What do cycling writers do on holiday, when they’re not writing about a cycle tour? They go on a cycle tour. Hoping they might be able to write about it later on. But I’ve had the Loire Valley on my radar for a long time, and at last I’m doing it: 600km of flat, easy riding on wide virtually car-free paths alongside France’s longest river. Two weeks of cheese, wine, super-bike-friendly campsites, scenery and sunshine.
In theory.
Not all theories survive the facts, though, as the history of science shows us. Caloric. Phlogiston. Martian canals. Fleischmann-Pons nuclear fusion. Or the idea that if you let the rich and powerful get richer and more powerful, wealth will trickle down to poor people, like you and me.
Anyway, this morning I took a train from Paris to Saint-Nazaire, the town on the mouth of the Loire. It was glorious and sunny – what could possibly go wrong over the next two weeks?
The Loire path itself starts over the other side from St Naz: at Mindin, just north of Saint-Brevin-les-Pins. There’s a modern and busy road bridge, but many tourism websites strongly advise cyclists to take the ferry instead (summer only) or a taxi (expensive).
Perhaps good advice for the inexperienced or nervous, but I found riding the bridge for 3km or so no more alarming than a normal British commute. And certainly with more enticing activity than an office job at the end.
The beachfront at St Brev where the estuary meets the Atlantic has two impressive sights: the bridge you’ve just cycled over, and a giant sea serpent skeleton. It’s an artwork, 130m of aluminium created around 2012 by Chinese sculptor Huang Yong Ping. It’s symbolic of something, as art often is. East versus West, maybe. Or the nature of, er, nature. Or perhaps sea serpents. I rather liked it, at any rate.
In St Brev I wrote a postcard home, hoping it would arrive before I did two weeks hence, and started the Loire Cycle Path proper. Gravel tracks ran alongside the estuary giving splendid views of the chemical factories opposite, as well as the automated-net fishing huts accessed by precarious and sometimes collapsed wooden walkways.
After a longish canalside path, I got to Paimbœuf around four, and decided that 15 miles was quite enough cycling for one hot sunny day.
The campsite was a delight, offering cyclist-only areas with dedicated kitchen, picnic tables and bike ‘shed’ (=tent). Plus the usual toilet and shower blocks, free fast wifi, and a swimming pool which I had to myself, and all for €7.
I dined blissfully al fresco on supermarket provisions. This was clearly going to be a great trip, I thought, sipping my bottle of high-octane Trappist beer.
Then I looked at the weather forecast.
Miles today: 15
Miles since Saint-Nazaire: 15