Touring France
mask of sanity
Posts: 610
Basically, a mate and I started cycling this year and we are planning to tour around France in late june/ early july of next year. Due to us both being new to cycling and touring we have no idea on what we should do with regard to a number of things. Things we are unsure of include:
-How to decide a good route and follow it -where are good places in France to see (as a tourist as well as a cyclist), is a Garmin with mapping a vital bit of equipment or are maps sufficient?
-Realistic distances per day – there will probably be quite a few rest days as we'd like to do non-cycling stuff as well
-Accomodation – is it ok to take a tent and just put it up on the side of the road? Should we have one tent each? If not what are the alternatives to camping?
-Likely daily cost - we'll want to limit it as much as we can
-What stuff should be take – spares, tools, clothing etc.
-Any good books that we can read that may be of some help?
I'm aware that there's a lot of questions but any feedback with regard to any of these or any advice from personal experience would be gratefully received.
Cheers, Rich.
-How to decide a good route and follow it -where are good places in France to see (as a tourist as well as a cyclist), is a Garmin with mapping a vital bit of equipment or are maps sufficient?
-Realistic distances per day – there will probably be quite a few rest days as we'd like to do non-cycling stuff as well
-Accomodation – is it ok to take a tent and just put it up on the side of the road? Should we have one tent each? If not what are the alternatives to camping?
-Likely daily cost - we'll want to limit it as much as we can
-What stuff should be take – spares, tools, clothing etc.
-Any good books that we can read that may be of some help?
I'm aware that there's a lot of questions but any feedback with regard to any of these or any advice from personal experience would be gratefully received.
Cheers, Rich.
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Comments
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in terms of where to go and what route to choose in france it really does depend on what you're looking for. whatever it is france probably has it. i've been all over france and would struggle to identify the best cycling. it depends what you're after.
once i've decided on where i'm going to and where my start point is, route planning for me tends to involve looking at something like viamichelin, sticking to a straight line between two points as close as possible using the smaller roads, of which there are plenty. i then transfer the route to bikely or something as that will give me a better diea of distances and profiles. viamichelin is handy for choosing scenic routes, which is my personal preference when cycling.
there are simply loads of threads about france on here so have a search through. you will find a lot of useful information and also get some ideas of where you might like to tour. have fun.0 -
mask of sanity wrote:
-Realistic distances per day – there will probably be quite a few rest days as we'd like to do non-cycling stuff as well
-Accomodation – is it ok to take a tent and just put it up on the side of the road? Should we have one tent each? If not what are the alternatives to camping?
-Likely daily cost - we'll want to limit it as much as we can
-What stuff should be take – spares, tools, clothing etc.
-Any good books that we can read that may be of some help?
I'm aware that there's a lot of questions but any feedback with regard to any of these or any advice from personal experience would be gratefully received.
Cheers, Rich.
Mapping - I have used pages torn from motoring atlases and IGN maps purchased in France those or Michelin maps should suffice and they don't suffer from flat batteries.
Where to go? Thats entirely up to you and decided by your interests. Get your hands on some tourist guides for inspiration. France is a big place so there should be something to interest you ranging from WW1 battle fields through to Roman relics - it's your call.
Camping - wild camping is officially frowned upon though in practice stealth camping is possible. It might not be worth it though as municipal camp sites are cheap - €7- 10 for three people was a typical charge this summer.
Daily cost is dictated by your appetite! Wine can be purchased at €2 per 1.5 litres, self catering can keep the food bill down to €5 per day though you'll not have an exciting diet.
Hope that helps to get you started0 -
Cheers for the advice guys, I shall have a search on the forum for other similar topics.0
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Agree with advice above.
A suggestion in terms of deciding routes is to look at the French "permenents" on the Audax UK page
http://www.aukweb.net/cal/perms/index.htm
(Just put region = "Profs") and it will bring up list of non UK, then select some of the French ones).
And there are some ideas from the French site here
http://www.audax-uaf.com/cyclo/perma/pages/rando.htm
Advantage of these is that for a nominal fee you get a route that has been tried and tested for/by cyclists and sure the organisers will be happy to offer advice in terms of logistics like travel to/from.Martin S. Newbury RC0 -
This page has 69 links to information about bike touring in France.
