A misty Dutch morning from the train.
Where am I?:^mistymornings-->Cycletouring-->Links.

A short but growing list of pages we have found useful.

Note clicking on a link will open it in a new window.

Cycletouring pages:

The official North Sea Cycle website is a good starting point for information about this route. It is not perfect but has some useful features and a Riders Comments page where you can ask questions and share experiences.

I discovered the Cycletourer website when we were planning our first ever cycle tour in 2005. We did the NSCR in Norway and the Cycletourer site has useful information about cycling in Scandinavia and some travel reports with nice pictures. It was also the first site that gave us and inkling of what cycle tours were all about.

I bumped into the Bliss on Wheels site purely because the author had read my NSCR Norway travelogue and enjoyed it. I am not sure quite how we missed it in 2005 and 2006 whilst searching for information about cycling in Norway. The webmaster Jerry has lots of useful and interesting information including cycling with folding bikes (something we have just started). There is also a travelogue about cycling in Northern Norway which I have to read fully at some point.

Another site we found in 2005 was the Bike Norway one. This is the starting point for cycle tourism in Norway with information about the official signposted routes.

A truly great resource for all cycle tourists of is the Trentobike website. This has hunderds (thousands?) of links to travelogues and hosts a few on their own webspace. The travelogues can be sorted by region, country or author and the site has a wonderful clean style and lack of adverts of all sorts.

For English speakers the UK cyclists organisation the CTC has a good forum open to members and non-members alike. There are difference categories of message boards encompassing touring, technical tips and even HPV's. Despite the understandable UK-centric flavour of the forums there are plenty of useful theads and a usable search engine for the forum.

If you understand a little Norwegian then a good place to be is the website of the Syklistenes Landsforening the Norwegian CTC. The site has information about becoming a member and the services they provide. It also has a shop that sells cycling related items including maps and guides for the growing network of national (signed and unsigned) cycle routes in Norway. The SLF also imports Brompton folding bikes into Norway.

Information : Places to buy maps and guides.

We used the Fietsvakantiewinkel to buy maps for the NSCR Norway, Denmark, Germany and the Numedalsruta and Rallarvegen in Norway. Sadly they no longer have shop in Woerden (a nice twenty kilometers cycle from here) but they continue to sell maps and guides via their (Dutch language) webshop.

We have bought some road maps from Bever outdoor sports shop. They have a good range of road maps and travel guides in stock. As well as Dutch language and culture guides they stock English language guides such as Lonely Planet and the Rough Guide series. Zwerfkei in Woerden also sell a large range of maps and guides not just for cyclists but for independent travellers in general.

As mentioned above both the Bike Norway and Syklistenes Landsforening websites sell maps and guides for Norway.

Information : Places to buy gear.

Our local bike shop is SNEL who are renowned for their touring bikes. We have bought most of our Ortlieb bags there and other useful bits and pieces.

I've also started buying bike parts over the internet partly because of the relatively high cost of bike parts in the Netherlands (Brompton spares seem particularly expensive). Also I end up ordering a lot of stuff from my LBS and it takes longer to arrive than ordering from an internet cycle shop. To date I have had good results from SJS Cycles in the UK and Bike-Discount in Germany.

We've bought stuff from the Bever chain here in the Netherlands, such as our Trangia cookers and the relatively lightweight Moonshadow Duo tent. A fun place to wander round, and very tempting to pick up just another essential oojamaflip for the next cycle tour.

Another outdoor shop we like and equally dangerous for one's bank balance is Zwerfkei based in Woerden. We bought both our Macpac and our MSR winter tent from there, and also the Helsport Fjellheimen Camp 3 that we used in the summer of 2008. Particularly useful is the cold cell that they have where you can test out things like sleeping bags or cold weather gear at the temperature of your choice. I tested my winter sleeping bag for ten minutes at -10'c for ten minutes before buying it.

This webpage was last updated Tuesday 10th of March 2009