Epic European Cycle

Trip List Calendar

2015-05-06 : Ride through Paris
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle Across Paris to Pierre's
Google Maps $0.00 8.00 8.00
This was our first actual day riding, so we were a little apprehensive about riding, fully-loaded, through Paris. Turned out we had NOTHING to worry about, really. I felt like "Marlin" (the daddy clownfish in Finding Nemo) as we left Maguy's place, first tracing out the route on Google Maps, then walking a couple of km of the route and back, then finally getting on our bikes and riding back and forth a little before setting out on the actual route.

It was less than 7km from Maguy's place to Pierre's place, and Paris is set up GREAT for bicycling. There are separate bike lanes in lots of places, and "sharrows" everywhere. Drivers are skilled and watch out for cyclists. It's nothing like trying to ride in Edmonton at all.

We made it to Pierre's neighborhood really quickly and then had a bunch of time to kill before we could go to his place. We ended up having some beverages and doing a load of laundry.
Tonight was our first time ever "Couch Surfing" with a nice young man named Pierre. He met us at the door of his apartment building and then helped us lug all of our gear (including bicycles) up six narrow flights of stairs to his Spartan apartment that he shares with his friend. The apartment is tiny... I bet it's not even 300sq feet. We shared some wine and good conversation and then Brent and I took over the roommate's bedroom (he's out of town). Very nice experience.


2015-05-07 : Day in Paris
Today we left our gear at Pierre's place and spent the day in Paris. We walked over to Sacre Coeur, which is close to Pierre's, and is very big. Then, we took Metro down to have a look at le Tour Eiffel, which is very big. Then we did some research and booking accommodation for the next night. Oops, I accidentally booked us to stay in Chartres, which is 100km from where we're staying. I thought it was about 60. It'll be a long day!


2015-05-08 : Ride to Chartres
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle Paris to Chartres
Google Maps $0.00 43.00 51.00
We got up early this morning, with 100km to go to reach Chartres, where we've booked accommodation for tonight. Thankfully, Pierre woke early as well and helped carry the bikes down the amazingly steep and narrow six flights of stairs.

Today was a national holiday in France, which was lucky for us, because it meant we could get out of Paris before the traffic got at all thick. It worked out great. We headed west out of town, and then south through Bois de Boulogne. We were both surprised at the number of prostitutes at work there. After we left the park, we encountered a couple of locals who wanted to help us find our way, but didn't actually think it was possible to cycle from Paris to Chartres. They did get us pointed in the right general direction, though. We went past Versailles, but then had to double back to find our route which mostly followed D10 and paralleled N10 most of the way. There were great bike lanes and trails most of the way, but I'm sad to say that by the time we reached Verierre, I was done. It was only about €22 for the two of us to hop a train from Verierre to Chartres, with a connection in Rambouillet, so I talked Brent into doing that. We made it to Chartres, and to our host's place, by 6:00 on the nose.

Chartres is beautiful and interesting. The old city is narrow streets and old old buildings, including the impressive Chartres Cathedral. The old city is built at the top of a steep hill. After settling in to our B&B, we went for a walk and slogged up the hill to the old city, had a look around, and had some amazing canard at Brasserie les Changes.

We decided to book a second night in Chartres to give ourselves some time to rest and do some research. Since I've confirmed, the hard way, that 40km with fully-loaded paniers is about all I'm good for in a day (exactly the same as Australia), it gives me a good idea of how far we'll make it in a day over the next while. I do expect my distance to improve, but time will tell.


2015-05-09 : Day in Chartres
We have a new plan! We looked at the number of km I can reasonably do in a day, fully loaded (40km-ish, same as in Australia) and realized that the route I had chosen for us was too big. The solution, of course, is that we'll use trains to "catch up" on our itinerary. This was always the hope, but now that we've confirmed that train travel with bikes is possible and reasonable, we know that it will work.

