Search found 1797 matches

by MrsHJ
18 Mar 2024, 7:42am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Avenue Verte (French section)
Replies: 10
Views: 374

Re: Avenue Verte (French section)

You could join it to the Velo scenic and head to Saint malo to make it a longer ride. The Saint malo ferry goes to Portsmouth.

Or avoid Paris (which isn’t cheap accommodation wise) and join the veloscenic to the Velo Francette at domfront and use the Caen Portsmouth ferry one way and the Saint malo Portsmouth ferry the other. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/544813
by MrsHJ
17 Mar 2024, 11:25am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Holland - Short Tour
Replies: 37
Views: 1082

Re: Holland - Short Tour

Hotel picnic can save money or pizza is widely available (I alternate so if I’m doing a 3 week trip I’ll eat out a couple of times a week, have takeaway pizza once or twice a week and room picnic the other nights- I often get a *room with actual cooking facilities) and good value for hungry cyclists. plus france is pretty reasonable for food compared to the uk breakfast can be had from the local boulangerie as can lunch. Watch out for restricted opening hours though.

Eg an aparthotel but sometimes one room apartments are available.
by MrsHJ
17 Mar 2024, 10:58am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Holland - Short Tour
Replies: 37
Views: 1082

Re: Holland - Short Tour

If money is tight (and it is for most people these days) I’d think about timing too. May is a pretty cheap month in many places but it’s good light and (often) decent weather - just avoid travelling at the same time as those doing May half term (accommodation overseas is generally unaffected by our half term unless it’s somewhere popular with the British or you are booking via a British company). My budget for a fortnight is £1200-1500 solo including ferries and trains if I’m using hotels- annoyingly it’s generally little difference between 2 and 1 for the hotel cost. It’s possibly to go for cheaper hotels but I tend to take care I’m not cutting all the holiday fun out and look for things like Wi-Fi, my own loo, often some outdoor space and somewhere to put the bike.

I found that the places with plenty of accommodation can be best value - so along the Loire for instance is pretty reasonable outside peak season as there’s a well established tourist industry. Quieter places often have a fixed price they apply whatever the time of year. I would agree that France may be cheaper than the Netherlands. The shorter ferry crossings are cheaper than the overnight ones but you have to sleep somewhere and the cabins are a reasonable price usually- similar to hotel rooms.

I’ve just been contemplating going to the Italian Adriatic coast next May and that looks good value- the worst bit will be either the train to and from home and the airport or the car parking at the airport.
by MrsHJ
17 Mar 2024, 8:09am
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Portsmouth - Le Havre
Replies: 4
Views: 227

Re: Portsmouth - Le Havre

You can call them and ask- mixed response I suspect. My best guess is that they’ve got a lot of bookings as that’s the beginning of the Easter week. You could consider bagging your bike and going on as a foot passenger.

What are your cycle plans?
by MrsHJ
14 Mar 2024, 7:53am
Forum: Racing, Olympics, TdF, Competitive cycling
Topic: General racing chitchat
Replies: 51
Views: 32679

Re: General racing chitchat

Milan San Remo I this weekend. It’s a good one to just tune in for thé last half hour of the race. Unless pogacar goes away with 80km to go like in Strade bianche.
by MrsHJ
10 Mar 2024, 3:11pm
Forum: Family Cycling
Topic: 4 day family bike ride with 8 and 10 year
Replies: 16
Views: 3323

Re: 4 day family bike ride with 8 and 10 year

The tarka trail is a lovely choice and me and my kids have done various parts of the Devon C2C as we live nearby. I don’t know enough about uk long distance trails with kids so I’m offering a couple of French options (there are many).

Loire valley or the Nantes Brest canal would be my votes. Take the car over leave at a hotel car park en route (with the places agreement) and get the train to your start point and cycle back. We did Nantes Brest when ours were 8 and 10 from Redon to Carhaix using the Plymouth ferry and did one way by train then cycled back. We also did the Zuider zee but the weather was tougher.

