Hear about our Road Cycling Holiday The Grand Tour from Regular Skedaddler Dean Deltrame. You might notice that our pint-sized pocket rocket & Skedaddle resident road cycling guru, David “l’il Dave” Hall, bangs on about the Grand Tour of the Med holiday at every given possibility. What is about that tour that always gets him going? Why is it that he’s always so keen to get out there? Skedaddle addict Dean Beltrame was asking the same questions and signed up to see what all the fuss was about…………………………

After my previous Skedaddle road cycling holidays in Morocco, the French Alps and Pyrenees and Corsica, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to do Skedaddle’s Grand Tour.  The Grand Tour Itinerary takes you through 3 different regions in Italy, Corsica and the mountains behind Nice in France. It was a slightly longer tour than previous ones I had done but you needed everyday of it to take it all in.Arriving in Nice on the Thursday I met up with the group of 7 other riders and our 2 guides for the week, David and Anthony. David had explained to us prior to departure that tour was going to be taken in reverse on this occasion. It seems that some minor events, namely the Cannes Film Festival, the Monaco Grand Prix and the Giro D’Italia, were also scheduled during the same 2 weeks and logistically it would have been almost impossible to take the tour in the usual direction. It had meant that some minor adjustments to the route had been necesary and it was obvious that the Skedaddle team were as excited as we were to be trying something a little different.

We transferred to Gavi in Italy in the 2 support vehicles and arrived after compulsory authentic Italian pizza along the way. With David and Anthony’s help bikes were assembled Friday morning before we set out on a hand chosen route through the Italian countryside. With an impressive picnic lunch supplied on route we finished off the afternoon by transferring out to the infamous Cinque Terre on the Italian coastline.

We stayed in the Eastern most of the 5 fishing villages, Riomaggiore which was buzzing with tourists. Easy to see why when you see the villages timeless architecture and the location at the base of the coastal cliff.  As it turned out the Giro d’Italia had just finished a Time Trial stage the day before we arrived so we were reminded with all the signage on the roads that this really was a special place and where the pro’s race.

Our Saturday was given to us as optional to ride each of the remaining 4 villages or simply ride 1 or 2 and transfer back by train to Riomaggiore. Optional because cycling out of these villages was no small feat, with gradients reaching up to 22%!  But there is never any better way to motivate a group though than by telling them “…no other group has ever managed to do all 5 villages…” and the rest of the day was history with all 8 of us seeing each of those villages by bike.

The return cycling journey along the coast brought us along the exact same route that the Giro D’Italia had taken a couple of days before and it was a real thrill to be cycling on roads bearing the freshly painted names of some of cyclings biggest heros. Some sore legs ensued on Sunday from a little too much enthusuiasm and err……. testosterone the day before but with another ride taking in the mountainous ridge behind the Cinque Terre everyone was keen and made short work of the ride. Sunday afternoon and we transferred out to Vinci in Tuscany dining in an Italian (of course!) Restaurant getting our carbs for the next days ride.

Ahh the rolling hills of Tuscany!  Staying in Vinci, à la Leonardi da Vinci, we rolled out on Monday morning to find ourselves in 40 degree temperatures. It was going to be a hot one alright but with plenty of fluids we set off keen to see the sights of Tuscany. This is a region where the pro cyclists live and we saw a few out doing loops with their team cars in pursuit. Even had the chance to catch up with a local Italian cyclist (walking with bike on shoulder) who was very grateful when we stopped to give him a tube and a pump, apparently other Italians wouldn’t stop, just us foreigners!  We covered a couple of loops in the area allowing us some elevation to see the expanse of vineyards and agriculture that makes this region so special. With some time to spare some of the group ventured off take in the Leonardi museum while the rest of us took in some cold beers before going out for a great dinner to local cuisine. 

