Hello from Gdańsk :),

I'd like to share with you our impressions from bicycle trips along European bicycle routes. I used to post them on the blog in my language, I even wrote a few posts on your forum and now I've started a new project - Cycling Thread - in English, so I hope it will reach a larger audience.

I have a mission to promote cycling tourism, so I try to pay attention to good cycling infrastructure and cycling amenities. These are the important elements that make cycling tourism accessible to almost everyone.

Tourist bicycle paths along rivers, bicycle routes along former railway lines, former railway infrastructure such as tunnels and stations converted into facilities for cyclists, guesthouses adapted to the needs of cyclists, bicycle-friendly transport and much more - these are the things that I am happy to show on Cycling Thread.

For the starter - probably the most unusual section of a bicycle path in Europe. Unless you know of something more impressive?

So we take a look at the Alpe-Adria Radweg and ca. 60 kilometers of former railway road between Tarvisio and Gemona del Friuli. It is the former Pontebbana Railway, named after the town of Pontebba, near the Austro-Italian border. The last trains traveled this route at the end of the 20th century. Between 1985-2000 a new, double-track railway line was built, including new parallel tunnels drilled through the Alpine rocks.

The unused tracks were revitalized by laying comfortable asphalt bike paths. Cyclists can enjoy here one of the fundamental feature of railway lines - a gentle incline, not exceeding 2.2% and the delightful separation from car traffic in the incredibly attractive river-Alpine scenery.





























So many cycling greats for a good start!

Szy.

And since we are already on Alpe-Adria route, here are the photos from the well-organized rail-cycle connection between Salzburger Land and Carinthia in Austria. This is a railway "sluice", a 15-minute connection between the villages of Böckstein and Mallnitz - this is where the Alpe-Adria trail crosses the Hohe Tauern tunnel in the tunnel. The connection is served by ÖBB wagons, which are prepared to transport only bicycles.

How many trains in Europe have carriages that *only* carry bicycles?









Check out the full report from our trip around Alpe-Adria - about 300 photos, lots of tips and impressions:

Alpe-Adria Bicycle Route: cycling through the Alps to the Adriatic Sea

And ride safe

Szy.

The next episode - France and the Loire by bike route and several various pro-cycling solutions.

First, a very practical, well-organized, at the same time quite cozy and simple bicycle room in a hotel in Amboise, one of the locations of the cyclist-friendly network Accueil Vélo.

A place for bicycles, a shelf for charging batteries, basic spare parts, a changing room, a hanger for wet clothes. And good organization of the place - entrance straight from the street to the bicycle room and then to the reception:




Once a railway bridge, now a bicycle bridge over the Loire river in Sully-sur-Loire:






When works appear on the bicycle route, there are usually homemade detour signs:






And when the hotel is located in the city center (Tours) and there is no space for bicycles in the building, the owner rents a garage a few hundred meters away. And thanks to this he can be a member of Accueil Vélo:




There's not much of them on the Loire route, but sometimes we ride on two-way bicycle paths in the street:








Boxes for bicycle tourists to store their bicycles during their stay in Angers:




And finally, Train Vélo Loire, which operates along the railway line following the Loire - from Orleans through Blois, Saumur, Angers and Nantes, to Le Croisic near Saint-Nazaire. These trains carry from 33 to 83 (!) bicycles, depends of the time of the year. And the bicycle stewardess who puts our bikes in the carriage herself:






Our entire journey along the Loire with many inspirations on where to stay, what to see in the article about the Loire by bike cycle route.

Safe travels - see you in the next episode

Szy.

Thank you for your information about this interesting bicycle route. France offers nice possibilities to cycle (not necessarily only following the "official bike routes"). Cycling along the Loire is certainly an attractive possibility.