder whats over there?. The bike rider is free to follow a whim, discover the limits of their endurance, or stop and settle for while. Hopefully, this book will prove that theres no better way of simply experiencing a place, a culture and its people than by bicycle. And as some of these tales tell, arriving on a bicycle opens doors, literally and figuratively.

The main stories in each regional chapter feature first-hand accounts of fantastic bike rides in that continent. Each includes a toolkit to enable the planning of a trip when is the best time of year, how to get there, where to stay. But beyond that, these stories should spark other ideas. Weve started that process with the more like this section following each story, which offers other ideas along a similar theme, not necessarily on the same continent. Many of these ideas are well established routes or trails. The index collects different types of ride for a variety of interests.

Marcus Enno

Cass Gilbert

Tour dAfrique lives up to its name: a ride across the entire continent of Africa. Its tough on the bike and gruelling on the body.

T hrough stinging beads of sweat I looked ahead and the road shimmered into the distance a thin grey line with endless plains of sand on either side. Wed cycled 50 miles (80km) so far and had the same distance to go. The sun was beating down, and the desert wind was relentless. It was like riding into a hairdryer. With added grit. What a crazy place to go cycling.

This was my first day on the Tour dAfrique, a long-distance race from Cairo to Cape Town, Africas traditional northern and southern extremities. This annual test of endurance covers around 7500 miles (around 12,000km) divided into eight stages of 14 days, giving four months to ride the continent end-to-end. And while some pedal the whole distance, those with less time can ride just a stage which is no mean feat in itself. Theres also a team relay option, and in 2009 I was part of a Lonely Planet team, with two riders completing each stage then handing on the baton.

The Tour dAfrique starts at one of Africas best-known landmarks, the Pyramids of Giza, on the edge of Cairo. After obligatory photos in front of the giant monuments, and one for luck in front of the Sphinx, the peloton heads south to begin its epic journey. Route details change each year, as new roads are built or borders close, or when countries become too volatile to visit, but the Tour dAfrique follows pretty much the same overall pattern. From the Egyptian capital, riders head to the Red Sea then follow the coast road before tracking inland to reach the Nile Valley and cycle through a landscape of palm trees and crop fields that have barely changed since Pharaonic times.

A ferry ride along Lake Nasser brings the riders to their second country, Sudan, and a demanding few days on sandy roads through the Nubian Desert, an eastern extension of the Sahara. In this remote part of Africa, where travel is hard at the best of times, cycling adds an extra level of endurance and excitement.

Martyn Colbeck | Getty Images

the Simien mountains in Ethiopia

In Khartoum my own adventure began, as I joined a Lonely Planet teammate on that heat-soaked highway through the endless desert landscape. Distances between towns were long, so we often stopped for a drink and a rest at basic roadhouses, some little more than a lonely shack surrounded by sand. We enjoyed small glasses of sweet black tea, and an unexpected bonus was the availability of glucose biscuits. Together they kept us fuelled for another hour or two of tough cycling.

From Sudan we crossed the border into Ethiopia. Almost immediately, the flat desert changed to a fertile landscape of green rolling hills, and dead-straight roads gave way to frequent bends as we climbed into the Ethiopian Highlands, a range of mountains sometimes dubbed the Roof of Africa.