We have, however, altered our intended route. We were originally going to go south from Paris to (approximately) Orleans to pick up EuroVelo route 6 and head to the west coast (and the continue north). When we got to Chartres, though, we discovered a less well-known route to the coast called La Véloscénie. We've bought a map/book which describes the route and we're going to ride out to the coast on Véloscénie, then head south to Nantes, then head back east through the Loire Valley.

I expect the plan will change constantly. That's why we didn't make much in the way of plans in the first place. We'll see in a couple of days whether this plan will be the "final answer".

La Véloscénie starts in Paris and passes through Chartres. We sure could have used this information yesterday! Sometimes it was really frustrating to try to find a route, especially leaving Paris.
From Brent: We haven't been in France very long and are shaking off the last of the jet-lag. We've had a couple of short rides but mostly we've been hauling the bikes around like baggage. The plan is to start riding in earnest tomorrow. Chartres to Illiers-Combray. There are so many hyphenated place names here and a lot with pronunciations that French class didn't prepare us for. Chartres is pronounced Shart and I still haven't found out about the next town's proper pronunciation.
From Brent: So far the French people have been wonderful. As long as you make an effort, folks are very forgiving. I got a French lesson from a bar-man a few days ago over several glasses of wine. Each time he came to the table he gave me a new phrase to learn and corrected my pronunciation on the previous one. The lesson has made it easier to get what we want in a café or restaurant.
This was weird. Yesterday was our first real day of riding on our cycle tour. We've been planning this trip for years and I've been really excited about it. I've had a little trepidation about being away from work for six months but that's just my own thing.

Instead of moving on from Chartres immediately, we decided to take a day off to rest and do some research. In the evening I had a short but extremely intense bout of depression. I felt old and done and tired. I felt very strongly that I was not interested at all in cycle touring, especially not for six months. I did not want to be there. I did not want to cycle another day. Yet I also did not want to go back to Canada and back to work. There was truly nothing that I wanted to do. All the spark... all the life had gone out of me. I felt fat. I'm packing around way too much weight and it made me feel like I can't move and I don't want to move. I wondered if there's anything else besides eating and laying around that can bring me pleasure anymore. I just wanted to be at home on the couch with the TV and a bag of potato chips. I just wanted to eat until I was Jaba the Hut and explode and die and be done. I felt that there was nothing left for me.

Strangely, this depression lifted just as quickly as it had come down on me. Brent bought me wine and talked me through it. I don't know why it happened. It might have just been because I found yesterday to be very very tough physically and mentally.


2015-05-10 : La Véloscénie to Illiers-Combray
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Chartres / Illiers-Combray
$0.00 34.00 85.00
Yesterday we bought a book describing a route called La Véloscénie. We had seen that book in la Maison de Velo near the train station in Chartres but they only had one copy - not for sale. How disappointing. So, we went walkabout in Chartres and stopped in at a book store and they had one copy of the same book. Yay! I'm so glad we got the book. La Véloscénie is a very well-marked cycle route and the chosen route is awesome. Today we rode about 35km to get to Illiers-Combray and it was beautiful, scenic, and used a great selection of cycle paths and small side roads.
Illiers-Combray is a very small town and not much is open on Sundays. We found the hotel locked/closed, but the info office was open and the lady directed us to the camp ground (which was also in our book) and advised that she thought it would be open. It is, and it has wifi... thus today's DAM Details update.
The camp ground Le Bois Fleuri is really nice. It's small and there are no picnic tables or fire pits at the sites, but it's well-maintained and decent privacy for a small public campground. I'm especially impressed with the wash building, which has:
- Men's and ladies toilet stalls
- One central TP dispensary (sonofagun)
- Showers
- Men's and ladies sponge bath rooms
- Small tubs for... uh... washing your kids and/or dogs?
- Washers and dryers
- Regular and over-sized sinks
Gear changes for today:
- Left behind the duct tape. I'd brought it along for bike box repair enroute, but the boxes didn't need repair and it's no longer necessary to haul the tape.
- The no-rinse body wash and shampoo have got to go. I forgot I had them when I bought the large bottle of camp suds.
- We picked up a couple of small, folding disposable spoons when we had yogurt in Iceland. We kept them and have been using them almost daily. Good addition!
-I brought some old yoga pants which were supposed to be my "throw away after Iceland" pants, but I've hung onto them and I'm glad I did. I've been wearing them almost every day! Once things warm up I'll probably get rid of them, but for now, they're essential gear.
From Brent: Sometimes the French are almost too helpful. Paris is a rat's maze of streets. Even with a map it is easy to get lost. The easiest way to get around is the Metro (subway) but you don't see anything that way. Walking is better and there is something new to see every block or two; which is about how often we had to check our map to make sure we kept going where we intended. And just about every time we pulled out a map someone would come over and offer help. A couple of times we gathered a small crowd, each person offering their own opinion. In Paris, most people offered help in English (I guess we look like tourists), once out of town French becomes the rule.


