Home > Cycling Routes > create your own stageroute

It all start with inspiration. Many times the initial idea for a cycling route just stems from watching the Tour, Giro or Vuelta. When I see a lot of hairpins, Gorges or other astaunishing landscapes I know where I want to be next summer. Although the Grand Tours most of the time visit cliché and spoilt tourist locations like the wintersport resorts as Alpe d'Huez or worse, sometimes their routemakers can surprise and inspire. Last year Tour's showed wonderfull climbs like the the Port de Pailhères (eastside) and the Port de Bales (northsside) in the Pyrenees. The Giro of 2011 delivered the north side of the Colle della Finestre for our Alpentour 2012, and the most discussed Monte Crostis is on my future list. Last years Vuelta triggert a desire to do some rides in Asturia after watching La Farrapona at Lagos de Somiedo. 

Other sources for finding great cols are ofcourse books, like for instance these of Alex Polfliet. It is a good first step to find some unique climbs to build your tour around. It is up to you if you want to build your route on famous known climbs (such as the Ventoux, the Stelvio etc) or just special unknown deserted ones (like the pic de Tentes, the Issarbe or the Mangart). We always try to combine our routes with a set of both of them.

Inspiration can give you a basic idea for a theme of your route, but from that point on you need overview for designing your stage-tour. Even though i love Google Maps as a great tool (for almost everything) it never provided me with a good detailed overview. Or you zoom in and you have no overview, or zoom out and you don't see the necessary details and roads. Google never provided my what  a good old Michelin map of  1: 200.000 (1cm=2km) always does: creating overview. With a blink of an eye you can make connections, discover unknown (hidden) roads, and find more unknown cols in the area of your exploration. Make a search for these curvy hairpins on the map, or these red-white dotted lines that indicate the pass is not always  open. These are  the ones you want to include in your route, cause these are indications for most of the time wonderful climbs (see for example for hairpins the col de Turini, or for red-white dottet lines the col du Champ west)

In this fase you can start paying attention to logistics. It works to start your stage-tour at the footh of a mountainranch, and near a big highway. So goes for the end of the Tour: plan it in such a way that you can hit the highways fast. If you don't believe me try to ride the Route the Napoleon through the Alpes faster than 50km/hour!
Also balance the ratio of stages versus roundtrips. Stages are more exiting and adventure than roundtrips, but ff you do like us and you use a camping concept sometimes it is nice not to pack and unpack your camp for a day. If you do a full-service tour (hotel etc) than put as much stages as possible in your tour and do only roundtrips at beginning and end. 

The questions 'Who is your group? And what are they capable of?' are important for a succesfull stagetour and the preservation of friendship on the long run. When I start stagedesigning I always  get a bit over-enthousiast. Picking all the climbs I see. I learned by mistake I have to control myself, calculate the elevation meters carefully and measure the lenght of the stages. 

Our concept is not based on a full-service concept. We prefer to camp when possible. But camping ourselfs restrains the amount of distance and altitude meters we can do on a day. We started with stages on average 80-90 kilometers with 2000-2500 elevation meters. Last year we did on average 100 kilometers with 2700 vertical meters, though the stage 6 with 4000 vm almost killed us of so we needed a rest day for recovery. This year I hope our training will improve so that we all can do 20.000 vertical meters in 8 days (exclusive driving our van).

For statistics, calculating elevationmeters and finding all about almost every col in Europe i do not know a website that provide more overview than www.cyclingcols.com. By a single click on a regional map you see all the accesable cols around. Most of the col description include pictures so you can compare which col you really have to pick for your routes. Calculating all the elevation meters gives you the best indication of the heaviness of your stage. Here I really want to thank Michiel van Lonkhuysen, maker of the site www.cyclingcols.com, for his impressive and detailed work.

With similar enthousiasm I recommend to use www.GPSsies.com. With gpsies.com you can draw a route in a googlemap format but also in other maps like Open Source Streetmap or Open Source cycle map. Just click your starting point and click ‘follow route’. If google maps refuses to follow (for a small tunnel, or a blocked road that you know for sure you can pass) click walking..  This way you can create your desired route/track in a minute.

After drawing your route you have  a beautiful route in a map, the distance of the stage, and it is possible to convert them into all kinds of gpx files.

GPSies also provide an altitude profile based on google data. That is nice but these elevation meters are almost always an overestimation. Don't base your elevation info on it! Just calculate the elevation meters of every climb as measured on cyclingcols.com or climbybike.com. 

Now you have  a beautiful stage tour, but things not always go as planned. Ofcourse you start with full commitment of your friends. The route is the route and so it's the law!
Though there are always moments you have to be flexible with the routes you thought would work so well. Sometimes you have to bend for weather and other unforeseen moments. 
Be prepared with some smart shortcuts, early stops and other alternatives. Your friends will appreciate, and you'll keep them hopefully for ever.



Enjoy your stage-making, William