Cycling

Latvia is a very flat country with low population density, making it attractive cycling destination. On the other hand, mediocre road quality and bad driving habits should be taken into account during trip planning.

When cycling, you should avoid Riga and major roads leading to it (E67, E77, E22). Riga has no cycling infrastructure whatsoever, and major roads are with heavy traffic. Buy a decent map and plan your route via smaller roads. If you have to travel on main roads, don't do it in rush hours (described in post on transportation), best to schedule it in early mornings or late evenings (Latvia is far in the north, so in summertime days are VERY long). A large part of roads in Latvia have no hard surface (only gravel). Travelling on gravel roads is a lottery, they can be almost as good and hard as tarmac (all loose sand and gravel swept away by cars), and they can be impassable (loose gravel, heavy sand or mud in spring/autumn). You should buy a map that shows type of surface the road has (jāņasēta is a good option, their online shop ships the maps everywhere). A well known cyclist trap is P124 from Ventspils to Kolka, for some 50 km it is gravel road with quite some car traffic, and cars passing at full speed means that you can get hit by pebbles thrown sideway from car tires.

Roads are quite dirty and are not cleaned well after traffic accidents, use tires with decent puncture protection.