First solo trip Calais to Nice - Any Tips?

[plancashire]

Don’t forget Simons recommendation of picking a sandwich up in a boulangerie for lunch-it takes some pressure of the whole foraging thing if you aren’t planning a sit down meal.

And, of course, be prepared to find shops/bars/restaurants closed at any time of any day!

From many trips to France in the past one phrase is etched into my mind: fermé le lundi (closed on Mondays). We also saw: fermé à cause de grève (closed because of a strike). Do they still close on Mondays? I know they still strike.

[MrsHJ]

Quite a lot of closed Mondays (if it’s a boulangerie they’ve usually spread around the opening in the town to make sure there is cover for each day). Closed for their annual vacation is another one.

[simonhill]

Some villages and small towns now have a baguette dispensing machine. No idea of quality or how frequently topped up.

Traditionally small bakeries did a morning and an afternoon bake.

[Jdsk]

Great tips.

We were struck by how the hairdressers and pharmacies persist even after the closure of the baker and the dépôt de pain.

Jonathan

[richardfm]

I use and suggest others to use cycle.travel. An account is free (you can donate and I do because it's just great)
It even suggests more friendly cycle paths etc.
I plot one route per day. I download each onto my Garmin 520.
On the cycle.travel map, supermarkets and and cafes are indicated.
I then use an Excel - one column for the kms, one for the town I'm passing through.
xx kms Town A
xx kms Town B
etc
I colour an Excel square in grey if there are food options in the town.
I print out the daily Excel strips, cutting them, roughly 5cm x 10cm and attach them onto the stem.
I reset my cycling computer each day. Then can just ride along ........ in front of me...... there's a map, how far I have travelled and knowing that in x kms there's a town and whether or not there are facilities there.

This has always worked well for me. Not too much upfront work but for me, soooooo much time is lost and it's a faff, opening the phone to look at Google maps.

Do you really carry a printer when touring?

[mattheus]

I use and suggest others to use cycle.travel. An account is free (you can donate and I do because it's just great)
It even suggests more friendly cycle paths etc.
I plot one route per day. I download each onto my Garmin 520.
On the cycle.travel map, supermarkets and and cafes are indicated.
I then use an Excel - one column for the kms, one for the town I'm passing through.
xx kms Town A
xx kms Town B
etc
I colour an Excel square in grey if there are food options in the town.
I print out the daily Excel strips, cutting them, roughly 5cm x 10cm and attach them onto the stem.
I reset my cycling computer each day. Then can just ride along ........ in front of me...... there's a map, how far I have travelled and knowing that in x kms there's a town and whether or not there are facilities there.

This has always worked well for me. Not too much upfront work but for me, soooooo much time is lost and it's a faff, opening the phone to look at Google maps.

Do you really carry a printer when touring?

Well; you know how most people buy their bike (and probably GPS, phone etc) before starting their tour?

It's a bit like that. HTH

[richardfm]

I use and suggest others to use cycle.travel. An account is free (you can donate and I do because it's just great)
It even suggests more friendly cycle paths etc.
I plot one route per day. I download each onto my Garmin 520.
On the cycle.travel map, supermarkets and and cafes are indicated.
I then use an Excel - one column for the kms, one for the town I'm passing through.
xx kms Town A
xx kms Town B
etc
I colour an Excel square in grey if there are food options in the town.
I print out the daily Excel strips, cutting them, roughly 5cm x 10cm and attach them onto the stem.
I reset my cycling computer each day. Then can just ride along ........ in front of me...... there's a map, how far I have travelled and knowing that in x kms there's a town and whether or not there are facilities there.

This has always worked well for me. Not too much upfront work but for me, soooooo much time is lost and it's a faff, opening the phone to look at Google maps.

Do you really carry a printer when touring?

Well; you know how most people buy their bike (and probably GPS, phone etc) before starting their tour?

It's a bit like that. HTH

I'm sure that the printer was purchased before starting the tour, but I read "I plot one route per day" as planning each day on the hoof as the tour progresses.

[mattheus]

I'm sure that the printer was purchased before starting the tour, but I read "I plot one route per day" as planning each day on the hoof as the tour progresses.

Ah, I see.

I inferred from the printing that a different approach was being used!

[plancashire]

Great tips.

We were struck by how the hairdressers and pharmacies persist even after the closure of the baker and the dépôt de pain.

Jonathan

Pharmacies and medicines in France may be regulated as here in Germany so they can be quite profitable. We have three in the nearby small town and one in our village - all really parts of Düsseldorf.

[a8887]

Anyway, my trip starts tomorrow with a train/ferry journey to Calais. Almost had a disaster today when the local bike shop had my bike for a service nearly closed without me picking it up.

I'll post an update a few days in....

[pal]

Happy travels, and enjoy the Pace Car Ride out of Calais port!

[simonhill]

One last thing.

French wine bottles still have corks. Don't forget your corkscrew

Enjoy the ride. Bon voyage.

[a8887]

Evening all

Just realised that I never actually posted an updated on how my trip went.

Trip went exactly to plan and was great fun. 100-120 miles a day was a lot, not necessarily from a fitness point of view, but because it meant I tended to get to the accommodation each day later than I wanted (about 5-6pm ish most days). A pretty much none stop headwind all the way from Calais to Nice didn't help It did mean I completed Calais to Nice in the planned 7 1/2 days though.

The route Komoot produced was really good. Tended to avoid main roads, through it did send me down the occasional farm track which wasn't ideal.

High of the trip were the last few days, especially setting off up Mt Ventoux at 6am whilst it was still dark, and the following 250km through the Alps to Nice. The 30 miles descent into Nice down the Gorge de Loup was spectacular.

Thanks for all the advice, really came in useful.

I'll post a few pics when I figure out how...

[rareposter]

High of the trip were the last few days, especially setting off up Mt Ventoux at 6am whilst it was still dark, and the following 250km through the Alps to Nice. The 30 miles descent into Nice down the Gorge de Loup was spectacular.

Sounds fantastic!
What day did you do Ventoux and from which side? Looking at the timings of your trip, it must have been very close to when I was out there...
Hope you got the same good weather that we had!

[MrsHJ]

High of the trip were the last few days, especially setting off up Mt Ventoux at 6am whilst it was still dark, and the following 250km through the Alps to Nice. The 30 miles descent into Nice down the Gorge de Loup was spectacular.

Sounds fantastic!
What day did you do Ventoux and from which side? Looking at the timings of your trip, it must have been very close to when I was out there...
Hope you got the same good weather that we had!

That’s the Sault side isn’t it? That’s the one I did via Chalet Reynard, up past Tommy Simpson’s memorial.

Glad you had fun a887. Always good to reflect on doing it slightly differently next time but of course next time will always throw up a slightly different range of problems. Maybe pulling your distance back to 80-100 a day instead of 100-120 will help that « constantly on the move thing » although tbh it’s a bit of a feature of my trips too and I max out at about 80km/50 miles a day and probably need to do slightly longer days - maybe 100km to fill up the time better.

Where next then? Brindisi? Constanzia? Istanbul? Seville? Lisbon? The North Cape? transam? There are some great possibilities once you’ve wrapped your brain around touring.