France (local)

Photos and video of the more scenic and quiet backside ride up to Alpe d'Huez, Col de Sarenne, in the French Alps.

The canyon of the Tarn is one of the obvious highlights of the Cévennes National Park. Another landmark landscape phenomenon are the so called 'Causses'. Causses are the bleak and barren high limestone plateaus of the Cévennes National Park.

This site deals about a short but fascinating cycle trip that Willem Hoffmans and I undertook through the gorges, plateaus and volcano landscapes of the Massif Central. Cycling in the autumn means there are gew facilities but also few tourists, which gave us a whole new perspective of life in the French countryside.

A historical look at Alpe d'Huez plus written and photo reports from the Marmotte and Etape du Tour events. Both events finished at the top of Alpe d'Huez this past July.

This bike trip in France, from Metz to Nice in July 2006, was our annual club event.

The Lafayette Riders (Cavaliers) started in the Alsace-Lorraine region of France, where a cardiologist noted the poor condition of the miners and determined to do something about it. Bicycles seemed the answer. Eventually, the mining group encountered American riders and it was decided to form a group with the Marquis de Lafayette being the symbol of enduring Franco-American friendship.

The Lafayette Riders alternate between France and the United States each year, and next year (2007) the club will get together in northern California.

Un tour par les petites routes et par des cols ni très hauts ni très connus pour arriver sur une montagne vraiment unique.

Taking small roads and riding over passes neither very high nor well known to climb to a really unique mountain.

Kleine Strassen und wenig bekannte, nicht so hohe Pässe, die zum einem einzigartigen Berg führen.

Freda White in her classic travel book on this region said that a visitor to this region of South West France would cry 'Now I know why they say ``la belle France''!. It is truly one of the best parts of France with beautiful rivers, rugged cliffs and gorges, spectacular cliff top castles and more than its fair share of the ``plus beaux villages'' (prettiest villages). It is a region that has been popular with tourists for years and during the peak holiday season from mid July to mid August, the roads, hotels and campgrounds are packed with holiday makers. Avoid this time of the year and you will have quiet roads to pedal along and a wide choice of accommodation.

This is truly one of Europe's best cycling regions.

We had eaten breakfast on board the ferry from Portsmouth, but shortly after setting up our tents in the campground in the old citadel at St. Malo, Alan and David walked down to the town to look for a boulangerie to buy bread for another breakfast. They had seen people walking about with fresh baguettes, but after wandering around for some time, they hadn't found the boulangerie. They stopped on a street corner thinking that there had to be one somewhere. They turned around and found that they were actually standing in the doorway of the boulangerie blocking the entrance. Armed with several baguettes, croissants and confiture, they started on their way back to the campground, only to be waylaid by the aroma of freshly brewed coffee from a waterfront café. Eventually they returned to the other members of the group who quickly devoured everything. This pre-occupation with food was to set the tone for this tour through Brittany and Normandy.

We caught the ferry from Newhaven in southern England to the French port of Dieppe from where we planned on cycling through Normandy. Because of bad weather, the ferry was diverted to Boulogne, 120 kilometres further north. Well that was the official reason given by the captain after we had left Newhaven. One of the crew told us that the real reason was that work on the ferry terminal in Dieppe hadn't been completed so the large hydrofoil ferries which had only started operating the route couldn't berth properly. Most of the people on board were taking advantage of the cheap fares to have a day shopping in France and provided there was a hypermarché nearby, they weren't worried where they ended up. For us on our bicycles, it meant a rethink of our plans.

Zwei Wochen gemütlichen Entlang der Loire radeln. Kleine Hotels, gutes Essen, nette Dörfer und natürlich viele Schlösser. Dazu ein wildes Fluß wie ich ihn in Europa nicht erwartet hatte.

Unterwegs waren wir meist auf ruhigen Strassen - der Radweg befindet sich noch im Aufbau. Nur bei Tours war der Autoverkehr unangenehm.

``For prehistoric man who sheltered in the many caves, for the catholic heretics who defied the Church, and for resistance fighters, war-time refugees and downed WWII pilots who eluded the Nazis to escape over the mountains into Spain,'' the Ariège Pyrénées have a long history of serving as a refuge. Today, this unspoiled region attracts those eager to escape from the stresses of modern life, and cyclists wearied of persecution by vehicular traffic.