Loire is maybe better for kids than Nantes Brest as it’s less rural and there’s more to see, it is more on road but very quiet roads and for a short trip you can carefully select the section you’re going to do-I’ve never had the chance to do it with my kids as covid intervened with our 2020 plans and they’re now old enough to resist cycle trips! I’ve done enough sections myself though and can see it would be a good choice,
by MrsHJ
8 Mar 2024, 9:36pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Cycle Travel Question
Replies: 1596
Views: 209553

Re: Cycle Travel Question

I’ve now had a look at my newsletter update and I’m a bit over thrilled about your changes to the elevation counts. That really is excellent and has had quite an impact on my next planned trip in terms of the cumulative climbing that it’s now showing (less). Thank you.
by MrsHJ
8 Mar 2024, 8:51pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Between Andulucia and Algarve
Replies: 15
Views: 2285

Re: Between Andulucia and Algarve

ChrisF wrote: 8 Mar 2024, 8:28pm OP Postscript.
Today I took the ferry from Alcoutim (Portugal) across the river to Spain. So it does run in March (seemingly every half-hour) and it does take bikes. 2.50 euros.
I did a one-day round trip, crossing back into Portugal via Mertola. Only a small sample, but Spanish roads have better surfaces than Portuguese ones!
I hope you are having a fabulous trip- looking forward to some photos. Sevilla will be building up to Semana Santa which is amazing but accommodation will be very busy in the week running up to Easter.
by MrsHJ
7 Mar 2024, 10:24pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Cycle Travel Question
Replies: 1596
Views: 209553

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Hmmm, what is this new “routes” button next to the gravel/paved route choices? I’m guessing that when finished it will focus on tracking the nearby cycle routes.
by MrsHJ
7 Mar 2024, 9:18pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)
Replies: 587
Views: 61419

Re: Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)

mattheus wrote: 7 Mar 2024, 1:25pm How do advance TGV tickets work in terms of cancellation/amendments?

[I'm travelling end of July - but there is no obvious best route, not even an obvious best ferry crossing! - so I'm not very keen to fix my plans months ahead. I can always get where I'm going on TERs if needs be i.e. buy tickets last minute.]
I got my tickets too- I’ve put big gaps in between trains for the reasons that Bohrsatom has outlined above- we cross posted so I’m duplicating info here. I’m having to do a dog leg due to the bike- Nimes does have TGV that go to Paris via Lyon but no bike spaces. The Atlantic line is better so Nimes-Bordeaux-Paris MPN-Morlaix. My carte advantage saved me €1 after taking the €49 cost of the card into account but I’ll be able to use it on other journeys too. It’s particularly valuable for couples.

Please see the photo. I think D-6 means 6 days before. I also seem to remember it used to be 3 days before. I have changed my tickets before.

Careful in TERs in holiday areas- eg Brittany, the Rhone valley and the Loire valley- some of them have some extra booking requirements for bikes in summer.
by MrsHJ
5 Mar 2024, 9:41pm
Forum: Racing, Olympics, TdF, Competitive cycling
Topic: Paris-Nice. ITV 4. 19.00.
Replies: 5
Views: 535

Re: Paris-Nice. ITV 4. 19.00.

That was interesting. Those helmets are very distinctive- did not seem to help though!

Caught a little bit of Tirreno too (only watched the last 3 km but probably enough!).
by MrsHJ
4 Mar 2024, 6:34pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Canal du Garonne - Bordeaux to Toulouse, best bits/ bits to skip / detours?
Replies: 7
Views: 432

Re: Canal du Garonne - Bordeaux to Toulouse, best bits/ bits to skip / detours?

TBH it’s only 260km and flat so most people are going to do it pretty quickly.

