Do Your Research
Falling Down the Rabbit Hole
It all started in the best possible way and worst possible way. The best was finding a 1910 travel guide to Normandy and Brittany. In that ancient book lay inspiration, purpose, some boundary to the expedition, and a mission. A tour of Brittany following a 1910 itinerary would be sure to encompass nature, architecture and journeying in its widest sense. If the two intervening world wars and later commercialisation had changed things slightly, well, I would find out as I travelled the road. Then came the worst. Internet searches. A wealth of information to be mined, broken down, smelted, and cast into something usable. Despite the many temptations of well supported recognised routes and the attraction of doing a couple of French Parkruns, Rouen and Bois de Boulogne in case you are wondering, I managed to keep to my plan. Cycle Tour of Brittany; 1910 itinerary.
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| The inspiration |
Being good at forgetting I have tried to detail my own considerations and decisions and have included a number of references for no other reason than to remind me how to plan my next trip.
Budget
Always worth consideration and I planned to prioritise equipment (quality and lightweight) and tour duration (long) over luxury and that meant camping. Many people see camping as an ordeal but I find it easy to pitch a tent, I sleep soundly, and breaking camp is not onerous when you have a little bit of practice. Brittany juts out into the Atlantic ocean and is known for it's rain but it isn't hard to wait a while for the rain to stop for you to deal with the tent. The affordable fixed price meal, le menu, is still a thing in France and can help stretch the budget if you organise yourself to be in the right place at the right time where the right time is 12:00 to 14:00. In my planning I'd put some effort into finding suitable campsites and suitable places to catch le menu. If I manage to plot a course with food and shelter I'd be alright on €40 a day.
- Breakfast (bakery) €5
- Lunch (le menu) €12
- Dinner (picnic) €8
- Camping €15
Approach
Getting to France, and travelling around France, can be made easier and less strenuous by using trains and many French trains have special carriages with hooks and straps to secure your bike. However, I like the idea of staying on my own two wheels and would set off from home by bike and head to a ferry port resuming the pedalling on French soil. Had I been planning a tour of Provence I would have used one of the coach services that specialises in transporting cycles and cyclists. Ferries operate a range of services and one problem for me with the many daytime sailings is that you would need to cycle early in the morning to catch the ferry, possibly in the dark, and have the same problem the other end, navigating in the dark to your accommodation. I resolved to take night crossings which takes care of a bed for the night and would allow me to stay at the port during any periods of darkness. The regular Portsmouth to Saint-Malo crossing sails at 20:15 arriving conveniently in Saint-Malo at 08:15 but typically returns during the day so I could return from Caen on the 23:45 sailing arriving at Portsmouth at 06:45. The alternative, if you examine the timetable closely, is the weekly overnight sailing from Saint-Malo to Portsmouth which sails at 20:30.
Unlike other walks and cycle tours the plan was to visit the larger towns as recommended by my 1910 guide. One of the drawbacks of camping is that campsites are usually out of town so if you plan to pitch your tent then stroll around town for dinner and take in the sights then that means some extra walking or cycling. It is worth thinking about how the typical day might work and how to cope with shop closures on Sundays and restaurant closures on Mondays. My broad strategy for each day was to get up and leave early, look out for a local boulangerie or bar for breakfast, hit the towns at around 12 noon to catch a main meal for the day (café, restaurant or supermarket picnic), tour the town then head for a countryside campsite where I could pitch, eat leftovers from the day and generally rest without the need to go hunting for food. To help manage access to power and the expected need for a pragmatic accommodation solution I would also use the occasional hotel or B&B (chambres d'hotes).
Alternate approaches include credit card touring where you basically equip yourself for a day ride, take a credit card, and a passport if required, and go cycling paying your way in hotels, cafés and bike repair shops doing laundry overnight, stuffing toothbrush and bare essentials in a saddle bag. You can then scale up as required to rear panniers, front panniers or a trailer. I had planned to take a trailer as I love the ease of packing though it needs some discipline to avoid carrying too much weight; as you will see I switched to panniers which were easier for ferry and hotels.
Security
Cycle security and the risk of bike theft has to be addressed. Solo travellers can't leave a buddy in charge of the bikes while supermarket shopping, they can't lock their bike to other bikes to create an immovable mass. Insurance is a given but how to ensure you don't need to trouble the insurance company? Avoiding leaving the bike in high risk areas (that alley beside the hotel all night) and relying on keeping the bike both locked and in sight when shopping or at a café. For campsites you can search for sites with a lockable cycle garage though that is perhaps optimistic so extra locks to secure the bike and an early warning system were in order; I'd seen advice that a thin cord from bike to tent acts as a good early warning system. The Metropolitan Police have good advice which includes the standard advice to use two locks, one a D-lock, ensuring bike frame and both wheels are locked to a secure fixing. However, heavy locks and cycle touring don't go together very well so I'd need to make my own decision. The professional bike thief will get your bike regardless but CCTV or an alarm are deterrents.
Campsites, B&Bs and Hotels
France has all bases covered when it comes to camping with the full range on offer from basic facilities to family holidays with water parks and entertainment. You could choose to use a campsite chain or specific booking site to guide your itinerary or even a few fixed bases to help simplify matters. Having used onerous email or phone campsite booking in the past I favour website bookings or just turning up early. As I am planning a month's itinerary with specific towns and have ease of booking as a priority I used a mix of sites.
- Pitchup and Cool Camping; these are examples of company's with campsite listings and on-line booking. Though each has limited choice they benefit from easy to use on-line booking.
- Flower Campings; this is a chain with campsite listings and on-line booking though with limited sites would not cover a large tour.
- A French site; one that lists many campsites can help and I used HPA Guide which allows you to filter by campsite type. Each campsite will usually have its own booking process whether online, email, phone or simply no pre-booking. EuroCampings (ACSI) also offer a comprehensive listing and indicate via a red "Book now" button the campsites that do on-line booking.
- Google Maps; not an obvious choice perhaps but as I map out the route following my 1910 itinerary I will need campsites in the right locations; an average of 64 km (40 miles) from the last campsite and suitably placed to get me to the next town in time for lunch and sightseeing. Assuming I don't book in advance then Google Maps is the service I would be using on the ground to find a place to stay.
- Municipal; as I am just pitching, sleeping, breaking camp, and departing the basic municipal campsites will be a choice. They don't always take bookings so I will note these and hope they have space on the day which should be fine outside the July/August holiday season and away from the coast. Google Maps seems as good a way of finding these as any.
- Hotel chains make more sense for couples but I would use them for when I needed to do laundry and charge devices.
Formule 1 or hotelF1 (part of the accor group)
B&B Hotels; 19 hotels in 9 locations in Brittany that match my tour at €50-60 would make for a good base to re-charge body and devices if the €30-40 budget accor hotels didn't work
Premier Hotels
ibis Budget (part of the accor group)
FastHotel - Booking.com; my last resort to find a bed though as they take bookings for Accor (IBIS etc), Premiere and B&B Hotels this may be more convenient than the individual hotel booking sites
- Puncture repair kit
- Tyre levers
- Multi-tool
- Quality 4mm and 5mm allen key for the wheel skewers my bike uses
- Chain lube; probably one of the few items I'll use
- Rags to clean off the chain grime and excess chain lube
- Spare inner tubes
- Cable ties and a cutting tool for general emergency repairs
References
Click here are some references to books and websites.
The real "Cycle Tour of Brittany; 1910 itinerary" starts here.
