Cycling in France

[ajh38]

Hello all,

I'm thinking about cycling from Calais into France at the beginning of August. I reckon about 60 miles per day is about my limit in terms of still looking forward to the next days cycling. I would prefer to cycle through rural France rather than A roads.

Has anyone out there done anything similar? Any routes or ideas?

All comments and suggestions appreciated.

Andrew

[TonyHetherington]

I just did this, this past weekend;
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Roads were great if you keep off the A roads, beautiful villages and everyone very welcoming to bikes.

We got the ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe, and took the Avenue Vert from there.

There's a well defined and very pretty, enjoyable route (which we did, as have many others), of which there are many details here;

http://www.donaldhirsch.com/dieppeparis.html

We did it in one day, but many do it over 3 or 4 and take their time.

[MiseryStreak]

I just came back from this:

http://app.strava.com/activities/63418750
http://app.strava.com/activities/63569049
http://app.strava.com/activities/63770513

Around 60 miles a day is what we did and is easy as it's dead flat. We took a few wrong turns as we were trying to plan the route old school without navigation but it made it more fun. The guys I was riding with were on touring bikes with panniers whereas I was on the roadie with just a lightweight backpack so I found the pace a bit slow but I was enjoying the scenery more.

Bruges is beautiful and the whole of Belgium is cycling country, it's like it was designed by a cyclist. You have priority everywhere inc. roundabouts where cars that are already on the roundabout have to stop for you, there are canal paths that stretch for tens of kilometres and every cyclist you see says hello (The French were generally not nearly as nice and sometimes quite grumpy). We are now planning a trip exclusively in Belgium and the Netherlands. It's so near to Dunkirk, you're only in France for about an hour, then another four hours and you could be in The Netherlands.

Lille is a sthole but I knew that already.

Calais is actually really pretty by bike.

With obviously lots of pretty countryside everywhere.