how do you reach your BIGs ? Comment atteignez-vous vos BIG

Which transport do you use ? Where do you lay your car ? Do you use a car or do you prefer to ride the BIGs during a tour ? Do you manage your holidays around the BIGs ? At what time of the day do you prefer to ride them ?
Quel transport utilisez-vous ? Où laissez-vous vos voitures ? En utilisez-vous une ou préférez-vous grimper les BIGs au milieu d'un voyag ? Organisez-vous vos vacances en fonction des BIGs à effectuer ? A quelle heure de la journée préférez-vous les grimper ?

Dear Daniël,

Since I live in the northern, so flat, part of the Netherlands, I have to use my car to get near the BIG's; the nearest BIG is at 120 km (BIGnr 101, Posbank), but the BIG's of south Limburg and north east Belgium are already 350 km away. Simply to far away for a day trip.

Each year I go cycling for a week in the mountains (Alps, Eiffel, Ardennes, Pyrenees, Vosges) with some friends. During those vacations I try to include some BIG's in the daily trips. My friends know about BIG, aren't members, but are fine when I try to include as many BIG's as possible. When I mention that some BIG's are part of a cyclingtrip, I usually get their remark that it will be 'heavy climbs' of the day. So, in their opinion BIG's are always heavy climbs! Is that so? That's a good question.

During short stays (3-5 days) in Germany or Belgium with my wife I try pick a hotel where there are BIG's nearby. My wife doesn't cycle but it's okay to her that I sometimes 'sneak' out for some hours to climb one or more BIG's with my ATB/VTT or racebike.

Seeya,
Roland

I travel by train, never by car. I cannot imagine driving a car 600 km on narrow busy road with a lot of holes ;-) after whole day tough bike ride, it is not for me. Thus I will not answer you where I park the car etc. In Poland, Czech R., Slovakia, Austria and Germany I travel by train to the last station in valley and by the way I have an unique occasion to cycle the WHOLE climb not the upper 4 kms

Travel by train on weekend ticket from Poznan to Innsbruck takes about 18 hours. With 2 accompanying friends the cost per capita for the whole trip and back was 70 euro.

To Torino we have taken "cheap" flight from Krakow, the total cost of the transfer from Poznan to Torino and back was 240 euro. It is possible to get here by low fare trains but it takes more than 30 hours :-)