Category: Le Grand Tour

Le Grand Tour: Day 21 – Louannec To Morlaix (36km + Train)

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Finally writing this up… Not many will read this (as the post was published last night without any text) but it will, at least, be an aide-memoire when I later use these notes to write a book. In a way the ‘Mercedes afternoon’ I had experienced on the previous day continued until the following morning. Yes, it was a cheap, municipal campsite but it was packed to the rafters with screaming children. One particular specimen gets his / her starring role in episode 055 of The Cycling Europe Podcast which has now been published.

Le Grand Tour: Day 20 – Saint-Quay To Louannec (72km)

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The omens were not good at 8am. The campsite at Saint-Quay certainly lived up to its name by having a ‘belle vue’. Indeed my pitch – as with many others – was facing north-east and if there were no clouds, we were in for a cracking sunrise. I happened to be awake at 5am so I clamped the GoPro to its tripod and set in motion a time lapse video. Alas it was cloudy and the resulting video merely showed black clouds become grey ones. Nothing too spectacular there. However, by 8am the sun had risen and was beginning to poke through the clouds. Perhaps an opportunity to get the drone in action to capture the magic. And it did. You can see that shot at the start of today’s video.

Le Grand Tour: Day 19 – Hillion To Saint-Quay (50km)

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A shorter day – just 50km – but it helps me out when it comes to getting to Morlaix by the end of Saturday. Where I am now – a place called Saint-Quay – is about half way between Mont-Saint-Michel and Morlaix and this makes the two planned long days of cycling to Morlaix a bit shorter and hence more manageable. My average has now dipped below 80km per day but I’m sure that will be rectified as I speed along the flat(ish) lands of the Velodyssée next week.

Le Grand Tour: Day 18 – Saint-Briac-Sur-Mer To Hillion (80km)

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You are not reading this on Wednesday 20th as, yesterday evening, my 25GB of data ran out. I was expecting this to happen at some point and also expected to be able to easily purchase more data. But that’s when it got problematic. A phone call to Vodafone is on the cards when their call centre opens on Thursday morning. I suppose if all else fails I can buy a French SIM card. There’s also the matter of me having had to change my mobile number (could that be complicating things?) but that sorry tale is for another day (and probably another website…)

Le Grand Tour: Day 16 – Roz-Sur-Couesnon / Forward Planning

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Last night on the campsite there were at least seven cyclists and another four walkers in the cycling-walking section. All except me have now left and I have been joined, so far, by just two cyclists. It will be interesting to see if people are, like me, staying put for the day and not travelling in light of the extreme temperature. That said, it clearly didn’t dissuade any of my fellow campers last night. Perhaps it was something I said…

Le Grand Tour: Day 15 – Domfront To Mont-Saint-Michel (83km)

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If cycling along disused railways for fun (and why else would you do it?), then the Veloscenie is for you. Prior to embarking upon my Chartres to Mont-Saint -Michel section of the route (which is about 80%) I’d read that the Veloscenie connected the capital with the north coast by linking up defunct railway lines but I wasn’t expecting them to be such a dominant part of the route. It must be at least two-thirds of the total length and, in temperatures such as those provoked by this current heatwave, you couldn’t wish for a better place to cycle, the sun been screened for much of the time by the surrounding vegetation.

Le Grand Tour: Day 14 – Alençon To Domfront (73km)

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If yesterday was a spinning class of a ride, today was a spinning class with that knob below the handlebars cranked up several notches. If your route passes the ‘highest point in north-west France’ you can probably guess you’re in for an up and down day and, at gradients that a train could cope with when they plodded up and down these valleys many decades ago, that’s what happened. More disused railways – the area must once have been a maze of lines – with a handful of pencil-straight-Roman roads. More satisfying that yesterday and a much more welcoming end at a municipal campsite that breaks records. Keep reading…

Le Grand Tour: Day 13 – Nogent-Le-Rotrou To Alençon (93km)

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Today was the equivalent of a cycle touring spinning class. Well, mostly. Almost the entire route from Nogent-le-Rotrou to Alençon was off road and along a very long disused railway line. I almost felt guilty for having made all of those men work so hard 100? 200? years ago in building the railway line in the first. Now it’s ‘just’ being used by cyclists and walkers. But hey! At least it’s still in use…

Le Grand Tour: Day 12 – Chartres To Nogent-Le-Rotrou (79km)

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To answer Joe Stafford’s question (that he posted to YouTube a few moments ago) immediately; yes, it’s hot but if you take the necessary measures to protect yourself then I think you’ll be fine. Joe is coming to France soon but as long as he does what we are told to do; cover up (I’m on my second hat of the trip…), plaster yourself in factor 50 (I’m still looking very pale compared to the French), drink lots of water (my two Cycle Touring Festival bottles are drained at least three times a day) and keep eating (no problem there if you are burning lots of calories), you’ll be fine.

