2 week tour ideas

heavymental

Planning to do a tour with a friend who uses an ebike due to a back problem. This means we are limited in our transport options due to the ebike's battery (no flights and even trains are limited) At the moment we're thinking of getting the ferry to Bilbao and cycling back up the west coast of France but I'm wondering if anyone has any ideas for alternative routes that can be started by boat. Loops or A-Bs all considered. Any ideas?

shirley_basso

Hey - conscious noone has replied to this.

One possible route is the Loire a Velo which can be done with hire bikes - start in Nantes and head East. It's not exactly "hardcore" cycling but you can follow the river, take a dip, stop for cheese and wine, then go camping / stay in a hotel / air bnb when you stop.

https://www.loirebybike.co.uk/

https://en.francevelotourisme.com/cycle-route/la-loire-a-velo-loire-valley-by-bike#:~:text=La Loire à Vélo is,as The Garden of France.

I did it with my wife, who is not a cyclist AT ALL.

Some beautiful chateaux, vineyards, scenery etc.

heavymental

Thanks Shirley. That looks like a nice trip. Will have a further look but would need to consider transport to the start and home from the finish. Have probably decided to do the trip down the West coast from Roscoff to Bilbao this time but nice to have other ideas for future trips.

daniel_b

I don't have any specific advice to give, but am aware there is a bike/coach service that runs a few routes down through France, might be worth seeing if that would give you more flexibility for either the trip down, or perhaps back up as well should you want to change your scenery.

I know a lot of tourers run with a solar panel to charge their devices, not sure if it's worth looking to see if that might prolong the ebikes battery life?

mudsucker

How about doing Lejog or Jogle. Did it over 13 days last year and it was brilliant.

heavymental

daniel_b said:

I don't have any specific advice to give, but am aware there is a bike/coach service that runs a few routes down through France, might be worth seeing if that would give you more flexibility for either the trip down, or perhaps back up as well should you want to change your scenery.

I know a lot of tourers run with a solar panel to charge their devices, not sure if it's worth looking to see if that might prolong the ebikes battery life?

Thanks yeh the service is a bit limited unfortunately. Good if it works for you and I guess you could organise a trip around the options but not good for us on this occasion.

The company is here if anyone is wondering what we're talking about https://www.bike-express.co.uk/

Think we'll be on campsites/B&B so should be ok with charging. I think you'd need a lot of solar to charge an ebike battery? Great if it was possible though!

heavymental

mudsucker said:

How about doing Lejog or Jogle. Did it over 13 days last year and it was brilliant.

Thanks yeh, we fancy leaving the country this time though.

heavymental

Just to report back on this. We had a lovely trip! Followed the route around the coast with some diversions here and there. The cycling routes were great but for some sections we just used the 'Take me to....' feature on my Wahoo which took us on some interesting routes including some fairly obscure bridleway type tracks which was quite good fun. 98% of the time it was a good route but sometimes it would throw us a curveball but it was good to use when we didn't have a route programmed in already. We went Roscoff - Plouguerneau - Brest - Le Roz - Crozon - Douarnenez - Concarneau - Lorient - Carnac Then caught a train from Auray back to Rosporden where we joined Route 7 up to Carhaix and then back to Roscoff.

As usual I was reminded that in France you can rock up at most towns and cities and find them to be very nice places to spend a bit of time. The cycle paths are fantastic. The ones in towns and cities to help you get around safely and the converted railway tracks that take you great distances through the countryside are all excellent facilities.

We weren't very hardcore and only camped on a couple of occasions. Mostly we lugged the tent between airbnb and cheap hotels!