2015-05-11 : La Véloscénie to Nogent-le-Rotrou
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Illiers-Combray / Thiron-Gardais
$0.00 24.40 109.40
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Thiron-Gardais / Nogent-le-Rotrou
$0.00 19.00 128.40
TMI Alert - don't continue reading if it's going to traumatize you!
For this tour, I bought a bra with pockets in it to stash important things. I keep my orthodontic appliance in one pocket, and some plastic in the other. I call it the "boob safe".
Thanks to the boob safe, I have cleavage for the first time in my life, and man, is my skin ever PISSED about it! I am sweating up a storm while riding, and sweating into my poor squashed-together boobs. The swath in between them just doesn't know what to do with itself. It is red, angry, and covered in acne. Ugliest cleavage in the world! Maybe I need to start putting foot powder on it or something...
We got a reply today from the Schengen area folks. They confirmed a number of things, and provided a few surprising details:
- There's not really any such thing as a visa for Schengen longer than 90 days. If you get a longer visa for a specific country, it's only good for that country.
- There are two types of Schengen 90-day visas. Single entry and multi-entry. As Canadians, we didn't need a visa to enter, and we are considered multi-entry.

The final result is that we should spend no more than 90 days in the Schengen area. We will be in the area until mid-June (45 days) when we head to the UK, returning in mid-July to meet Laura. We'll be in the area again until we reach Budapest approx. 30 days later. That will give us another 15 days to figure out what we're doing next, and that is:
- If we're not done with the bikes yet, we will simply continue on EuroVelo 6 through Romania and Bulgaria to the black sea.
- If we're done with the bikes, we will ditch them and then either fly back to the UK for the remainder of our trip, or fly to Turkey and spend some time there.

It's all good. YAY!
I've had a tough few days trying to get into the groove of riding. I should have been wearing a heavy pack and put the trainer on a higher setting when I was riding at home over the winter. I have felt very weak and wimpy so far.
Today was finally better. I'm starting to feel a little stronger and a lot happier. I am looking forward to riding again tomorrow instead of wishing for a day off. Thank goodness. :)
Poppies along the side of the road. Sonofagun.
Rural France has some amazingly nice public washrooms... and at least one amazingly nasty one. Overall so far, top grades.
Our route today took us through some great countryside. Farmland and forest punctuated by gingerbread villages that made me think of Margaret Anne Elliott all day!
La Véloscénie is a fantastic cycle route! I highly recommend it, but if you do, be sure to get the book because if you try to figure it out yourself, you'll never find the streets and trails from the route, which are amazing!
We had a harder ride today, including a few significant hills. On the bigger hills, I had to do a bit of pushing, but, as Brent so lovingly pointed out, we're riding La Véloscénie, not La Velo-Sissy, so I'd better toughen up. Just kidding... I'm the one who came up with Velo-Sissy, but I thought it would be funnier coming from Brent. <3


2015-05-12 : La Véloscénie to Mortagne-au-Perche
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Rémalard / Mortagne-au-Perche
$0.00 61.60 190.00
Most of our trip today was on a decomissioned rail bed, which meant we were in a beautiful green canopy most of the day, but saw pretty much nothing of the countryside and villages. I prefer the route on roads where we can check things out more - this was more of just a bypass day, which is disappointing. The trail was good, hard-packed pathway most of the way, but when we got within a couple of kilometers of Mortagne-au-Perche, there was a section, probably less than a km, which was washed out and extremely rough. We had to push through most of that section - we couldn't ride it - which was a disappointing slog at the end of the day.