Le Grand Tour: Day 11 – Paris To Chartres

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Back to the writing. I’m currently on a busy train that’s about to set off for Le Mans. I’ll be getting off at Chartres, one step along the Veloscenie cycle route from Paris. Busy in terms of people, busy in terms of bicycles; the current count is six of which three are laden touring bikes. It’s a sight that would leave your average Trans Pennine Express train guard seeking counselling. There are people clambering over the bikes as they make their way down the carriages to find their seat. Now far be for me to say but if people actually worked out which carriage to get on when they are on the platform, like would be somewhat easier. Anyway, I digress… and we are off. Six bicycles it is.

Le Grand Tour: Day 10 – Dangu To Paris (101km)

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CURRENT LOCATION: La Tartine, Rue de Rivoli, Paris Today the words are in the video… LATEST CYCLING EUROPE POSTS: Subscribe to the Cycling Europe YouTube Channel Since 2009, CyclingEurope.org has established itself as a valued, FREE cycle touring resource. There’s now even a podcast, The Cycling Europe Podcast. […]

Le Grand Tour: Day 8 – Dieppe To Forges-Les-Eaux (57km)

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Tick, tick, tick… Basically that’s what I’ve spent today doing. Ticking off all the things that you might, in an ideal world, want a disused railway line, converted into a walking-cycling greenway – voie verte here in France – to have. If the département of Seine-Maritime set out to build what I consider to be an unbeatable bit of cycle-touring infrastructure, they succeeded.

Le Grand Tour: Week 1

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CURRENT LOCATION: Dieppe If you missed anything, here’s the first week in video. Enjoy! LATEST CYCLING EUROPE POSTS: Subscribe to the Cycling Europe YouTube Channel Since 2009, CyclingEurope.org has established itself as a valued, FREE cycle touring resource. There’s now even a podcast, The Cycling Europe Podcast. If […]

Le Grand Tour: Day 7 – Dieppe

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Let’s start with some good news. Upon arrival in Dieppe yesterday after a long cycle in the heat, I sat down for a beer by the harbour and was, imho… fleeced €9 for a 50cl Leffe Blond on draft. (That’s a price Copenhagen’s harbour cafés would be proud of.) The evidence in my favour was a menu that said the price was €4.50 and that the drinks were served as 50cl or 75cl, giving the impression that it wasn’t an option for the premium Leffe to be a modest ‘demie pression’ (25cl). The drink was delivered and €9 demanded. I immediately complained and walked out in digust. Well, OK, being British, I smiled and tossed a cherry ‘merci’ in the waiter’s direction handing over my cash while seething internally. So where’s the good news? Well, having visited the local tabac-café this morning and paid the princely sum of €1.50 for a coffee (all in the name of price research), I’m back here now enjoying a 25cl draft Kronenbourg for €2.80. Success!

Le Grand Tour: Day 6 – Saint-Quentin-En-Tourmon To Dieppe (96km)

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Phew! What a scorcher… And it’s apparently going to get hotter. I daubed myself three times today with factor 50 but I’ll be investing in a cap of some description tomorrow (as well of more supplies of the sun cream). Yet I’m staying well hydrated and fed by the French. Today’s food has all come courtesy of the toil of French labour; pastries from the boulangerie in Le Crotoy, fruit from a market in the same town and now a three-course meal in Dieppe at a restaurant called Le Sully. So far – a starter of smoked salmon and herring on a bed of new potatoes – so good, but I’ll update you as the meal progresses… I feel like Rick Stein without a film crew (and a bicycle).

Le Grand Tour: Day 5 – Oye-Plage To Saint-Quentin-en-Tourmont (91km)

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A day to remember… Some of you may think that politics has no place on a website such as this. Yet I disagree. A head of government represents the country. He or she is not seen by those in other countries as a Tory or a socialist or a liberal or whatever. They are simply an embodiment of what the ‘majority’ are thinking. (Majority! Well, not in our archaic first-past-the-post system but that’s another argument.) So when I meet people and ask them what they think of our prime minister, it’s embarrassing to be told that he is thought of as an ‘idiot’ or ‘joker’ because in a small way they are saying that about me and you. We, collectively, gave him the power. I never voted for him but I am part of the system that did. I am glad that he will soon be gone. I watched him speak live on my phone this lunchtime. Just as he finished, I passed in front of a magnificent hotel in Le Touquet called… Le Westminster. Everyone, irrespective of the politics, should be glad that he will soon be replaced.