Tuesday and the temperatures remained high but the spirits of the group were equally high and we set out again to get another look at the area this time taking in a different circuit and being spoilt with a hot lunch along the way.  But all good things had to come to an end and we transferred out to Casciana Terme at the end of the day. I have no idea how our guides found this little town close to Livorno (where our transfer to Corsica would depart from) but between the hotel, pool and the restaurant with wine cellar to die for this was a dream for anyone looking for a treat!  After much wine and more food than you can imagine, (they just get bringing it out to us!), we rolled out of the restaurant and had ourselves some great genuine gelati’s. 

After the Wednesday morning ferry transfer we arrived in Bastia, Corsica and were soon out on the road and heading up over the top of the mountain ridge that separates Bastia to St Florent where we would stay for the night. Corsica is an extension of the Alps, where the Alps finish at Nice they start again on Corsica but with water surrounding Corsica you get the best of both worlds, mountains with ocean views, breathtaking. Thursday took us from St Florent inland through a dessert landscape before winding our way back to the coastal town of Calvi and straight to the restaurant strip on the local marina for a well deserved drink.  Pietra (chestnut) beer is the local drink and well appreciated after a good days ride!  Friday morning we rode out from Calvi in a loop along the coastal ridge via an inland climb.  

After a great picnic lunch overlooking the ocean (and some jumping in for quick swim) we set off again and headed back to Calvi via different route.  David did his best to catch up with a couple of us who made a break for it after lunch  (to be fair we broke away before the picnic kit had been loaded back into the support vehicle!)  but he had to settle for the cold beer we had waiting for him at Calvi, much to our amusement.  We had our last night at Calvi at a great beach restaurant on the other side of the bay, overlooking the port, marina and citadelle.  The wine and food flowed well and we toasted goodbye to Corsica as we were to transfer out by ferry to Nice.

Saturday morning and we were up, packed and ready to go across to Nice.  We arrived fairly late in the afternoon and rode our bikes back to our hotel at Beaulieu sur Mer. We headed out for dinner as we needed our energy because Sundays ride was going to be 130km of mountains behind Nice. David explained that he doesn’t usually take Grand Tour riders around this entire route but because of our previous impressive performance he thought we could take it! Just as it had been in the Cinque Terre, the thought that this party would be the first to complete the route was like dangling a carrot in front of a donkey and before long everyone was puffing themselves up and ready to go.

This final ride was the longest cycling day of our trip  but certainly one to remember as we climbed out of Nice  via  the Grand Corniche and up to La Turbie over the Col D’Eze. Later we took in further cols including some typical French switchbacks making an idyllic back drop to our picnic lunch high on the mountain.  From lunch we climbed a little higher and then dropped down through to the coast and traversed Monaco taking in the sights of the beaches this expensive strip of French Riviera.  It was the right way to finish of the day and we celebrated well that night by heading out on the town.  Certainly was a Grand Tour!

Rule number one of camping in the wild: don’t presume the wild animal attacking your toes is the hyena that wandered through the camp earlier in the evening. In all likelihood it is the poor sucker who drew the 01h00-01h45 shift, waking you for your 45 minutes sitting as close as you can to the fire, listening to lion telling their mates about the latest hunt. Damn, they sound close…
This cycling holiday in Botswana / South Africa is possibly the best biking experience I have had in nearly 30 years of riding bikes. Mashatu is a 75 000-acre reserve in the Tuli Block, the pointy bit on the eastern side of Botswana, where that country meets Zimbabwe and South Africa. Getting there is simple - drive north from Joburg, turn left at Polokwane - make sure you don’t miss the right turn onto the Alldays road, the sign is removed by errant taxis fairly regularly
- and keep going until you hit the border.

The first clue that this is no ordinary ride is the massive rifles the guides ride with, strapped to their backs. Bullets as thick as your thumb, just in case. not exactly the most comforting of sights. But the guides’
knowledge and experience shows from the first pedal stroke, and the best news of all is that they love riding bikes as much as we do, but are allergic to anything that looks like a road, so for four days you ride a mixture of open grassland and fine singletrack crafted by generations of animals making their way to water.