From the book it looks like most of tomorrow will be on the same rail trail, but then before we reach Alencon, we'll switch back to roads for a while.
The trail doesn't take you all the way into the town of Mortagne-au-Perche - it bypasses it to the south. When we got there we realized why. The town was built on the tippy top of a steep hill. Of course we had to take our bikes all the way to said tippy top in order to find an info centre, and a map showing where our hotel is. The hotel is a little ways town from the tippy top, but not much.
The hotel (Hotel du Tribunal) is, coincidentally, in the Logis line, which is the same as the place we stayed last night. It is great. It's very old, and first thing when we got there, they offered to put our bikes into the courtyard, which was fantastic. They have a bar and restaurant on premises as well.
Another gear addition for today: A corkscrew.


2015-05-13 : La Véloscénie to Alençon
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe / Alençon
$0.00 39.00 229.00
Map - Paris to Alençon - our trip so far. The section from Maurepas to Chartres was by train. The rest has been cycling.
Terrible experience trying to get into our Air BnB reservation. We went to the address, which said "Flexible Arrival Time". The building was locked. Our host only speaks French, but she had told me that she wouldn't be there, and that Sebastien would be there to check us in. I've been trying to reach her via phone, e-mail and text. She sent me Sebastien's phone number so I called him but he speaks no English, and he mumbles so we couldn't understand a word each other way saying. I kept asking him to open the door and he said he would. Brent walked down (we're at a restaurant nearby) and stood by the door. Sebastien insisted he was at the door, but I could see Brent, and there was no one else there. Finally a random guy came buy and helped make a phone call. Apparently Sebastien is at an address on a completely different street - an address that we were not given. Brent is, I think, with him right now getting things squared away. I hope so. We're almost out of cell phone credit, and laptop power. SHEESH!
Most of our ride yesterday was on the old railbed (Greenway), which provided only limited scenery. Today was intended to be a lot more of the same, but La Véloscénie is intersected by various local cycle trails, one of which provided a great diversion from the monotonous Greenway. At La Mesniere we left La Véloscénie to follow local Boucle cyclable n8, La Mesniere - Le Mele-sur-Sarthe. It added about 10km to our ride for the day, which honestly, I really didn't need, but it was still enjoyable to get off the Greenway for a while.


2015-05-14 : Rainy bike repair day in Alençon *Ascension Day
The conclusion to our terrible experience. We were sent to an alternate property. That was in my messages, but I missed it because I was trying not to use up my limited free wifi. When we got to the alternate property, there was no wifi, and there were two cats on the premises. The house stunk of litter box and my lungs started closing up right away. I told him I couldn't stay there because of my allergies. In the end, he phoned the original host and she told him to bring us back to her property, which is a very nice little hostel-ey place, but was not ready to receive guests. It has sat all winter unused. There was a stink in the bathroom, no hot water, and, of course, no wifi.

We had a fitful night there and then moved to Hotel le Normandie for tonight. It is better, cheaper, and has (limited... slow) wifi.

