3-5 day child-compatible routes?

[Bez]

Looking for the following hen's tooth as a sort holiday with two kids aged 3 (on a trailer bike) and 7:

- 3-5 days of maybe 15-20 miles a day
- completely traffic free (or near enough)
- places to stay each night, preferably not camping
- flat (or near enough)

Hence probably disused railways or similar.

England, Wales, France all possible. Ideally accessible via train and/or ferry, but I'm sure I've already included enough criteria to reduce the options to roughly zero.

Any ideas? Thanks

[MrsHJ]

NAntes Brest canal in France. http://www.velodyssey.com/troncons/redon-nantes Can't think off hand which bit for 3-5 days but there are some rail stations on route and the roscof taxi guy picked us up at the end of our tour.
Anywhere in the Netherlands. Try here for ideas. http://www.hollandcyclingroutes.com/lon ... cle-routes
Not so sure about the UK as we only tend to do day trips at home.

[gaz]

Kent's Viking Coastal Trail measures in at 32 miles. Mostly seaside promenades (but may still have a little more on road than you wanted).

You could extend with the Oyster Bay Trail and traffic free link between Reculver and Minnis Bay.

Southeastern trains are reasonably bike friendly.

[eileithyia]

Morecambe Bay route?

This might be useful:
http://www.cycletourer.co.uk/cycletouring/sitemap.shtml

North Sea Route?

[Heltor Chasca]

Kennet and Avon? Lots of NCN 4 and 24 action between Bristol and Devises. Pretty.

[mjr]

I only know parts of these and some of those are gravel parts but I think they're possible to do 95% off-carriageway: (edit: hrm, except there's three miles of country road east of Leighton Buzzard)

London-Lea Valley-Ware-Hertford- Welwyn- Hatfield- St Albans- Waffle House

Hemel Hempstead-Harpenden- Luton- Dunstable- Leighton Buzzard- Milton Keynes- Willen Lake and the Newport Nobby. Or the snow dome. Or tons of other cycleway- accessible attractions.

National 57 almost connects Welwyn to Harpenden, allowing a mix and match to make longer routes, but there's currently a mile or so of B road. Or National 6 to Harpenden is roadside cycle track north from St Albans but it means crossing the city on estate roads.

[hamster]

Kennet and Avon? Lots of NCN 4 and 24 action between Bristol and Devises. Pretty.

Absolutely agree, great with kids.

[PhilWhitehurst]

Avenue Verte from Dieppe. All traffic free, do an out and back or return via some of the quiet roads.

[Bez]

Thanks all. Will investigate further.

[roubaixtuesday]

We did the Meuse valley cycleway last year - completely flat, offroad and quite spectacular in places. Plus the longest zipwire in Europe en route.

Accommodation not the easiest though.

[mjr]

There has just been an episode of http://www.thebikeshow.net discussing doing the Devon coast to coast with children. (Edit: http://thebikeshow.net/all-aboard-cycle ... -to-coast/ )

[Richard Fairhurst]

Yep, Devon C2C and Kennet & Avon would be my suggestions in England too.

You could piece together something in South Wales: Newport-Abergavenny-Brynmawr-Blaenavon-Pontypool-(Newport) is almost entirely traffic-free, has some really lovely sections, and plenty of train stations for getting there and back. The Newport-Abergavenny bit is along the Monmouthshire & Brecon canal towpath, the rest is on old railway paths. Lots of kid-friendly stuff to do along the way: castles, Big Pit, the steam railway.

If you find yourself with time to spare you could detour along the towpath to Crickhowell and back, or (at the Newport end) along the old Crumlin Arm canal up to Fourteen Locks and beyond. Conversely, if you run out of time on the way back, just stop at Pontypool and get the train.

Rough map at http://cycle.travel/map/journey/27580, and of course there's the little "find accommodation" button on the left.

[hamster]

Did the Devon C2C with kids a few years back - some is out of date, but write-up here:
viewtopic.php?f=16&t=25359&p=200565