This year's tour -

I've bought a map of France for this year's tour - Channel to the Med and
have established that there's plenty of space left on the Bike Express for
early August leaving me with two tasks:

Plotting a route and booking a place on the coach.

I've had a trawl around the Internet and while there's plenty of info about
LEJOG and JOGLE, there's very little about Manche to the Med. I've got a
sketchy route from the CTC web site but there doesn't seem to be a lot out
there unless urc'ers know better......

I've established that I'll need alcool a brulee for my Trangia and I've got
a Rough Guide to France for cyclists. I'm quite excited about the prospect
of touring abroad but not as excited as my wife who's relishing the prospect
of a mess free zone for a fortnight or so.

I'd quite like to see some spectacular things and have located Mont Ventoux
which I might have a go at without panniers and the like. I've got around
fourteen days in France to play with and want to savour the country.

Any suggestions folks?

Forgot to mention drop of and pick up points. I get dropped off at Calais
and picked up at Montpellier. That might help with some suggestions.

-=V=-

"vernon" writes:

Forgot to mention drop of and pick up points. I get dropped off at Calais
and picked up at Montpellier. That might help with some suggestions.

That's very close to a "diagonale" -- those snooty French go one
better again, and rather than a JOGLE/LEJOG pair have 9 pairs of
end-to-ends, called diagonales. One runs from Dunkerque to
Perpignan. If you can read French there is lots of info at
http://diagonales.homelinux.net/adf/?menu=1

Even if you can't read French, there's buckets of info on route
alternatives that would be relevant for you. The Dunkirk/Perpignan
and Dunkirk/Menton (by the Italian border) routes will be relevant,
though they end up respectively well west and east of Montpellier.

Do it inside four days and they'll give you a medal. Really!

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

"Brendan Halpin" wrote in message
...
"vernon" writes:

That's very close to a "diagonale" -- those snooty French go one
better again, and rather than a JOGLE/LEJOG pair have 9 pairs of
end-to-ends, called diagonales. One runs from Dunkerque to
Perpignan. If you can read French there is lots of info at
http://diagonales.homelinux.net/adf/?menu=1

I was struggling a tad until I rememebred the translation facility of
Google. Ther's some howlers in the machine translation but it speeded up
the digestion of the information on the site.

Even if you can't read French, there's buckets of info on route
alternatives that would be relevant for you. The Dunkirk/Perpignan
and Dunkirk/Menton (by the Italian border) routes will be relevant,
though they end up respectively well west and east of Montpellier.

Do it inside four days and they'll give you a medal. Really!

Four days. As if......

There's plenty to chew within that site and I'll be getting my map out and
having a tentative plot tomorrow.

Thanks for the info Brendan.

-=V=-

"vernon" writes:

There's plenty to chew within that site and I'll be getting my map out and
having a tentative plot tomorrow.

You have a million possibilities for routes. One theme would be to
follow the Loire valley (pick it up at Orleans perhaps) as far as
St Etienne, then take the Col de la Republique over to the Rhone
valley. There are some spectacular hillside Cotes du Rhone
vineyards where you arrive, and the route nationale on the west
bank is less busy than it might be, as the A7 autoroute is parallel
on the east bank (except weekends when the holiday traffic can be
crazy).

On the other hand, you're probably best off picking a string of
places you want to see, and visiting them in order...

Brendan
--
Brendan Halpin, Department of Sociology, University of Limerick, Ireland
Tel: w +353-61-213147 f +353-61-202569 h +353-61-338562; Room F2-025 x 3147
http://www.ul.ie/sociology/brendan.halpin.html

vernon wrote:
I've got a sketchy route from the CTC web site but there doesn't seem to be a lot out
there unless urc'ers know better......

My mate has just done his second FC2C,
http://www.francecoast2coast.co.uk/toc.html

He says it's great, so one for the first summer holiday once I get a
real job eh Vern!!

Best of luck and Bonne Route,

T

On Jun 4, 6:37 pm, Brendan Halpin wrote:
"vernon" writes:
Forgot to mention drop of and pick up points. I get dropped off at Calais
and picked up at Montpellier. That might help with some suggestions.

That's very close to a "diagonale" -- those snooty French go one
better again, and rather than a JOGLE/LEJOG pair have 9 pairs of
end-to-ends, called diagonales. One runs from Dunkerque to
Perpignan. If you can read French there is lots of info athttp://diagonales.homelinux.net/adf/?menu=1

Even if you can't read French, there's buckets of info on route
alternatives that would be relevant for you. The Dunkirk/Perpignan
and Dunkirk/Menton (by the Italian border) routes will be relevant,
though they end up respectively well west and east of Montpellier.

Do it inside four days and they'll give you a medal. Really!

Four days? You deserve the yellow jersey and a Légion d'honneur .

John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

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