Top Ten Epic Bike Rides

Admiring Napoleon's Arc de Triomphe in Paris (ALZ)

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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.