Le Grand Tour: Day 4 – Ostend To Oye-Plage (94km)

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Is he still there? By the time you read this (posting is going to be delayed until Thursday morning due to the lack of a good mobile signal) he may well have been dragged out of Downing Street, kicking and screaming. Last night I had the pleasure of staying with a WarmShowers host in the outskirts of Ostend. He has lead the development of a co-housing project and he now lives on a large plot of land not far from the airport along with 17 other families – around 70 people in total – with separate homes but shared facilities. It’s a real village and it was wonderful to spend a few hours last night in their company talking about the development, the motivation for creating such a place and the practical advantages of doing so. (There are many – I’ll list them in the book!) I spent much of the evening chatting to a retired firefighter called Michel and the subject moved on to politics. I asked him what people in general thought of Boris Johnson in Belgium. “A joke” was his response… 

Le Grand Tour: Day 3 – Vlissingen To Ostend (63km)

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This trip is turning out to have more ferries than a cycle up the west coast of Norway. Another two today; at the start from Vlissingen to Breskens and a short one at the end across the harbour in Ostend. I think, however, that may be it for the time being. Sandwiched between the two boats was a 69km cycle along the coast to Ostend and it was somewhat different to what I had expected…

Le Grand Tour: Day 2 – Ouddorp To Vlissingen (64km)

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I’m coming to the conclusion that The Netherland is one big engineering project. Today was dominated by the dams and dykes of the west coast. I was told yesterday- I think it was Professor Matthias – that a dam is a barrier between water and water and a dyke is a barrier between water and land. I couldn’t quite work out if the barriers upon which I cycled were dams or dykes as although most separated the sea from the land, the land itself was fully of large lakes. Answers on a postcard. (Or in a comment…)

Le Grand Tour: Day 1 – The Hook Of Holland To Ouddorp (32km + 41km)

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Today could have just the 41km, or thereabouts, and it nearly was. My journey will, hopefully, end at The Hook of Holland, which is just opposite where the P&O ferry berthed this morning. A circular journey should really start and finish at the same iconic spot. The P&O ferry terminal probably isn’t that place so I decided to head to the Hook of Holland. Easier said than done as, although very close to ferry terminal as the crow flies, no where near if you need to cycle there. Hence the extra 32km, but I’m glad I did it.

Le Grand Tour: Day 0 – Halifax To Hull (17km)

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Welcome to Le Grand Tour! I can’t decide whether the cycle officially started in Halifax when I shut my front door behind me or whether it will start when I get to the Hook of Holland tomorrow. I’ve compromised and called this ‘first’ day, ‘Day 0’. Now I think about it, that’s not a compromise is it? Oh well…

Le Grand Tour: T-1 Day – Packed!

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I am packed! I can thoroughly recommend gradually gathering your kit together in your living room in the ​weeks before the off. The packing process is much easier and all those ‘have I remembered…?’ questions have (hopefully) been answered well before the off. As for the clichéd ‘kit pic’ I’ve taken a slightly different approach, as you can see below. I set off tomorrow lunchtime; train from Halifax to Hull and then the overnight ferry to Rotterdam…

Le Grand Tour: T-2 Days

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Just a couple of days to go to the off. I’m almost there, I think, with the preparation. The bike has been returned from its service, the kit assembled (if not packed), the last-minute purchases (nuts…) made, the train ticket to Hull booked, accommodation for the first three nights (four including the overnight ferry) sorted… All that remains is two days of procrastination (and a bit mor Wimbledon and wine). I finish work for the summer later today.

Northern France: Julian Ralph (2022) And His Grandfather (1940)

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A few weeks ago I chatted to Julian Ralph for The Cycling Europe Podcast. He had plans to cycle in the footsteps of his grandfather who, in 1940, had been evacuated from northern France at the start of the Second World War. This was planned as a ‘before’ and ‘after’ conversation. The ‘after’ conversation will be published as part of episode 052 of The Cycling Europe Podcast that will be recorded and edited on the ferry from Hull to Rotterdam next weekend. But in anticipation of that podcast – which will include my pre-trip thoughts about cycling around France, Switzerland and Germany during July and August – here is Julian talking about his plans for his four-day trip around northern trip…