Although we found the High Pyrenees a spectacular and historic place to cycle, we enjoyed the Ariege Pyrenees as much or even more. We never thought, in advance, that the two areas would compare, but after tallying all the check marks from our exhaustive field testing and crunching the numbers through our proprietary, mathematical bike tour formulas... we can declare a virtual dead heat. Now I'm left with the difficult task of explaining to the humble reader (that's you) how such a conclusion can be drawn. If you sat in for the two-part High Pyrenees show aired earlier this month, then you'll note immediately that the Ariege isn't quite as spectacular, and perhaps doesn't rank as high in the "friggin', jaw-dropping, gorgeous" category. But here's where it does top the charts: The region has countless, quiet, picturesque, one-lane, rolling and often challenging country roads extending in all directions, and sprinkled with charming villages. The main roads follow the valleys and are sometimes almost flat, but it's easy to find routes that branch off and over steep cols. The roads are in terrific shape; I don't recall a single pothole.

In September 2003 a group of 14 cyclists rode over most of the major cols of the Pyrenees including of course the mighty Tourmalet. The majority of the group had never cycled in mountains, were not 'sporty' cyclists and with an age range of 32 to 65 were a pretty mixed bunch. To make things interesting the group cyclecamped without any motorised back-up at all, everything was carried on the bikes.

The trip was an adventure that in the end raised over £12,000 for the Charity ITDG. In the fortnight it took there was triumph and tragedy; laughter and tears. What follows is the account of that ride

Wir wissen von vorigen Reisen, dass Frankreichs dichtes Netz an Campingplätzen sich für Sternfahrten vom Zeltplatz optimal anbietet. Dazu kommt die einmalige Infrastruktur an kleinen, wenig befahrenen Landstraßen in Frankreich, die Fahrradwege überflüssig macht. Unsere Tour ist kürzer ausgefallen als geplant, aber sie bietet doch einen kleinen Einblick in die Möglichkeiten des Radreisens in Frankreich.

Découvrir la Bretagne, ses paysages, ses traditions, ses légendes, sa culture en vélo avec une cycliste bretonne.

Landschaften, Traditionen und Legenden, Kultur: Die Bretagne mit einer Bretonin auf dem Fahrrad entdecken!

Unrelenting switchbacks, beautiful rugged peaks and the history of the Tour de France. 27 photos and movies (movie) by Steven Hill and Rebecca Heald.

The formidable reputation of the French Pyr´n´es is what intrigued me most. That the best cyclists appear to suffer like mere-mortals each year during the most crucial stages of the Tour de France is a sadistic lure of this great mountain range. Of course, I also wanted to check out, first hand, the beautiful, rugged scenery. My quiver of cycling climbs would be incomplete without the legendary Tourmalet, Ausbisque and so many others.

A self-contained cyclecamping tour of Brittany in September 1999, lasting eleven days and 600 kilometres, with photos.

``The payback for the long uphill stretches came later on, when the last ten kilometres of the day's run to Carhaix was very fast indeed, down superbly smooth highway. Thus it was that I made good time in getting to Carhaix-Plouguer, stopping at the Intermarch´ supermarket to stock up on foodstuffs, toilet rolls and wine. I had been forewarned that the supermarket stood at the top of a very long hill which led down to the Les Hyères campsite, where we would be setting up camp that night, and so it would be wise to stock up there before heading down to the campsite. The bike made a comical sight when I had managed to stow the toilet paper (see picture).''

In 2003 I attempted Paris-Brest-Paris. I didn't finish due to knee troubles, but had a wonderful time nonetheless.

This report covers my first tour of the Alps with three other people, starting in Grenoble and ending in Nice- including my first-ever mountain: l'Alpe-d'Huez. A beautiful 10 days' ride in beautiful weather, over a beautiful landscape.

In September 2003 I organised and led a charity ride in the Pyrenees. A group of 14 braved the elements, and gravity, to raise £12,000 for Intermediate Technology Development Group. The two-week trip involved tears and blood, food and wine, 2000m cols and 50 mph descents. What follows is the record of that trip.