Obviously, not all of them will be of interest to you but several will provide you with suggestions for places to tour, maps, and ideas of where to stay.
I've cycled in France once and hope to do it again. It is a great place to bike tour. Be sure to consider biking some of the river gorges. They are fantastic.
Ray0 -
Just come back from cycling in France (Centre bit, using hotel accom). Couple of changes since I was there last:
- 'deserted' villages and small towns in rural areas. Lots of bars, cafes, shops closed down. You could die of hunger/thirst (well, not really, but it could be a long way between refreshment stops unless you're well prepared).
- many municipal campsites occupied by 'travellers' on what seemed likely to be a long term basis, rather than tourists. It's a personal thing, but I wouldn't have been happy to have stayed in them cycle camping.
But French car drivers very considerate towards cyclists, and perfect cycling countryside.
Good luck with planning your trip.0 -
As far as route planning is concerned, avoid the routes nationales and the busier D roads (on the Michelin maps these are marked in red or read and white). Michelin maps also show scenic routes with a green line - IME (limited experience) these are definitely worth following.
viamichelin.com is a useful site for route planning.
At the end of the day the best way to decide on a route is to decide on the places you're interested in visting and then join them up. So read your favourite guide books, search the web etc etc. Also don't forget that there's nothing in the Book of Rules to stop you staying at the same place for a day or more and doing cicular day rides - that way you don't have to worry about your stuff while you go sightseeing.
As far as maps and GPSes are concerned: personally I use a Garmin HCx with the City Navigator mapping (buy on DVD direct from Garmin). I found this extremely useful as it meant that when the mood took me I could find interesting routes on country lanes that aren't shown on the larger scale maps. You also get a street map of every town or village you go through. Not to mention if you need to find out the location of the the nearest cash machine or Accident and Emergency (Centre Hospitalier d'Urgences) the information is there at your finger tips. On a couple of occasions I found that the D road was closed to bikes and being able to work out an alternative route was a real help. If you get a GPS that takes AA batteries and you take a charger then flat batteries really aren't an issue (I've yet to stay at a campsite that didn't have a socket somewhere where you could plug in a charger).
I don't know about stopping at the side of the road. In the more touristy areas campervans seem to be a real issue and a lot of effort goes into trying to manage them. I suspect that in some places cyclists and hikers 'bivouacking' will get caught up on the backwash from this while in other areas it may be more tolerated. But bear in mind all of the logistics: 'wild camping' sounds very romantic, but the reality is not having a shower, or clean water to wash up with, etc.
As far as costs are concerned I'd budget for somewhere between 7 and 12€ for campsites. 1.2€ for a coffee, .90 € for a baguette, a couple of euros a day for cheese/ham/saucisson sec/pâté to put in it; for your evening meal a couple of euros for a carton of soup, almost four euros for a tin of ready-made Pot au Feu/Blanquette de Veau/Bouef Bourguignon. 5€ a day is a bit ascetic for me!
Commenting on Bill D's post. There are some parts of France where 'desertification' is definitely an issue and in the remoter parts of Corsica I always made sure I carried some bread and a tin/jar of pâté so I always had somewhere to eat if I arrived something after the épicerie had closed for lunch and the bar didn't serve food. But that was in the wilder parts of France's least populated département - not everywhere will be quite so difficult.
I also have to put the other side of the coin on municipal campsites. I stayed at a number of campings municipales that had standards that would have put most UK campsites to shame. I generally rely on the Guide Routard recommendations, but if I arrived in a strange place and I saw the sign for the camping municipal I'd head for it with a reasonable degree of confidence. A very useful resource is the Camping de Qualite mark. this is a French government initiative to raise standards, and only a minority of sites are in the system, but in my experience they are well worth looking out for - 'though inevitably a bit more expensive. I've never used them, but you might also want to use one of the Alan Kelly guides.[/url]
As for realistic distances well my rule of thumb would go something like this. Start with 80 kms a day
- take off 10 kms a day for the first couple of weeks;
- take off 10 kms a day if you are travelling with a tent and cooking gear;
- take off 10 kms a day if it's very hilly;
- take off 10 kms a day if you haven't ridden in a while;
- add 10 kms a day if you tour regularly;
- add 10 kms a day after your second week.
Or something like that. That's probably a bit conservative, but you get my drift.0
