Newbies Cycling Around France

Hi Guys, I'm new to this forum and I'm going to apologise straight away if there is a thread identical to this one, I just dont really know how to navigate around the forum yet.

So a few of my friends and I want to cycle around France in the Summer, all of us are pretty inexperienced at this kind of thing. We basically just want to go to a pretty flat piece of France (is such a thing?) and hop from campsite to campsite, covering anywhere between 30-50 miles each day. OR the other option is to find a campsite and go cycling each day, using the campsite as our base.

Now my friends all have relatively old road bikes, some have single speeds, some have road bikes with 5 gears and I'm worried these arent up to scratch or that they'll not take panniers and just use rucksacks - are panniers a definate must? Im pretty set on usuing them but i need some hard evidence/persuasion for them to invest in some instead of "just get them".

Also, are there any particular areas we should visit or base our trip around? we just want somewhere flat, pretty, with plenty of lakes/rivers to dip out feet in.

If anyone could offer some advice, some information, some websites to look at to help us plan where to go and where to book campites, what to take and what not to take, equipment recommendations - anything and everything would be amazing!

and if anyone has any blogs of their own tours, id love to read them!

Thanks for your time guys!

Load a rucksack with all the gear you intend taking camping, and ride 30-50 flat miles, see is rucksacks seem a good idea then. Plenty of France is flat mainly the North.

i would say for 30-50 miles panniers are not a must.

but they will be more comfortable than ruckpacks. also if you have one campsite and different rides from there, you can leave the tents and most of the stuff so you don't even need t ocarry a lot with you. but it would be more fun/proper touring to move from campsite to campsite. then you should at least have some people with pannier racks to take the tents/heavier stuff

^alright ronnie, how do?

normandy, brittany have a good balance of nice places to visit / not too hilly hills

I'm in a really similar situation. I'm planning to do some touring around the netherlands, hoping to cover about 350 miles in about 2 weeks. I was wondering what peoples thoughts were regarding actual bikes. Would it be best for a relatively novice cyclist to use a geared bike, or would a single speed suffice providing the rider was fit?
How about 2 different gear ratios on a flip-flop hub? One for hilly areas, one for flat? Or would that just be impractical?

Went on a supported ride for my first cycling holiday (they organised hostels and moved bags etc), this was also my first experience of cycling and kind of distance and what got me into cycling. We did about 170 miles in 4 days of cycling I think! There are no hilly areas to speak of, the only hills you will get are the humps on bridges, the biggest thing to contend with will be the wind. 350 miles in 2 weeks will be pretty easy going, I expect you are planning on stopping off in places for a few days at a time. The bike you take probably depends on a couple of things, such as what bikes do you have at your disposal? and what will you be carrying? I reckon you could do it on a single speed with a flip flop hub as it is nice and flat, changing for windy days. How do you plan to carry your stuff?

Did my first cycle tour last year, Barcelona to Paris (with a couple of train journeys in there) but the nicest (flattest) bit was Carcassonne to Bordeaux. A lot of it can be done on the canal path http://www.canal-et-voie-verte.com/La-carte?lang=en but the roads are just as good if you go for the smaller ones. Averaged about 30miles a day - 90miles being the longest day (we were trying to catch up with the TdF).

We were on singlespeeds with small rear panniers. We took it pretty easy (42/16) and only had to push a couple of the nasty hills. Think our gear weighed in 25kg all up, with (steel frame) bike included. Fave campsites were the municipal sites. Each day we stopped in a village that looked nice, popped into the info centre and got directions for the local site (didn't pre-book for any sites). For the most we paid less than 15euros for 2 people + tent. They tend to have allocated randonneur sections. Love it!

Loads of good touring info here http://www.lfgss.com/thread31811.html

Some more routes, http://www.af3v.org/CarteAF3V/carte-detaillee.html

There's a plan to cycle-route the old railways. I only used one, and it was a very easy way to cover some distance.

Load a rucksack with all the gear you intend taking camping, and ride 30-50 flat miles, see is rucksacks seem a good idea then. Plenty of France is flat mainly the North.

This best advice I have read all day. It is early though. Would add that for me I don't really like a sweaty back so would prefer panniers.

a few years ago, I did a similar trip. We started in Orleans went along the river Loire to the coast and then down along the seaside to Bordeaux. we camped mostly free not on campsides which was beautiful especially on the sea, empty beaches though it was mid summer..! but there are loads of campsides though, so if u not fancy showering in the river and washing ur dishes in the sea, dont worrie!
we did it geared and with panniers but I think its easily to do single speed as it was mainly flat, cant really remember any nasty hills!

Can highly recommend it... im longing to go back there..c'mon summer!