A self supported relaxed bike tour along the beautiful Loire valley. Pretty villages, nature, castles, delicious food, nice hotels - a report of a nearly perfect tour.

Additional infos about travel by train in France.

In September 2005 my wife Carol and I returned to France with our bikes for our 17th cycling trip in that wonderful country where the food is great, the wine is great, the cycling is varied and interesting, the roads are good and the weather is warm and sunny ..... normalement! Because we have criss-crossed the southern half of the country so often it had become difficult to find a route that we had not traveled before. But the Auvergne was an area as yet undiscovered by us so I planned a route that would take us through this lightly populated rugged region that makes up a large part of the Massif Central. Although we had done little training for this trip I was not concerned because I assumed, from the map at left, here, that we were essentially starting at the top and going to the bottom so it should be basically downhill all the way. It turns out that there is absolutely no correlation between north/south and up/down. As usual this trip report is far too wordy, dull, uninteresting. I need to develop a more concise, readable, enjoyable writing style. And you will find interspersed in the travelogue asides in which I attempt to educate the reader, my career in the classroom forcing me to seize every ``teachable moment''. Finally, I wrote much of this as we were experiencing it. I have tried to make the verb tenses coherent but there will be times, I'm sure, when ``rode'' slips into ``ride''. Please accept my apologies for all the above.

>Viewing the Pyrénées stages of the 2003 Tour de France inspired me to choose this itinerary. I knew that replicating the actual TDF stages would be much too long (as the stages are not interconnected) but at the end of the day, I rode 2,488 km which is more than 2/3 of the actual length of the Tour: 3427 km! Having said this, my general average was 82.7 km/cycling day, a very small number by TDF standards.

The general game plan for the demi tour was sketched on a map of France (1/2,000,000). The trajectory chosen as I rode was varied, never dull, grandiose in the Pyrenean cols and valleys, and sprinkled with a number of spectacular towns and cities (Bourges, Toulouse, Poitiers, Chinon, Blois, Chartres, Versailles to name only a few).

Stayed in hotels (generally 2* which is admittedly pricy!), B&B’s and in a Youth hostel (10 Euros/night). Travel can be cheap in France, even without camping. I carried 17 kg of gear.

This trip, our 16th in France en vélo, was quite different from our usual. My wife Carol and I shared a gîte (a fully equipped lodging that can be rented by the week) with three other couples for the first week in l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue near Avignon. After our stay at the gîte we all headed by train to Italy. We left our bikes in Nice where we picked them up after our Italian experience to finish the trip with 9 days of cycling in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Lubéron. The others, who had not brought their bikes to Europe, did not come back to France with us. We had some glitches getting to the gîte due to incompatible flight schedules. I won't bore you with the details. Typically, as in all my other cycle trip reports, there'll be plenty in this report to bore you without adding travel difficulties.

That being said, I must report an end of trip occurrence that had, in retrospect, a significant bearing on this report. As we were leaving Aix-en-Provence for the Marseille-Provence airport on the last day of the trip I got a puncture in my rear tire just outside the city. We stopped at a bus stop where I could lean my bike and I set about removing the rear wheel and the delinquent inner tube, replacing the latter with a new tube. I pumped it full of air and then prepared to re-install the wheel. Carol held the bike frame while I negotiated the chain, the derailleur and the rear cassette. Surprisingly, it went in easily, but then Carol let go of the bike. I reacted, of course, but she was yelling ``MY BIKE IS GONE!!'' Sure enough, in the 60 seconds we were focused on the installation of the wheel, some jackal had seized the opportunity to make off with her bike, including her purse which was in the handlebar bag. Within the purse were her credit cards, some cash, her driver's license, her birth certificate, some other identification papers and a vehicle registration - AND HER PASSPORT!!

After missing a year [...], my wife Carol and I were back in France in 2003 - the 15th cycle trip there. Inspired by the ageless Norman Ford, the 80+ year old Welsh born Texan who does annual strenuous solo European tours, we decided to try the mountainous Mediterranean island of Corsica. Norm, 20 years my senior, had done it 3 years before so we thought if he could, we could. We decided to go in June, before the really hot weather arrived. That strategy didn't work - we spent 2 weeks in 35°C/95°F temperatures. [...] having now experienced the patchy uneven pavement in some regions of Corsica, I'm tempted to recommend a mountain bike (with road tires) instead of a road bike. As usual, we travelled unsupported, staying in hotels and eating our evening meals in restaurants. On the days we cycled we averaged just over 60 km of cycling and we did just over 1100 km for the trip. If you've ever seen Corsica, you'll find that impressive. As always, I am not very good about reining myself in when I'm writing this stuff. Bear with me. There's good stuff included. You just have to be patient and look carefully.

