Cycling weather: where to ride when and when to ride where

Sometimes you know you want to go to a particular destination. Maybe it’s been on your bucket list forever, maybe you read an article or heard about it from a friend.

But what’s the best time to visit?

Each of our destination guides contains a “When to go” section. This gives our opinion of the best time to visit and also a detailed, colour coded chart that gives information on average temperatures, rainfall and what the riding will be like.

Head to our destinations page to pick the destination you want to visit. Or, if you know the country you want to visit, click the relevant link below and then head to the relevant region guide to find the best time to visit:

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Cyprus

France

Italy

Japan

Mexico

Portugal

Romania

Slovenia

Spain

Tropical Islands

UAE

UK

USA

Check our cycling by season article series

In this series of article we pick a selection of the best places to cycle in each season of the year. We hope it forms a useful (if very subjective!) starting point:

Where to cycle in spring

Where to cycle in summer

Where to cycle in autumn

Where to cycle in winter

Browse our month by month list

You can also browse our month by month list of cycling destinations below.

A destination is listed for a particular month if we think it’s a good time to cycle there.

Our test for what’s a good time takes into account the likely weather and that most of the big rides will be do-able.  It takes less account of things like school summer holidays in July and August, but bear in mind that during these months temperatures may be very hot in the middle of the day, roads are likely to be busier and prices higher.  It often comes down to – “would we book a trip there at that time of year”.

Once you’ve narrowed down the destinations you’re interested in, take a look at the detailed destination guides. The “When to go” sections give lots of information about each month of the year and categorises them as:

• green: a great time to visit;
• orange: a reasonably good time to visit but you are more likely to encounter weather that’s not so good for cycling/high passes that are closed/other adverse factors; or
• red: not a good time to visit

As you’ll appreciate, weather can be fickle so this information just provides a rough guide. If we could guarantee perfect riding conditions, we would!

We hope this gives you inspiration for where to ride in each month of the year.

Got any questions about when to travel to a destination? Give us a shout!

Clare Dewey is a road cyclist with a passion for travel. She set up epicroadrides.com to help make it easy for road cyclists to explore new places by bike.