The beauty of this trip is that, with a maximum group size of eight, the route can be tailored for any and all abilities. There is plenty of technical, loose trail here, but there is as much smooth, level riding. You won’t find 60kph downhills or hour-long climbs, but there is plenty to keep the heart rate up, without blurring your vision as you search for large beasties. We chose a particularly hot week - and operations cease for the really hot summer months - where temperatures in the 40s meant we rose early, rode through to lunch and then collapsed for the rest of the day, but the winter months are more suitable for a visit.

The accommodation completes the African experience - sleeping under the stars, everybody taking turns in keeping the fire burning (flashbacks to army guard duty guaranteed!), and eating hearty, wholesome food prepared on site by the talented chef. You certainly won’t go hungry, and will more than likely end up having dinner with some locals - our first night was enriched by the presence of the local hyena - was he laughing at my cycling tan, maybe? - and day three’s lunch was spent alternating between checking on the boomslang in the tree next to the lunch table, and the breeding herd of elephants browsing, snorting and rumbling less than 50m away. But it is not just about interacting with these animals. We were exceptionally lucky on our trip - lion at 100m, a croc rushing into the water so close we could swear we got splashed, last-second route changes to avoid large, grumpy elephants and following the trail of where a hyena had dragged last night’s dinner - his, not ours - away from our camping area were some of the highlights.

This place offers so much more: peace, relaxation and regeneration. Magical sunsets, no cellphone reception, and silence so complete that we could hear the wind in the feathers of the eagles playing hundreds of metres above us when we stopped for a puncture, make this trip the complete break we all need, and deserve. And it is on bikes. What could be better?

Check out the Skedaddle South Africa and Botswana trip!

A great article about a self guided Sardinia coast to coast mountain bike holiday that recently appeared in the Guardian plus a nice mini video too.

If you want to check out our trips to this lovely island then see :

Sardinia Mountain Biking Holiday

Sardinia Cycling Holiday

Sardinia Road Cycling Holiday

Sardinia Coast to Coast by John O’Mahoney

There was a point in our off-road cycling / mountain bike holiday across Sardinia when I wondered whether we might be the first ever slapstick double-act in the history of this most demanding of leisure activities. It came on our first full day away from the smooth security of tarmac. “At the Y-junction, take the trail to the right,” proclaimed my friend Tony, who had insisted on taking on the map-reading duties. Craning our necks to the right, we could see a terrifying trail soaring vertiginously up what seemed an almost sheer cliff, strewn with massive, looming boulders and punctuated by treacherous patches of loose scree. For one gruelling stretch, we had to claw our way upwards on our hands and knees while balancing our bikes precariously on our shoulders. Sweating and panting, we had almost reached the summit when I heard Tony consulting the maps again: “At the first Y-junction, take the trail to the left,” he yelled out. “I was reading the wrong bit. That should have been to the left . . .”Peering down, we could see the trail to the left easing down gently into the valley, a leisurely freewheel winding restfully into the forest. I can’t repeat exactly what was said as we clambered back down the cliff-face, except to confirm that the word “eejit”, prefixed by colourful adjectives, featured prominently. “Well, we did say that were looking for something more challenging this time,” Tony replied sheepishly. “Whatever you say about it, this is definitely challenging . . .” Yes, but not quite in the way that we had imagined.After our implausibly ambitious odyssey from Budapest to Krakow across the Tatra mountains of Slovakia the previous year, we were looking to step up the level of difficulty. On that occasion, there had been grave doubts about whether two podgy Irish blokes could possibly conquer some of the most gruelling cycling routes in the world. But with a lot of unflattering Lycra and a good deal of bluster, we had somehow managed to pull it off.

Taking the podgy cyclist show off-road seemed like the obvious next step. And Sardinia, with its gleaming coastline and rugged interior seemed like the perfect destination. The route, known as the Coast to Coast / C2C, would begin at the south-western extremity before rearing diagonally across the island, intersecting the formidable Gennargentu range, the mountainous backbone of Sardinia, and terminating almost 400km away just below the crass resorts of the Costa Smeralda.

