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riding in France

Initial impression.

The maps I am using for France are the usual Michelin 1:200 000 series. They are good, and very suitable for the purpose of bike navigation. Also in France practically all roads are clearly marked at junctions, with directions to the nearest village and usually also to somewhere a bit further away.

The road system in France may from the bicyclists perspective be seen as a system with the main roads (motorways and other A-numbered roads) going more or less in a straight line from place to place. And with the less important yellow and white B-numbered roads making a network of roads everywhere else. These B-roads have often very little car traffic and are ideal for bicycling. When planning to go from one place to another however, it is often necessary to decide on a route from the start, in order not to run out of B-roads while underway (and have to spend some time on the busy A-numbered ones).

When a route has been decided navigation is easy, signs at junctions turn up as they should, and very little time is spent with any detailed map reading.

One problem with France is the supply situation while underway, in particular on Sundays, but in certain areas also during the rest of the week. In the more empty parts of in particular Picardie there is nothing, and one should plan on bringing ones own supplies for most of the day at least during Sundays.

In France people also appreciate bicyclists, and talk a lot about their own experiences, and the cars drive (so far without any exception!) with consideration when passing. This I must admit has been totally unexpected (the careful driving part), and has been a pleasant surprise. Nobody tries to squeeze their way past in a narrow lane or when I am passing other (parked) cars, they wait until the road widens up and they are able to give me a wide berth when passing.

Thoughts at the end of the journey.

I wrote the previous chapter when I had made it to Troyes, two weeks later and after the finish at Aix, impressions are a bit more mixed.

One problem is that there are fewer alternative roads in central and in southern France, at least in the part of the country where I have been bicycling. That is probably a consequence of the country becoming hillier, and with mountains and valleys dominating the landscape more than in the rather flat northern part. The autoroutes and the main highways tend therefore to dominate more in the south, as an example, south of Valence in the Rhone valley there are no more secondary roads to choose from, and one is forced to take a route into the hills and the areas of the Rhone tributary rivers. Which of course is not a bad thing, the point is however that there is more to choose from in the flatter North.

The quality of the French driving and attitudes about bicyclists also became a little more mixed the further south I got, I had some particularly bad experiences around Chalon sur Saone, see 19th June; N46°34 E4°55; Tournus, downwind on the plains along E5°.

However, the general impression of the French drivers is that are far better than their perhaps somewhat tarnished reputation, and they in my opinion show a lot of consideration when overtaking and passing bicyclists. With some exceptions from that rule, however the overall impression is very good. And far better than what it is with Dutch and Belgian drivers (when they pass a bicyclist in France), probably because the Dutch and Belgians are less used to mixing cyclists and car drivers on the same road.

The supply situation became much less of a problem the further I got south. Tourism is a good thing for the supply situation apparently. The very hot Sunday I rode from Crest to Malaucene, bars were open during the whole day in towns/villages I passed through, both in the Drôme department and in Provence, restaurants open for lunch were also all over the place.

And accomodation? I stayed in guest houses, gitès, and in two or three star hotels in the cities, towns and villages. As mentioned above the North, or at least the part of Picardie I bicycled through is rather empty, and hotels are few and far between. Because of that some planning is required in order to be able to find a place at the end of the day. Further south, and certainly south of Dijon (on my route) that is no longer a problem, accommodation is found all over the place.

I had some problem finding room in Lyon; I called 5 or 6 before I found one that had an available room. Most other places the first hotel I asked (when bicycling into town) had available room. Usually I did not bother to call ahead and book, the exceptions were Reims, Troyes, Lyon and Aix.

Generally the most difficult part of the trip from the bicycling perspective was the big cities/towns of France. They had in most cases not the best infrastructure in the world for getting a bicyclist in and out of the place. Dijon was very good with the bike path from NW, to get out in the southern direction was not that simple, but not terribly difficult. Reims was a mess to get in/out of, Lyon was OK from the north but a complete joke when going south, at least if one believed the fairy tale stories told by the tourist office about bike paths. See 22nd June; N45°11 E4°49; St Vallier, running out of suitable roads along the Rhone. And Aix was as bad as anything I have bicycled in, signs were bad, few or no facilities for cyclists existed, and in addition the whole place seemed to be in a process of rebuilding itself for something.