High points for me were Moissac and Agen and not so good was the route out of Toulouse- just not very exciting and a bit of traffic/mess but not dangerous. The entry into Bordeaux was nicer with good views. The roger lapebie is a bit of a climb (nothing major) from the canal so you might miss that but it was perfectly pleasant and you get to see one of those fortified towns at the start of the roger lapebie (end for you and I think you’ll have a slightly better combo as the incline will be on the voie verte).

I did do Carcassonne (I started in the coast east of narbonne and went to Bordeaux and then the Atlantic coast and then on up to Brittany) and the path was rough especially for you the bit into CastelnAudray. However they were working on it whilst I was there last May and there are lots of little d roads around so you can divert. The map shows the rougher sections. I used the chamina book, I’m a super lazy cyclist so I mostly stuck to the path and toughed it out. Carcassonne was nice but uber touristy- it’s clearly in the list of must see places and that meant it wasn’t as special to me as say Agen. Just my opinion though.
by MrsHJ
4 Mar 2024, 6:23pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Canal du Garonne - Bordeaux to Toulouse, best bits/ bits to skip / detours?
Replies: 7
Views: 432

Re: Canal du Garonne - Bordeaux to Toulouse, best bits/ bits to skip / detours?

I did it all last year in the other direction (well all to La Reole at which point I switched to the George Lapebie which is I think the standard route).
It was a bit repetitive. I generally find that quite zen and use it to switch off from my job. To a certain extent I’d say it’s all pleasant but faintly missable and if I were you I’d concentrate on the towns I want to see. I’m going to check my photos and the maps now to see which were the particularly unexciting bits- i think I’m going to say the first stretch out of Toulouse was a bit blah.

These photos are what they mean by sameiness although it was quite nice after the ropey sections of the canal du midi- and it has the long avenues of trees that the canal du midi is now partly missing. For me overall the canal du midi was not as lovely as I had expected but maybe the weather wasn’t great and that affected me. The Garonne was nice but didn’t wow me although the towns were very nice-:I enjoyed my overall trip but I thought that this would be the real highlight and it wasn’t- I had more fun later on.
by MrsHJ
3 Mar 2024, 5:15pm
Forum: Touring & Expedition
Topic: Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)
Replies: 587
Views: 61419

Re: Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)

I think it might help to split this thread between UK and Europe?

Anyhow SNCF TGV bookings for 23 May to 5 July 2024 open on 7 March.
For the 6 July to 11 September they open on 13 March 2024.

https://www.sncf-connect.com/en-en/help ... es-opening

I’ve also been checking the TER service for Brittany and it opens for cycle bookings on 1 April. Bikes should be pre-booked on all TER services in Brittany between 1 May and 1 September (in theory anyway) and it costs 1 euro. Which is fine unless you weren’t planning on taking the train and decided to do so due to weather/injury/mechanical.

It is worth researching the train and vélos summer arrangements for regions that you might be visiting.

https://www.ter.sncf.com/bretagne/servi ... ation-velo
by MrsHJ
3 Mar 2024, 5:15pm
Forum: Using the Forum - request help : report difficulties
Topic: Whether to split the thread 'Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)'
Replies: 6
Views: 281

Whether to split the thread 'Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)'

I think it might help to split this thread between UK and Europe?

Moderator note - Split off from viewtopic.php?t=158863 and moved to 'Using the forum' for discussion of whether or not to split the thread 'Cycling using trains (in UK and EU)', and if so, how it should be split.

NB I am willing to split the thread if that is what members want, although it would be extremely time consuming to do it (the last one I did took the best part of an hour and only involved posts on a few pages). If it needs to be done, then so be it. However, as I have previously commented (viewtopic.php?p=1817535#p1817535), I think the default starting point for moderators should always be not to merge or split, i.e. avoid intervening as much as possible. Therefore I will not split the thread unless this discussion shows a reasonably strong and clear consensus, especially from those who are significant contributors to the thread and who are probably the best judges of the benefits and disadvantages of splitting.

slowster