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ACTIVITIES
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Top Ten Epic Bike Rides
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Ethan Gelber
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Silk Roads
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Damascus — not quite
the simple trading town
it used to be
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Plain and simple: The Silk Roads smack of romance and mystery. Silk (of course) and spice and camels and desert caravans. Trade across vast distance and through lands and cities whispered in poetry: Antioch, Damascus, Baghdad, Samarkand, Bukhara, Tashkent, Kashgar. Unfortunately, today these places are embroiled in the aggravating politics of the Middle East, Iraq and Iran, the -stans of Central Asia, and China. Travel here is prohibited, discouraged, or made unrealistic by a bureaucracy worthy of the worst. However, for an intrepid adventurer ready to dive beyond the spoiling touch of balance-of-power jockeying and meet the gentle pace of life practiced by people settled into millennia-old routines, there are few treats more exquisite. This is especially true when enjoyed on a bike. Don't let diesel fumes spoil your taste for history. Travel the ancient routes at the speed of a camel without the discomfort of a poorly placed hump. From the cradle of civilization, across the remote steppes and deserts of an Asia unknown to most, to the immensity of China, biking the Silk Roads is truly living romance and mystery.
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Iberian Pilgrimage Routes
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The scallop was a symbol of safety for pilgrims on the trail
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El Camino de Santiago is the path scraped into being by countless wandering pilgrims hoofing it across northern Spain to the city of Santiago de Compostela. In the high Middle Ages, Santiago was one of the three main holy cities of Christendom and the only one not overburdened by politics (Rome) or torn apart by endless conflict (Jerusalem). It thus arguably became Europe's most important medieval pilgrimage center. The road to Santiago, a route worn still deeper into history every year by hordes of hiking travelers, begins in a few places: St. Jean Pied-de-Port (in the French Pyrenies), Roncesvalles (on the Spanish side of the Pyrenies), and Somport (further east, in the French Pyrenies). Many people choose to start from other important pilgrimage centers even further afield, like Paris or Arles. The important thing, as always, is time. The whole point of El Camino is that you shouldn't have to worry about time; you should not feel compelled to rush from site to site. You should be free to contemplate yourself and your surroundings. Covering the 500 or so miles by bike is a perfect way to do it.
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Crusades Routes
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Cyclists at the walls of
Dubrovnik on the
Dalmatian Coast
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In 1096, Pope Urban II, prompted by several European leaders, urged his followers to undertake a crusade to"rescue" the Holy Land from its Turkish captors. Over the next two hundred years, thousands of people tromped the dusty and muddy roads between western Europe, Istanbul, and the eastern Mediterranean coast. An epic cyclist's challenge would be to tackle the same. A modern version of the western segment of this route could follow the rail lines of the Orient Express, although these pass through the political hotbeds of former Yugoslavia and the Balkans. An alternate route slides down Croatia's dramatic Dalmatian coast. Crusaders who took the coastal route used to follow the Via Egnatia east across today's Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. While the terrain is gorgeous, now might be the time to stick to the Greek roads further south. And once you get to Turkey, cyclists beware: Turkey is a land of hills! Especially if you cross the interior of the country. Another word of warning: Make sure you have all of your visas for the Middle East before you get there.
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In Napoleon's Wake
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Admiring Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in Paris
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Tolstoy told a gargantuan tale of passion and intrigue as the ever-zealous Napoleonic forces advanced and made their final, self-destructive march on Moscow. Memories of those bloody times are long gone, but the scope of such an undertaking comes alive on transcontinental pedal from Paris to the Russian capital. Through southern Germany, the Czech Republic, along the Tatras mountains and southern Poland, and then up through Ukraine and Belarus, this is a pedal back into history, where modern western fever mellows into the lingering ways of the Austro-Hungarian era, and then back further into a country ease made all the more solid after years under the Communist eye. Once again, a cyclist is riding the roads at the speed of a foot soldier and really comes to grips with the crushing immensity of Napoleon's failed gambit.
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