A first step in planning is to figure out how long the trip will take... And to do that, we need to know what route that will be taken. Before you say that 'bike-touring/packing' should not be planned in detail, I will say that this is part of the fun for me.. This is not set in stone but will give a rough estimate of the distance... When on the road, we might just decide to do stuff differently.. Like just wild camp for example.
Plotting with Strava
I used Strava route creator for routing as it tends to chose rideable roads over highways based on popularity and it also gives us elevation information about the road.
Through Sweden to the Ferry
Plan is to wild camp through Sweden, as it is allowed and should in general not be a problem.
Rostock - Bormio - Venice via Campsites
Mostly through Germany here. I've read that it is prohibited to wild camp here so I used camping.info to plot each days leg between campsites, this will also give us electricity to charge phone and other devices that we will bring. Wild camping and budgeting for some hotel nights as a last resort if things go bad and we either get stuck on the road or a city when it gets dark.
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| Example of strava route creator, the circles are campsites. Just click on a location and strava will find a route there used by other cyclists... I.e. not autobahn. |
Looking at the elevation through Europe we can see that most of Germany is pretty flat, then the Alps with 2 peaks over 2400 meters.
No one said that this would be an easy trip so .. I guess the elevation graph just visualizes that fact.
Estimating actual travel time
According to Strava, the grand total of cycling would be around 83 hours, 10-11 days if riding 8 hours per day. That seems a little 'fast'. So I decided to break down the route in excel to get a better estimate.. (but probably still far from correct)
| Total | Flat | Sweden | Alps | |
| km | 1950 | 1160 | 450 | 340 |
| days | 14 | 7 | 3 | 4 |
| km/day | 139 | 165 | 150 | 85 |
| hour/day | 8,7 | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| Average speed | 16 | 20 | 19 | 8,5 |
First off the Sweden part, this will be the first leg of the trip so estimate a little lower speed here, 3 days to start then a ferry over to Germany.
Flat is pretty much all the way from Rostock to the Alps and the last bit in Italy
Here I estimate a speed of 20km/h... sounds a little high but I think that there is tweaking that can be made by adding a day to get it down to 18 or just rolling a little longer on some days...
Alps is the Alps, 2 major climbs over 2400 meters. Counted on 10 hours riding time here, a very low 'average speed' of 8.5, have no what to count on here, but this sounds about right? Who knows... Research of other bike touring expeditions could give a pointer but don't know how fit I will be at this point. So counting low... hopefully...No idea how I will react to the lighter air in the mountains either. A lot of new stuff on this trip.
Rest days: So throw in some rest days, the Ferry to Germany is 1 day off, and then at least 1 in Germany and then in Bormio
Grand total: 17 days with 3 rest days... But planning rest days gives us some wiggle room in case stuff happens, maybe we want to explore some on the way or we might just get really tired, or need to use one of them to cover distance lost on another day! So 14 days on bike and 3 days off bike. But say 3 weeks and we will have time to drink some wine in Venice before going home if the original timetable holds!
This route will most probably change, but gives us a hint (at this point in time) on how many days we should plan to be away... When to book flight tickets home, get friends/family to meet up in Italy or whatever we might want to do and most importantly: how much we should budget for...
Speeds and distances will be reiterated after our 'test' trip with fully loaded bikes some months before the actual trip.
Still want to point out that for this trip is not about 'bike-touring through Europe'. It is about riding my bike to and through the Stelvio Pass to be able to check that off my bucket list!
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