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The excitement of what lies ahead comes in waves.  On June 3rd, in just under a week, we’ll be departing on “Bike Tour 2008″; a 3-4 week tour through northern France.  There’s a nice symmetry to this destination:  In 2006 I biked north to Stockholm and in 2007 I biked east to Vienna.  This year it’s west!

The tour will begin in Basel and go west through the Loire Valley and to the Atlantic Coast.  We’ll then turn north and continue along the North Sea coast to Brussels before turning south back towards Switzerland.  Here’s a rough sketch of the route.  I have no illusion about completing the full 3′000km circuit, so we’ll only go as far as motivation and time permits.  I’m particularly excited about the Loire Valley, which is full of gorgeous castles and wine estates.  However, my touring partner is more excited about the cheeses.

I’ll be updating our progress on mapmytour.com, so bookmark the link if you’d like to keep up with us.  Wish us luck!

A friend and I are a few hours away from a four-day tour along the Bodensee-Koenigssee Radweg. The route runs west-east in the far south of Germany, and connects the Lake of Constance (Bodensee) with the Koenigssee just out of Salzburg, Austria. I cycled a part of this route last September and found it to be a nice mix of lonely roads and lovely scenery. This will be a fully-loaded tour with tent and camping gear. We don’t expect to go the full distance, but perhaps at least 300 of the 400 or so kilometers. The scenic highlight will be on Friday when we ride past the famous Neuschwanstein Castle.

Progress of the tour will be logged on MapMyTour.com. Have a great weekend everyone!