Qu'est-ce que le cyclotourisme? C'est de l'amour ambulant dont la nature est l'objet. Nous devons cette définition à Henri de la Tombelle , dans son manuel du cyclotourisme édité en 1943, et je n'en connais pas de plus satisfaisante.

Pour ma part, même si le cyclotourisme demeure une activité ayant ses exigences d'effort et d'endurance, il n'est pas question de devenir esclave de la moyenne kilométrique. Dans la pratique du vélo, je vois essentiellement une façon agréable de se déplacer dans la nature, de découvrir des paysages, des régions, de réviser sa géographie en allant sur place ressentir la profondeur d'une belle vallée ou l'altitude d'une montagne.

Le Pyrénées, lorsqu'on habite Toulouse, sont l'objet de nombreuses conversations entre amoureux de la nature. Très nombreux sont les adeptes des randonnées durant l'été, et du ski durant l'hiver. Pour notre part, peu attirés par le ski et occupés à bien d'autres activités en été (du vélo par exemple), ces montagnes, pourtant si proches, demeuraient étrangères à nos pérégrinations et du coup globalement méconnues.

We encountered not one hint of anti-American feeling or negativity. Just as last year, the French people were wonderful. People repeatedly went out of their way to help us. One small example: Early in the trip, we were passing through a very small town with almost no signposting on the various intersections. On our third pass through the downtown trying to find the right road, we stopped to ask directions of two ladies talking in to main square. After some discussion, one of them went and got her car and drove to the edge of town just to show us the right way.

Summing up the trip, we had a wonderful time, ate lots of really great food and rode enogh miles not to gain weight in the process. What more can one ask from a vacation?

We are David and Suzette Welch, a nurse and librarian living in Chico California. Even though we are longtime cyclists and tandemists, and took a two week tour for our honeymoon thirty years ago, neither of us had been to Europe before and our total touring experience over the years has been pretty modest. But with age advancing upon us (total team age at the time of this trip was 111 years) we decided it was time to start doing some of those trips we had dreamed of for years.

With an eye to this trip, we had acquired a coupled tandem, which makes the non-cycling parts of the travel ever so much easier. Determined not to be more gauche than necessary, we put a certain amount of time into the study of French. Suzette, with more background and more free time did rather better at that than David. We did lots of pre-trip research online. Particularly helpful were the trip reports posted on the Trento Bike Pages and the generous and expert advice of many of the folks on the Tandem@Hobbes listserve. We dedicate this journal to all those people whose advice helped us, in the hope that this information may help someone else and encourage others to make similar trips.

This is a trip I took in 2002, starting in Dinan in Brittany and biking northeast along the coast through Mont-St-Michel, across the Cotentin penninsula and the D-Day invasion beaches in Normandy, ending in Honfleur. There are nine pages here, each with about a dozen pictures and detailed description.

Welcome to the diary and pics from our July 2002 trip to Amsterdam, Brussels, and mostly France. Amsterdam and Brussels were explorered on foot, but for France we took our bikes with all the way from South Africa. For friends, enjoy the pics and diary. For others, we hope that our experiences and info we've given here help to make planning your trip a little easier.

We were originally planning a conventional holiday overseas, until I had the good fortune to spot the Lonely Planet Cycling France book in a bookshop, which really got the planning juices going. We had bikes, a reasonable level of fitness, France sounded great for riding, we could get to see some of the Tour de France, ... it sounded like the perfect holiday!

After watching Lance and the Tour de France peleton zoom through the Alps in the 2002 Tour, me and my clubmates Neil and Chris started to plan a quick four day dash to the Alps to sample the famous climbs, and get a late season fitness boost. Chris was the organizer and did a superb job of finding accomodation and booking flights. We flew to Grenoble [and stayed] in Venosc.

