www.strava.com/activities/12837873810

At some point in early October, I got it into my head that I wanted to do a fall bike ride in France or Japan. But various obligations, unseasonably warm weather at home, and strings of storms abroad, kept me from pulling the trigger. Then I saw an article about bike trails in Korea and nearly booked a ticket for Seoul. But at the very last minute, I noticed a cyclone bearing down on the Korean peninsula and opted to head east instead.


Route

The French bike network is absolutely incredible – you can easily pull together a tour of any length with start and end points in any corner of the country: en.francevelotourisme.com/cycle-route. I was almost always on dedicated bike trails or quiet country roads, and the routes were consistently signed at every turn.

I started out on “La Vélodyssée” (or EuroVelo 1) on the Atlantic Coast, but this seemed to be headed for endless pine forest, so I was happy to switch over to “The Scandibérique” (EV3) in Bordeaux. “La Loire à Vélo” (EV6) headed west from Tours. The latter two mostly followed rivers and passed many castles and ancient villages. Fall was at its peak, which meant that most buildings were covered in bright red grape vines, and golden trees flanked every path.


Food

French people rarely eat – they’re especially averse on Sundays and Armistice Day. Most of my rooms were BnBs, but a “fabulous breakfast” by French standards implies a cup of coffee and bread with butter and jam. Restaurants, if they decide to open at all, rarely keep hours outside of 12-2 and 7-9. I never figured out how groceries decide their hours, but they seemed to be inversely correlated with whenever I was passing through.

Village restaurants tended to be rather pricey – maybe 15 euros for a plate or 19+ for a menu – and vegetables were few and far between. I usually just tried to find a pizza or croque at the nearest boulangerie. Cities had cheaper, more varied food. The selection of cuisines in every mid-sized town – often including Moroccan, West African, Afghan, and Haitian – would be hard to rival outside of New York or DC.


Lodging

Usually starting around 60 euros, hotels were consistently pricey. But most stretches along my route had a couple of highly-rated AirBnbs for $35 – even in the hearts of the cities. My hosts were consistently amazing and I always got a comfy room with a desk and easy kitchen access. The situation would likely be very different in the summer months.


Bike

After a frenzy of searches and chats on Spain’s answer to Craigslist, Wallapop, I met up with a guy to buy a bike that was clearly too small for me. Because of the high level of effort involved in arranging and walking to a meeting, and the low price of the bike (55 euros), I was very much inclined to try to make the most of it. I commissioned a local bike shop to install a new bike rack (45 euros) and set off the next morning. A day of rather slow riding, which yielded very noticeable knee and back pain, encouraged me to seek out an alternative.

I took a train to Bordeaux and showed up for a members-only night at the local bike co-op. I convinced the leader to give me a bike he was fixing up in exchange for my bike and 30 euros. This one had a much bigger frame, but was a bit weaker on the mechanical side of things, and was cobbled together with an assortment of odd fasteners that eliminated any hope of me having the right tools to fix any problems that might arise.

Luckily, I never got any flats, the brakes held out just long enough to get me clear of the hill country, and I only had to ride on a broken seat for about 8 hours before I tracked down a hardware store.

It was effortless to donate the bike to Velocampus in Nantes, which happened to be hosting their weekly you-fix-it hours immediately before I needed to head to the airport.


Weather

The first six days of riding were consistently shorts weather, though I sometimes had to don a balaclava, and less often, a windbreaker as I worked my way north. Then I got a bit soaked by the trip’s lone storm, and this was followed by two days of very workable puffy temps. Given the season, conditions were solidly above average, and mostly pretty ideal for biking all day.


People

Every single person I encountered was amazingly patient and kind. In spite of my vast ineptitude at wielding the language, and generally existing in French society, business proprietors, waiters, and random people on the street, would bend over backwards to make sure I understood menus and got where I needed to go. A huge smile and heartfelt hello greeted me at every turn. It was a bit like rolling through an interminable rendition of the “Bonjour” number from Beauty and the Beast.