Category: Route research

I’m here in Northern Spain’s Basque Country for a few days’ winter break, bar-hopping on my folding bike. After a few days in Bilbao doing little but riding around slowly and eating pintxos – this region’s equivalent of tapas – I’m now in Donostia / San Sebastián also riding around slowly and eating pintxos. Yes,…

Milton Keynes, with its grid streets, shopping malls, shiny steel’n’glass newbuild, and sprawling scale, is like America without the guns. Or Trump. But with good bike paths, Greggs and Wetherspoons. So I like Milton Keynes. It was built from scratch starting in the 1970s as a new town halfway between Birmingham and London. Now a…

I’m doing Queen’s (College, Oxford) to Queens’ (College, Cambridge): an academic journey between the two eminent university cities that, over the course of a hundred miles, only moves an apostrophe one letter to the right. Today I did Oxford to the slightly more recent city of Milton Keynes, via a village that isn’t a village,…

Never say Nevers. I’d originally planned to ride all the way to Nevers, sixty-ish k further up the Loire, so had accomm and my transport back home booked there. But with another terrible weather forecast, and the prospect of riding all day into a sleety headwind with no great scenic reward, I decided that a…

Autumn turned up while I was asleep. This morning was misty and cold, and I had to warm my hands around my breakfast tea mug before they worked well enough to take down the tent. There’s an end-of-season feel: several campsites along the way shut early for the year because of rainy weather and dwindling…

Orléans looked splendid in this morning’s sunshine. The city’s most famous son is a daughter: Joan of Arc, defender of the French Nation, who played a big role in the Siege of Orléans in the 1400s. She is commemorated in many ways, such as a cannabis shop called the Marie Jeanne d’Arc CBD. I think…

Another easy-going day of level riverside riding. The Loire route is not for seekers of thrills and spills, though I did almost spill some of my coffee this morning in a Blois cafe. (As for pastries, I’d had those back at the tent, thanks to the morning bakery delivery service that’s common at French campsites.)…

Yesterday was heavy rain all day so I stayed in Tours and just cycled – well, aquaplaned mostly – round town, exploring the very decent bike infrastructure. This morning, with my new-found knowledge of the city’s layout, I splashed my way to the doctor to show off my impressive collection of insect bites, and colourfully…

Today was one long sequence of gentle, quiet paths through woods, farms and river plains. Not much happened, but it happened enjoyably. With heavy rain forecast I booked a hostel in Tours for tonight, a mere 59km away according to the sign outside last night’s campsite. An hour along the path, all delightfully quiet, Tours…

A good full day of easy riverside riding today, involving all the Loire tropes: cathedrals and chateaux, latticework bridges, bike-friendly campsites, wineries, giant wine bottles, tripe sausages, crushed Renaults, and nuclear power stations. My campsite last night was only five miles from Angers, a fine cathedral and castle city, so I nipped up for a…