Venosc is a charming, quiet mountain village with narrow, cobbled alleys, craft shops, bars and restaurants. I recommend ``Le Petit Pub'' just below the church, and the Pizzeria just round the corner where they make your pizzas right in front of you on a wood fired oven.

The only snag about staying there is that every day begins with a cold descent back to the N91 in the Romanche Valley, and ends with a tough climb back to Venosc. The redeeming features of the return climb are the fact that it isn't very long, and that you can also visit the Dutch cycling pub on the way back. This is marked by a red bicycle at the side of the road and is worth a visit for the friendly, English-speaking service, and good Pelforth beer served. They do afternoon pasta too!

On the first day we decided to warm up on the Col de Sarenne approach to the village of Alped'Huez. We climbed towards the Lautaret on the N91 to Freney d'Oisans, crossed the dam, and turned left on the D25 towards Mizoen. Follow the left fork above the village through Clavans le Bas and Clavans le Haut. The road above the villages is a tremendous, quiet climb in an open valley with great views. The surface is very poor, but it's not too much of a problem when climbing. [In the picture at right you see] Chris climbing towards the col. The small village at the right of the picture is Clavans le Haut, only about half way up the climb.

This is a log of a month long cycle tour in France that I took with my wife Carol and (for the first ten days) two friends in the summer of 1997. [...] This was my 11th cycling tour in France (9th for Carol) and my 13th in Europe. We are what many cycle tourists disparagingly refer to as credit card tourists.

We headed north over the rolling hills of the Beaujolais, vineyards everywhere, stopping at Salles-Arbuissonas-en-Beaujolais. [...] We passed Côte de Brouilly and Brouilly vineyards - we had planned to pass through all ten Beaujolais cru's on that day. (Quick trivia question for you oenophiles out there: Can you name the ten? Bonus question: Which one is the most recently included? Answers at the bottom of this trip log.)

This site is about our cycling adventure to the southwest of France in the fall of 2002. We loved our trip so much, we decided to put up this site to share our photos, share our stories and hopefully inspire fellow cyclists to visit this stunning part of France. Enchanting medieval towns, quiet back roads, breathtaking landscapes, friendly people, and of course, great food and wine await you in this beautiful country. We have traveled in many areas of France by bike: Normandy, Brittany, Loire Valley, Alsace, Provence, The Alps, Corsica and Paris. In our humble opinion, there is no better way to see France then on the seat of your bike, with a baguette and fine bottle of wine strapped to your panniers.

Our trip was an 18-day tour of the Southwest, encompassing the regions of Perigord and Quercy. We cycled along the beautiful Dordogne, Vézère, Lot and Célé rivers. The months of September and October are an excellent time to bike tour in this region. The fall colors, grape harvests and cooler temperatures made the cycling very enjoyable and we avoided the hordes of tourists who flock here during the summer months. With the exception of the huge thunderstorm we experienced in Bordeaux the first day, the rest of the trip broughtnothing but sunny, clear skies. We cycled 11 out of the 18 days covering 660km, staying at campgrounds and budget hotels along the way. It was a fantastic tour and we highly recommend it to anyone.

The slow pace of cycle touring allows you to truly see andappreciate a country. You have the opportunity to see small villages and meet local people that you would otherwise not experience. Imagine riding along the banks of a gentle flowing river, with fairy tail castles in the distance, visiting medieval towns and lunching on fresh bread, great cheese and some of the best wine in the world. Most tours can be tailored to fit all levels of fitness; you don't have to be an athlete to enjoy riding your bike along the French countryside. By touring on a bike, your vacation becomes an adventure; you experience the real country, not just the tourist sites. Fresh air, exercise, beautiful scenery and let's not forget guilt-free indulging. Bike touring is the way to go.

Some friend's weather horrors of last year prompted us to 1) go somewhere with good weather and 2) hire a car to introduce more off-bike possibilities. Provence fitted the weather bill [...] So: Just drive carefully, and expect every blind corner to have someone in a battered 106 coming too fast the other way in the middle of the road, and you won't go far wrong.

Eine anspruchsvolle Radtour in 8 Tagesetappen über insgesamt 620 km durch die französischen Alpen; Tagesetappen zwischen 64 und 95 Kilometer.

