Saint-Malo to Nice

When I first suggested cycling from one end of France to the other to my husband, he wasn’t quite sure if I was serious or not.  But I had just purchased the book, ‘France en Velo’ from the gift shop on the Brittany Ferry that was taking us home from our last cycling trip in Normandy.  We have been together for long enough for him to know this was no joke, we were going. 

Protesting as he does, that he ‘is no cyclist’ he has come a long way for someone that doesn’t do cycling.  In the last year he joined 40 plus, loves the group rides and he’s been to Spain on the group holiday too! We have numerous practice days out in the saddle building up the miles and stamina. Not bad for someone who doesn’t cycle.  Therefore, an 1,800 km trip from one end of France to the other, well, I couldn’t see what the fuss was about. 

Five months of planning, plotting every route and booking all the hotels, checking they had facilities for the batteries on the bikes to be recharged. Only two out of the 21 hotels we originally booked refused the e-bikes.  Little did we know we were going to be travelling through the spiritual home of e-bikes - so much more accepted as a means of getting from A to B, they seem to be more common than conventional bikes.

We chose a departure date of June 1st to avoid the heat of the Mediterranean summer.  We found ourselves at St Malo, where the accepted start point is the fort in the old town, with the Channel behind us, and with no idea what lay ahead.  The thought of three weeks on the road, cycling on average 90km every day, no back up or support, barely able to change a puncture between us, one of couldn’t and the other had no idea (you can decide which was which), and just each other for company.  This was quite an overwhelming thought, so we just took it one day at a time.  Every day was going to be an adventure, and that was the only thing we focused on. 

The route along north coast of Brittany would have been great if we’d wanted oysters, but they are quite ugly creatures and thought of stopping to eat them did not fill me with joy. We admired the sea view instead and took a slight detour to Mont St Michel.  Not exactly a bike friendly island as you can’t take them into the town, so we waved and that was the last time we saw the north coast of France on our trip.   

Two long days to push down to the Loire through the ghost towns of northern France proved to be a good decision, depopulation has left endless villages empty of life.  We had our first experience of baguettes from vending machines - it’s not quite the same as getting your bread from the boulangerie, just didn’t feel the same.

Our newly acquired orange waterproofs were worn every day, whether for the wind, rain or cold, I think someone forget to tell the weather gods it was June. 

One chateau or a grey church steeple started to look very much like another, so we agreed we would admire from the outside, and choose not to leave our bikes anywhere we couldn’t see them.  The medieval towns were predictably the bone rattling parts of our routes and always with a steep hill somewhere to be climbed.  What we loved was the fact the towns are very much part of everyday life, they are not tourist traps, people just getting on with their everyday lives.

Sometimes the best things in life don’t cost very much, and the banks of the Loire at Possonnière gave us a memorable evening sipping Anjou Rose and watching the sun go down.  The vineyards along the Route du Vin were plentiful, as were the flowers.  Fontenay Abbey was in bloom, the rows and rows of houses adorned with climbing roses were stunning, although we never made it inside the Abbey.  Roses gave way to fields of poppies which paved our route down the whole west side of our route. 

The wonderful thing about touring is you really never know what is round the next corner, and no matter how much preparation you do it just never can prepare you for something which has the ‘wow factor’ that you didn’t know was coming.  Saint-Mattiue La Couade was one such place, maybe it was the light that was just perfect at the time we got there and the reflections in the lake were breathtaking, or perhaps it was all the more beautiful because we had just left a main road and a steep hill.  No matter, whilst a picture is worth a thousand words, this one was captured in our minds for ever. 

Cycling through a part of France we didn’t know, staying and passing through chocolate box villages with names we could hardly pronounce, the ride between Brantome and Les Eyzies-de-Tayac Sireuil was one of the best days ever in the saddle, the route just kept on giving.  This was the only day in our trip on which we could have taken a shorter ride, but that would have been on busy roads and after 2km it was just no.  O instead of 80km we opted for the full 112km.  The apple orchards, the flowers, the old roman bridges and quietly meandering rivers, were incredible. The Tursac houses in the rocks… well I cannot imagine how they built them let alone lived in them, the logistics of daily life must have been so hard.

Every trip needs a route blunder and we certainly had one, somewhere around Figeac, it all looked okay on screen, until you zoomed in and saw a white dotted line, oh dear, the road vanished and the only way was up a steep rocky precipice, it wasn’t ridable at all - off the bikes and push, and for even that was impossible.  Mike left his bike at the bottom and decided to a hero for the day and pushed mine up and went back and got his.  I literally thought this would cause a heart attack, you cannot imagine how steep and awful this hill through the forest was.  But I need not have worried, I had not accounted for the battery, he came out like he was 007 riding Little Nellie in You Only Live Twice, full power, I laughed so much my sides were splitting.

Halfway felt wonderful, with fewer miles in-front of us than behind, it was the only time that the enormity of our journey was something we celebrated.  But with the Massif Central to ride over, any thoughts of wine tasting were swiftly put on hold.  We crossed the pass with a packet of peanuts and a banana and not a café in sight.  Always be prepared and carry enough food and water for the whole day - wise plans of mine.  Mike really was fed up with the fruit cake he had been carrying for a week as an emergency snack, but you just never know, and today was a ‘never know’ day. 

A rest day in Entraygues-Sur-Truyere, was the only break we had, where the pace of life just stopped.  The Lot was green and lush and is certainly worth a return visit.  We spent three days cycling through its valley, then the Gorge and up to its source. 

When we crossed watershed between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean (yes, there is a sign to tell you!), it also marked a big increase in cost, hotels, food, you name it, everything went up by 30%.  We had a few shorter days in our final week, and when I planned the route I hadn’t really appreciated the elevation differences between the two halves of the trip, flat and rolling on the west side, and hilly and more hills across the bottom, that about says it all you need to know.  And hills became mountains, and they rolled in thick and fast.

The Ardeche Gorge was the one of the steepest climbs we had, the segments on the Wahoo were crimson red - if that doesn’t get your heart pumping nothing will.  But as we left the river and hills behind us, we encountered the flats of the Rhone valley.  And with it the weather went over 30 degrees for the first time.  We found ourselves in a mini heatwave with another mountain to climb.  Any thought of wine tasting was forgotten - it was now about survival. Chips and fizzy water was all we wanted.  The Rhone Alps gave way to the Provence Alps, and the fields went purple and the water of the Verdon Gorge turquoise.  Up, up and up was all we did, why Ridewithgps had so many segments for the Gorge, it was really just a single 30km incline.  Any thoughts about climbing Ventoux were laughable for us.  Extra elevation, no thank you! 

The trip really did save the best to last.  The Alps were sensational, some of the toughest days in the saddle, but the satisfaction of having made it across France from End to End was quite something.  Remember Mike is ‘not a cyclist’, yeh well that record needs to be switched off, we rode the trip together, we took thousands of photos and saved them all in a book, making memories every day. 

As we rode along the Promenade des Anglais under the palm trees in Nice, our journey came to end, and our only thoughts were – where next ?