Most of the journey would be on mule-tracks, mining trails and wilderness. For the first time, we would enjoy the luxury of luggage transfer, with our rucksacks shuttled by van to the next stop, as well as a guide to offer advice and support. But for the most part, would be on our own, battling the Sardinian elements in the cycling holiday of a lifetime.

We flew into Sardinia’s capital, Cagliari and were met by our guide, Renato, whose lithe physique, honed by mountain-trails, made us both instinctively suck in our bellies: “So, you’ve only ever been biking on tarmac?” he purred, as he whisked us off to the starting point, the seaside hamlet of Calasetta. “This should be very interesting . . .”

The hilltop hotel was packed with grizzled, leather-clad German bikers, with their chrome-spangled Harleys lined up outside. They glowered from the shadows as Renato handed over the maps and offered a few handy off-roading tips: “Hold on to the handlebars,” he said, without a flicker of humour, “And try not to fall off . . .”

In the morning, we discovered that the bikers had let the air out of our tyres. “Hell’s Angels sure ain’t what they used to be!” said Tony, pumping them back up furiously. Once re-inflated, we powered up the Gulf of Gonnesa with cliff-edge panoramas and rocky gobbets of islands spat into the bay. Then we meandered through the eerie, abandoned mining town of Ingurtosu and took up our positions at the beginning of our first test of off-road mettle.

The scene couldn’t have been more dramatic and primordial. On one side lay a fat, pot-bellied dune named Piscinas, looking like a wedge of burning gold thrust between shimmering sea and crisp blue sky. And sweeping away in front, like a tract of Martian landscape, was the extraordinary valley of the Rio Irvi. Stained an angry vermilion by the iron ore deposits in the surrounding hillsides, the river looked like a stream of red-hot lava flowing through the sand and gorse.

“Follow the trail down into the valley,” read Tony from the directions. “Start counting. You should cross the river 21 times . . .” Our initial attempts were disastrously timed, sending us lurching and heaving across the bubbling crimson. But soon we had worked out how to pick a racing line through the riverbed and were splashing and thrashing our way along, slicing up the stained water and throwing up a fiery spray in our wake. “Eighteen . . . 19 . . . 20 . . .” I could hear Tony counting down behind me, as we dunked into ever more treacherous channels. Then finally, an exultant “21 . . .” as we crossed the finish line, red from head to toe.

The next day would prove an even greater milestone: our first, full eight-hour shift on the trails. It all got off to a slapstick start with Tony’s catastrophic wrong turn, and our pointless scramble up and down the rock-face. Then I evened the score by leaving the maps behind in a ditch, forcing us to retrace our tracks through gorse and quagmires to retrieve them.

The route itself was almost as stunning as the day before, first along corkscrew channels curling through thick maquis. Soon we were carving up the Campidano plain, Sardinia’s famous saffron producing region, where the fields all round overflowed with purple crocus blossoms. However, at the end of a day of jolting, juddering and hauling the bikes across the pocked trails, we were wiped out.

Not even a dip in the effervescent waters in the Roman bath town of Sardara could revive us, and after another bone-crunching climb up to our agriturismo, in the sleepy enclave of Villanovaforru, we stumbled to our rooms like a pair of Lycra-clad zombies.

Next morning, as we sat silently gnawing our breakfasts, Renato came bounding along to check how we were doing. Genuinely shocked at our wan and withered state, he suggested multivitamins.

“Couldn’t we just eat a few more apples?” ventured Tony. Renato frowned at such naivety. “Apples are no use any more,” he pronounced sternly.

So after stuffing our day-packs with pills, we hit the trails again. If anything, the terrain was even more punishing than the day before, beginning with a headlong descent down a plummeting gulley. After wading through fields of neck-high grass and bramble, we arrived at the quaint town of Laconi, that night’s stopover, even more depleted, with every muscle trilling with fatigue. “I never thought I’d say this,” sighed Tony, “but I actually feel nostalgic for those ball-breaking Tatras . . .”

Though we didn’t know it at the time, this undeniable low was a turning point. Next morning was Sunday in Laconi and the only place open to stock up on supplies was a tiny pizzeria. So we filled our packs with miniature margaritas. “I’m not sure if Renato would approve . . .” I ventured.