That's an itinerary used by a lot of people. It's a route for hardcore bikers. That's the reason why so many reports are published about this famous route though the Alpes. It is a part of 'Le Tour de France' with all its fascination.

Alès is a quiet town at the southern edge of the Massif Central, France's central mountains. We stayed the night in Alès and entered the mountains the next morning. The ride from Alès to Le Puy on D906 was clearly the highlight of the entire tour. (Also, as it happens, my birthday.) The road winds its way through the deep narrow valleys of the mountains. There is very little traffic, and gorgeous views at every bend of the road.

This is my account of a trip to France to ride the Paris Roubaix race route. Being an ex- amateur racing cyclist and a devoted fan of cycle racing it has always been an ambition of mine and having spent many years watching the race on Eurosport I finally decided to give it a go. The route was plotted on a map from Internet race route details and constant study of video coverage. My brother Jong agreed to join me and my girlfriend Allison agreed to act as our `back up' vehicle. We rode standard race bikes with 700c x 23 tyres (Kevlar). Mine is equipped with carbon forks and Jong's with steel straight forks and apart from routine maintenance we set off with no special precautions.

The 2001 edition of the race was run off the previous weekend in absolute hellish conditions and we were afraid that we would encounter the same. The week before we went was accompanied with strong cold Northerly winds and constant downpours of hail and sleet so I was very nervous. The race is steeped in legend, `Hell of the North' etc but in fact is a very pleasant and interesting route (when dry!) and is virtually untouched by traffic beyond Bohain. We enjoyed it immensely and I would recommend it but unless you are a real purist like me then don't bother with the Compiegne - St Quentin leg.

Covering the Loire and the Coast.

I soon was on my way up to Col d'Azet (1580 m) - it was blazingly hot so I was lucky I stayed by the shop before starting the second climb of the day. There were really many cyclists out now as the Tour de France was now only something like three hour behind us ;-). At the start of the real climb there were two italians who passed by me looking very serious and I again could not help but try to figure out just how good these chaps could be. I noticed they got slightly irritated by not be able to shake me off, although they at a few places got away from me a couple of meters, I simply did not give up and always catched up with them. When approaching the top I for some reason got some extra strength and just slowly raised the speed until they both had to give up and they stopped to shake hands with me at the top and a waiting girlfriend (of them) took the photo here. The average speed up this climb was around 14 km/h, which I think is rather good for an amateur like me. The Tour de France riders do not go terribly much faster really (maybe up to 18 km/h perhaps - do not exactly though).

This was a smaller road and, as often on narrower roads, it were very nice scenery around there, as you could see. It was a somewhat hilarious ride down to the valley below and I continued down the valley to Arreau where I had lunch. Now I had taken off from the Tour route for the day (they were going to Plan d'Adet - just across the valley from the Azet col).

I thought I should now take it a bit easier and not compete. I started gently on my way up to Col d'Aspin (1489 m), but soon there were an englishman (from the Docklands in London) passing by me and I changed my speed a little and followed him. We were both raising the speed a little and it thus turned into yet another competition (with almost as many people on the side of the road as previously despite that this was the Tour road for tomorrow). Well, a bit easier than with the Italians I sprinted away from him at the top of the Col and we talked a little and had someone take a photo of us both.

The summer of 2001 took my wife Carol and me (and our bikes, of course) back to France for the 14th time. This time we would be joining 4 friends (Sue Fleming, Patty Keeble, Chris McGee and Sue McDonald) for a tour of the Pays de la Loire and northern Burgundy after we had cycled by ourselves for 10 days from Toulouse to our meeting place in the Vend e. Our frequent cycling companions, Peter and Heather Stark, had also planned to join us with the others but a family illness caused them to remain behind in Canada - a great loss to our group. Carol and I had not been to the Loire region since our first cycle trip in France in 1984. Both Sue's had also cycled the Loire valley in the past but this would be the first cycle tour anywhere for both Chris and Patty. Because of the size of the group, all our accommodations had been booked before we left. As with all my tour reports you will be seeing my personal view of the trip, colored by my many biases, and a disturbing tendency to verbosity. As I always say: Caveat emptor! (Let the buyer beware!)