Le Grand Tour: T – 1 Week – The Calm Before The Sun, Hopefully

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Now getting to the pointy end of the planning. Just a week to go before I set off on the ferry from Hull, destination Rotterdam, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Switzerland, Germany and a return to The Netherlands and Rotterdam in early September. My mind has been on other things in recent days as I’ve been away for a few days, not on the bike, but with 120 12-year-old pupils on a school trip to the YHA hostel near Ambleside on the shores of Lake Windermere. An idyllic location. Well, it was before we arrived in our two coaches. The peace was somewhat disturbed by the inevitable noise but everything went to plan, including the weather which was sublime (until Thursday evening when it decided to chuck it down…)

The Kit Required To Blog, Video And Podcast Around Europe

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Here’s a post that some will love but others with loathe… I’ve been gathering together my kit for Le Grand Tour for a few days now and there will, inevitably, be a rather clichéd picture of it all laid out on the floor (see previous big trip kit posts ad nausea…). Look out for that perhaps the day before I set off on July 2nd. It will be the usual standard stuff; tent, sleeping bag, packet of spaghetti (“You do know they have dried spaghetti in France don’t you…” some wag will quip)… But what usually gets lost in those photos is the electronic kit that, increasingly, seems to be standard. Although many will disagree…

The Cycling Europe Podcast: Episode 051 – Freewheeling In France With Lyn Eyb

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France is a top destination for cycle tourists and, with its great diversity of landscapes – from windswept cliffs in the north to vast swathes of forest in the west to sun-drenched villages in the south to vertiginous climbs in the east – it has (almost) everything that a traveller on a bicycle might want to discover. Lyn Eyb from FreeWheelingFrance.com has been exploring and writing about France ever since she arrived in the country over a decade ago. She shares her thoughts with The Cycling Europe Podcast and takes time to answer listeners’ questions about the practical aspects of being a cyclist in France.

green grass field

Le Grand Tour: T – 3 Weeks (Or Thereabouts)

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After a spell of poor weather, summer seems to have finally arrived in the UK. A sign of things to come on the continent in July and August? The blast of warm air has come from the south – it always does I suppose – and I am hopeful of decent weather as I head off along Le Grand Tour. But I’m not counting my poulets just yet. The last time I mentioned Le Grand Tour back on June 5th, I was still somewhat uncertain as to when I would be catching the ferry but as of a few days ago, the date has been confirmed as July 2nd. With a return scheduled for the night of September 3rd, I will have nine weeks to achieve my objective of cycling around France, then to Andermatt in Switzerland and finally north along the Rhine back to where I started at the Hook of Holland. And I’m finally getting excited about the prospect of doing so…

France / French: Preparing For The Next Podcast

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At 9am this morning – Sunday 12th – I’m going to record a chat with Lyn Eyb of FreewheelingFrance.com. It’s the second attempt to do this this week as on Thursday evening the Internet connection was so poor that we abandoned it as a bad job. Hopefully by choosing 9am on a Sunday morning, the Internet will be a little less clogged up with people watching Netflix, downloading games etc… Anyway, my discussion with Lyn will form the basis of the next episode of The Cycling Europe Podcast – episode 051 – and I’ve been doing a bit of preparation…

Le Grand Tour: T – 1 Month (Or Thereabouts…)

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So, with The Way of the Roses trip over, the podcast published and the film released, and the Platinum Jubilee events nearly finished, my mind is turning to this summer’s trip to the continent; a ferry to The Netherlands, turn right at the Hook of Holland, along the coast of The Netherlands and Belgium, around France, into Switzerland and back to Rotterdam via the Rhine.

Le Grand Tour 2022: The Inevitable Animated Map

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Subscribe to the Cycling Europe YouTube Channel Visit the dedicated Grand Tour page of CyclingEurope.org to find out more about the planned 2022 cycle along some of western Europe’s most iconic cycle routes. Since 2009, CyclingEurope.org has established itself as a valued, FREE cycle touring resource. There’s now […]

A Wanda Around Europe, Explained

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Earlier today some of you must have been scratching your heads just a little upon seeing the Twitter post or the Facebook post or the Instagram post relating to my decision to ‘tweak’ the route of my upcoming cycle around the Baltic Sea. It is, admittedly, one hell of a tweak. So much of a tweak in fact that the only remaining part of that planned Baltic Sea Cycle that remains in the new planned cycle is the rather short journey from the ferry port in Rotterdam to the Hook of Holland. And yes, even that section is nowhere near the Baltic Sea. The new route will see me not turn left upon arrival in The Netherlands but turn right in the direction of Belgium, then France, then (after quite a while) through Switzerland, then Germany before finally returning to the Hook of Holland and my return journey across the North Sea to Hull. Mmm… Perhaps ‘tweak’ might not have been the most appropriate of words. So why the change?