“He said that apples are no use,” Tony replied. “He mentioned nothing about pizzas. . .”

This was the beginning of the most demanding section: the stupendous Gennargentu range. The trails soared inexorably upwards through dense forest of oak and fragrant eucalyptus before winding through farmland, with goats and pigs turning the tracks into a livestock obstacle course. As we swerved around the last hill, the view cracked open: on one side, slopes swathed with purple and yellow wildflowers - lavender, myrtle and broom - and on the other, a widescreen panorama of slate-grey mountains, jostling their way towards the horizon.

Maybe it was the inspirational landscape, or the thought of scoffing those pizzas, or perhaps our bodies were finally beginning to acclimatise, but it all seemed just a little easier. We arrived at that night’s agriturismo in the town of Seulo in buoyant mood and celebrated our resurgence with goat stew.

But Sardinia hadn’t quite finished with us yet. As soon as we had hit the trails next morning, the worst summer storm in living memory descended, stranding us in freezing rain and merciless wind-chill. With our core body temperatures dropping, we were left with only one shameful option: “Renatooooooo . . .” He responded to our SOS by sending a trail-chiselled warrior named Luca, who arrived in a 4×4 to scoop us ignominiously off the mountain and deposit us in the nearest hotel. A couple of days later when the squall had passed, he dropped us back at the exact same mountain clearing. The swirling black clouds had disappeared, replaced by blinding sunshine and devastating cobalt skies.

This, the last day of the trip, would prove the most exhilarating. First, we wove through the Supramonte massif, a vast, barren wilderness of glistening white limestone that looked like a cross between the Sierra Nevada and the surface of the moon. Then we hugged the mountains on a long-abandoned road, chewed and gored by landslides. Afterwards, it was all sweet, glorious downhill through forests of arthritic cork oak and bulbous prickly pears until suddenly the Mediterranean reared up in front of us, an explosion of azure. To no one’s greater surprise than our own, we had somehow conquered the “challenging” trails of Sardinia.

The remaining days, in the sparkling little village of Cala Gonone, were a big, long, lazy exhalation - chilling in the sea-front cafes, lolling on the pristine beaches and exploring Cala Gonone’s stunning cave system, huge encrusted chambers reaching kilometres beneath the hills we’d just cycled.

Sardinia had pushed us dangerously close to our limits. But the island had rewarded us with the white-knuckle adrenaline rush of off-roading, and the excitement and drama of the red river and the buzz of those hurtling descents are moments we’ll never forget.

Our plan is to return to the trails next year, perhaps a little more trim and toned. Yes, this could be the end of the road for the podgy cyclists. For anyone else, the advice is simple. Spend a few weeks in the gym, and stock up on multivitamins (pizzas are a recommended substitute only in extremis.) And, in the words of one great prophet of the trails: if you want to experience one of the true off-road mountain bike journeys, just hang on to those handlebars, and try not to fall off !

Our resident roadie took the executive team on holiday from Disney for the launch of their new Ratatouille film out for a few days of road riding in France.  

Only thing is we’re wondering is… is this just a coincidence or has David has some bearing on the character?

Have you ever taken your bike with you on holiday, given your bike a little change of scenery from the slug road!!

Bill and I have had two super holidays in recent years cycling around Orkney in Scotland and Denmark (fairly flat terrain!) but last year we did something a little bit different and went on an organised trip. I am master of holiday planning in our house so I decided, with some trepidation I might add; to join an organised trip with a cycling holiday firm but the experience was fabulous. We went for a 10 day trip round the Lofoten Islands of Norway.

This superb desert biking adventure focuses on the deep south of Morocco, a land of big skies and stark mountain ranges where mud-brick kasbahs appear to rise up out of the desert, sitting in tranquil palm oases and framed by dramatic backdrops of snowcapped mountains. We ride along Morocco’s dirt roads, taking us from Marrakech to the Tichka Pass, the highest in the High Atlas, and then southward, descending along the Draa Valley to the fringes of the Sahara Desert.