Resources for Designing Your European Bicycle Tour Route #2 - Maps

Our first post introduced the Eurovelo long distance bicycle touring network in Europe. Click on "route design" in the margin and you'll get all the posts relative to designing your route.

This post talks a little about basic maps for your trip: which maps to use and which to avoid, where to find the right maps, specialty maps, and so on. Later I'll talk about your basic bicycle touring books and why they aren't all that good. Then we'll begin to steer you toward two really valuable resources: 1) interactive online resources for bike route design; and, 2) newer edition publications that combine route notes and maps (available only in very popular bike touring areas).

We often see cyclists pedaling down a busy highway in Italy with a 1:1,000,000 Michelin map of Italy. No wonder that cyclist is on the wrong road. Michelin is French and their Italian maps aren't very good. Plus, the scale of one to a million is way too small (small scale, small detail; large scale, large detail).

For Europe, generally speaking, you want a map at about a 1:200,000 scale. You can get larger scale maps (1:100,000 or even 1:25,000) but to go anywhere on a bike you'd need a pannier full of these maps.

With that scale map you can cover most of a region and with two or three you can get across France, most of Italy, and so on.

Key Maps in A Few Countries of Europe

France: Michelin; regional maps at a scale of 1:200,000
Germany: The German Bicycle Touring Club (ADFC : Allgemeiner Deutsche Fahrrad Club) produces an excellent series of bicycle maps at 1:150,000
Italy: Italian Touring Club (Touring Club Italiano, TCI); regional at 1:200,000 (shown on this post)
(Michelin makes maps of Italy at 1:400,000 but they aren't detailed enough)
Ireland: Ordinance Survey Maps (Irish Government); 1:250,000 (you can cover the whole Republic in three maps; add Northern Ireland with a fourth
Spain: Instituto Geografico Nacional (Spanish Government mapping office) makes a great series by Province (Mapa Provincial) at 1:200,000 (find them in local bookstores or tobacconist shops)
Greece: Greece is tough but DON'T rely on foreign maps; I like Road Editions, 1:250,000 covering the entire country in 6 maps.
England, Scotland, Wales: Ordinance Survey 1:250,000 maps cover the entire United Kingdom (these are the maps generally recommended by the premier British bicycle touring organization, the Cyclists Tour Club - the CTC)

In the USA, of course, you'll be looking at the materials produced by the Adventure Cycling Association.

Later we'll talk about even more valuable resources and other maps. But don't forget the fun part of getting a paper map and poring over it to design your route!

Our Single Most Important Piece of Advice: Begin Planning NOW!

If you are experienced at bicycle touring you know that planning ahead, especially for an overseas trip, is critical.

I'll never forget in 2001 when we were in Italy for the summer and were headed to Ireland to develop a new escorted bike tour. We flew into Shannon Airport and had been in touch with a bike shop in Ennis to rent bikes. I had been talking with this fellow for two weeks and was satisfied that he could provide good quality bikes for our ride.

We arrived in Ennis with panniers, as usual, and a duffel bag with shoes, helmets, locks, tools, and so on. When we got on our bikes the duffel would be strapped astride the panniers to collect the daily flotsam and jetsam you tend to collect: jackets, lunch, maps, and on.

We shuttled to our hotel, spent the night and headed off to the bike shop. "Oh that's right," says he. "You were coming today, now weren't you?" The bikes weren't ready. "Come back after lunch," says he. After lunch, the bikes weren't ready. We finally got them about 5 p.m. and lost an entire day of riding.

The moral, of course, is: make sure you can depend on your rental suppplier OR make sure to bring your own bikes. But if you bring your own bikes you need to:

1) Know where you are arriving and how you'll get to your inbound base (by train? by car? van? or will you pedal?)
2) If you pedal, where will you leave your cases or bike boxes?
3) And if you are pedaling, how's the route from the airport? Is it doable?

In short, think ALL of this through before you get on the airplane.

One last story: We had an acquaintance here in Colorado who had found three weeks to fly to Rome and do some cycling in October one year. We talked at length about his plans. He would: fly to Rome with his own bike, begin pedaling right at Leonardo da Vinci Airport, head north, and then maybe take the train back to fly home.

His bike didn't arrive on his flight. And it didn't arrive the next day. He waited four days for his bike to arrive and he was so paranoid that it might come in and he wouldn't connect with it that he spent a bundle of money staying in a hotel near the airport shuttling back and forth twice a day to see if it arrived.

He was so demoralized with having spent so much money in the hotel and for having missed out on four days of cycling that he changed his ticket and came home on day 5!