The plan is fairly simple. Two weeks cycling in France, staying overnight in Airbnb or hotels.

Departure – Thursday 11 September – drive down to Portsmouth. Park up (in a Your-Parking-Space hotel car park). Cycle across the city to the Ferry terminal and catch the 3pm Brittany Ferries sailing to Caen. First night in and Airbnb in Ouistreham, near Caen.

Day 1 – cycle into Caen then catch the train to Angers. Another Airbnb in Angers.

Day 2 – cycle from Angers to Saumur where we’ll meet up with Olivia.

Day 3 onwards – spend several days cycling La Velo Francette route south to La Rochelle, from where Olivia will return home. Then return north up La Velodyssee route along the Atlantic coast to the Loire and then reverse the train journey to Caen and ferry back to Portsmouth on 26 September.

Basic Rules

• No more than 45 miles per day
• No cycling on wet days
• Eat lots
• Stop frequently
• Prompt starts, early finishes
• Rest days are part of the plan
• No cycling if we’re not in the mood
• We’ll get as far as the above rules allow and use trains to fill the gaps

Navigation

We’ll be using the app Komoot to navigate – mainly using GPX files from the francevelotourisme.com website, which is incredibly detailed, but slightly tricky to use. We will also be relying heavily on route markings – almost all the routes we will be using are mainstream cycle routes which should be very well signposted.

Bikes

Phil: Kinesis G2 Gravel bike with panniers
Julie: Planet X CX bike with various bags
Olivia: TBC – hire bike

Accommodation

Apart from the first three nights, where locations are pretty much fixed, we will book our accommodation on the hoof. Allowing us to move on in good weather and stay put in bad weather, or where we want to stop and rest or simply explore.