Now that I have more wifi, I see that they received a review already along the same lines... bait-and-switch... instead of a studio, it is a flop-house room in a place which stinks of cat and is full of cat hair. If I'd had better wifi yesterday I would not have booked into this property. Very bad service. Here's a translation of the other review from this past March: "the room made ​​available is equivalent to a maid's room in the attic. No pane, no curtains , bedding deplorable , musty odor , cat urine and the presence of cat hair . A dirty bathroom and bad odor , a kitchen squatted by cats and fur ground . " I will leave something similar when I'm able.
Aside from avoiding riding in the rain, our main goal for today was to get some maintenance done on Brent's bike. Sadly, none of the velo stores are open today. Maybe they don't open when it rains? Maybe during off season they don't open, or don't open til afternoon? We'll try again a little later.

Oops. It's Ascension Day. Who knew!? Except for everyone in France except us, that is...
Notes at the time:

We finally found the guy. He was at a different address. Brent went to talk with him while I manned the cellphone and email.

Brent came to get me. We're supposed to stay at another address. A quick check of email confirms this. I'd missed it earlier because of the limited wifi at the last hotel.

We go over to the other property and it is a flop house. The apartment is disgusting and the building has a cat box and cat condo in it (right outside our intended bedroom door) and strong odor of cat. I take a few moments to think about the predicament and wonder if I can stay in the building.

The guy phoned the host and put me on the phone with her. She insists that the cats are only ever in the yard. The guy says no the listing says there are two cats on premises. I say no our reservation was for a different property with no cats.

We use the translation app on his phone and I tell him I'm having an asthma reaction already to the cats.

He makes another call to the host and then finally says that hell take us to another property with no cats.

we follow him on his bike... right over to the original property.

The room is better. It's a complete apartment. The building is essentially empty. We don't know why they didn't put us here in the first place. brent speculstex tht thry are developers trying to turn a buck while they do renox. i think thryve jut done s bsit snd switch on us. msyne they dont wsnt english cutimerd we sre here fir kne night. well move tomorroe to a diferent place.
It's kind of funny being in France. When we get to other countries with other languages, the signage will just be completely unfamiliar, but in France, everything is familiar. Familiar enough that Brent and I keep catching ourselves looking for the "other side" (ie. flipping a package around in the grocery store) to find the English version.
I have never used pay-as-you-go phones before, so we had a bit of an adventure trying to recharge our phone. The only instructions provided are in German, so that wasn't helpful. We tried to use the text code provided, but Brent figured out after that that was to be used if you've already paid for a scratch card. Once we got back on WiFi we visited their web site and successfully recharged that way.


2015-05-15 : La Véloscénie to Carrouges
Category Type Name Description Service Provider Cost Kms To Date Total
Activity Cycle La Véloscénie Alençon / Carrouges
$0.00 31.00 260.00
Today we had every intention of going all the way from Alençon to Bagnoles-de-l'Orne, about 55km. The first part of the day, to Carrouges, would be mostly uphill, and then the second part would be mostly downhill. The day was cool, and threatening to rain most of the time (it did rain a little bit). The "climb", though, was so up-and-down, by the time we reached Carrouges, I was really pooched. I was afraid that the "downhill" portion would be all up-and-down as well so I cried uncle and Brent and I stopped in Carrouges. The hotel was "full", but when I cried and begged, they magically found a room for us... ok, not really... but they did initially say they were full and then found a room when we promised to stay only one night. There's a great big three day cycle event going on in town starting tomorrow, so they need us to vamoose. I am soooooo grateful that they let us stay. I don't know that I would have been able to make it to Bagnoles-de-l'Orne. That is now our destination for tomorrow.
I am really excited and happy that I am making noticeable progress in my strength. Day by day I am getting stronger. The hills I climbed today... well, I wouldn't have been able to do them last week. I didn't ride up all of them continuously, but although I stopped to rest several times, at no time today did I stop and push. I rode the whole friggin' thing. Uphill with a headwind. Yay me!
I am still really disgusted with the experience with the Air BnB person in Alençon. So far, Air BnB has been ok, but I'm finding that we can get hotels for the same price or even less, and with a hotel the experience is pretty consistent. We haven't encountered any Air BnB places that actually provide the nB. Only the B. Brent says they should call the web site AirB. Because there's never any nB.


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