Our French Cycle Adventure: Exploring Europe by Bike

RetiredCormac
May 23
5 min read

Updated: Jun 9

Two plus years into retirement, and we are still enjoying the freedom to slow down, travel at our own pace, and revisit some of our favourite corners of Europe by bike. This post is a lead-in for our trip. Over the coming weeks, during our travels, I plan to publish detailed daily posts covering our accommodation, ferry crossings, quality of cycling routes, the great food that I’m hoping to have, logistics and stats, costs, and the highlights (and I’m sure occasional mishaps) along the way.

Our Relaxed French Cycle Plan

Our plan for our French cycle this year is relaxed. We will take the car loaded with bikes on the overnight Brittany Ferries sailing from Portsmouth across to Caen. We roll off the ferry stupidly early in the morning. Then, we’ll take the day to drive down in a leisurely manner. We can’t check in until 15:00, so we have plenty of time to explore.

Our southernmost stop will be La Roche-sur-Yon, where we’ll spend our first couple of nights. We have passed through so many times; it will be good to stop and look around. Over the following week, we will drive up to St Malo, revisiting some of the many places we’ve previously enjoyed. We’ll be taking in some cycling as and when we can.

Overnight Stops

These overnight stops include:

Beauvoir-sur-Mer: We plan to revisit a top restaurant in the middle of nowhere. The chef was a wizard.
Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef: We’ll catch up with an old friend—spoiler alert, it’s a caravan.
Quiberon: Known for its dramatic coastline and excellent seafood restaurants. We visited years ago when the kids were young.
Le Tronchet: This spot offers peaceful cycling and quiet Breton roads. While St Malo is nice, it will be good to be outside the busy city.

I’m sure there will also be plenty of stops in between. The last stop on our journey is a few days in Guernsey with family before returning home to the UK by ferry.

Our ideal days are simple: quiet roads, coastal cycle paths, good coffee stops, large lunches, and plenty of sunshine while cycling along the back roads and cycle paths of the west coast of France. I think we are all prepped and ready to go. Well, we’d better be.

Packing for the Adventure

Most of the preparation is done. Retirement certainly helps—there’s plenty of time for lists, checks, double-checks, mulling stuff over, and gradually gathering everything together. Thankfully, the kids have mostly moved out, so there is plenty of room to lay stuff out.

All that really remains now is packing the clothes, loading the car, and mounting the bikes. We’ve left the whole of Tuesday clear to get all of that done, and the ferry doesn’t leave until 23:00 that night.

Our Bikes

I’m taking my red Trek 520. I’ve fitted new tyres, removed the racks—no need to cart all our gear with us this time around—and given it a good clean. Jane’s bike is a Cube Touring Hybrid EXC, with a battery that will do 100+ km if looked after correctly, and she avoids the boost button.

Jane will have a single pannier on her bike to carry essential tools, locks, additional water, and snacks—should we need them. No wet weather gear this time around either. The forecast is great, and we’ll do something else on any days that are inclement.

We’ll sort specific daily plans, routes, and GPS as we go, taking wind strength and direction and sun conditions into consideration—not forgetting how tired our legs are or how much wine we had the night before.

Bike Carrier Setup

I got a tow bar fitted to the car last year for the single purpose of fitting a bike carrier for this and similar adventures. Our bike rack is the Thule EuroWay G2. It’s compact. I did a fair amount of research and purchased it from Amazon. They have since upgraded the specific model, and I’m sure they’ve put up the price as well.

One thing I was slightly concerned about was the weight of the bikes—especially the e-bike. It’s a struggle to lift. I spent quite a bit of time checking tow bar weights and the Thule bike rack specifications before settling on this setup.

As an aside, I learned through that process how to pronounce Thule—it’s ‘TOO-lee’. You really do learn something each day. The bike battery will go inside the car for security and improved weight distribution—it is 3.5 kg. I’m pretty sure some high-end bikes don’t even weigh that!

Practice Run for Smooth Sailing

I don’t like surprises, so I’ve done my best to minimise them. I’ve fitted the detachable tow bar—or should that be I’ve attached and detached the detachable tow bar many times? It’s surprisingly simple once you get the hang of it.

I’ve attached and detached the bike rack a few times. I expect that this will loosen during the journey and will need some tightening. I’ve loaded and unloaded the bike rack a number of times. Everything needed adjusting to ensure that the bikes fitted properly and didn’t rub together. It’s then that you appreciate how well the bike carrier has been built.

I even took photos of the pedal positions of the bikes when loaded onto the bike carrier to ease the subsequent daily loading and unloading. Lastly, I took the car for a quick spin—just to make sure that nothing falls off. God knows what it would have looked like if it did, or what I would have done.

Anyway, everything looks okay. We have also been for a short cycle today to ensure that the bikes don’t have any flaws, and I guess we’ve tested that we haven’t forgotten how to cycle ourselves. Being used to a road bike, the touring bike did feel quite different, but the Brooks seat that I’ve been gradually wearing in for a few years now felt familiar and comfortable.

A Holiday, Not an Expedition

This isn’t about mileage or getting from A to B before dark, like so many of my other cycling trips have been. It’s about trying something new together that appeals to both our interests—cycling (me) and sunshine (her), along with great food and wine (both).

This trip will help shape some of our future plans—maybe something longer, something unsupported. I’m really not sure. I have aspirations to do LEEJOG or get the boat to Spain and cycle back home, but I’ve found these to be long and lonely. So, this is a good alternative.

Pre-booked Itinerary for Our French Cycle

Portsmouth → Caen (Overnight Ferry)
Drive to La Roche-sur-Yon (2 nights)
Drive northbound via:

- Beauvoir-sur-Mer (2 nights)

- Saint-Michel-Chef-Chef (2 nights)

- Quiberon (2 nights)

- Le Tronchet (1 night)

St Malo → Guernsey

- St Martins (3 nights)

Guernsey → Portsmouth

Next Up: The Journey Begins

Leaving the house, the drive down to the port, the overnight crossing from Portsmouth to Caen—including boarding, cabin impressions, food on board, and whether sleeping on a ferry before a long drive is actually a good idea.

PS - better photos will follow in the specific daily write-ups.