Cycling to the South of France

I'll add my ten pence worth to the excellent  advice already given, I always like to have the last word.

I have done this ride twice in the opposite direction, and it is not a bigdeal. How you do it depends on your riding style, sense of adventure, and the size of your wallet.

I took a carradice saddle bag along with with a tent and a sleeping bag, and the minimum of spare clothing. If you are into masters racing 100+ miles per day should be quite possible. Mobile phone for absolute emergencies and to send a text home every day. Maps torn out of an old road atlas, one spare inner tube, and tool kit. Credit Cards.

Of course your bike should be in good nick (isn't it always?) with new tryes. Don't get hung up about carrying loads of spares. Nothing went wrong in the last 1000 miles, why should anything go wrong in the next 1000? There are bike shops in France.

Get on the bike early each morning, ride for a few miles and stop for breakfast in a cafe, stop again mid morning if you fancy a coffee, raid a supermarket for lunch, loads of time if you want to look around a village. About 16:00 hrs I start looking out for a campsite and try to pick up some food. If there are no campsites, sleep in a field.

Job Done!

I was planning something similar for last year (across Scandinavia, and cancelled, obviously) and through my own experience and chatting with an audaxer friend of a friend when reseraching it, my general advice for long trips/tours would be:

1. have a phone with you at all times, and make sure it is charged and has service. That's your lifeline. You may well be going through some isolated places, and if you get an unfixable mechanical or have an accident 50km from anywhere (especially in 40 degree heat), you're potentially in bother.

2. I'd have a good bike computer (like a Wahoo or similar) with a carefully chosen route. Charge it every evening.

- for 1&2, remember plug adaptors!

3. The idea of travelling very light is appealing, but you will need spares (tubes etc) and supplies, or you're taking a risk. Consider panniers.

4. Make sure your bike fit is dialled in: what is a bit uncomfortable over here after a couple of hours will be bloody murder by hour 6 of day 5. Make equipment choices based on comfort and reliability.

5. Get your bike properly checked over by a professional mechanic before you leave, and if in any doubt, replace worn consumables. You do not want to develop a serious problem in the middle of le nowwheresville.

6. Carry enough cash for incidentals. In my experience (though things may have changed these days), not everywhere takes cards in rural France.

All the doom aside I'm envious. I love the south of France, and went to Carcassonne on honeymoon. I'll end with the note that I am now divorced, but in all seriousness, it sounds an epic trip.

I used to live about 25 miles east of Carcassonne. My observation is that there are D roads and then there are D roads.

Some D roads are country lanes - single carriageway, no centre line. (EDIT - corrected link)

Some D roads are wider, with centre line

Some D roads are modern fast traffic dual carriageway.

Some of the wider D roads are actually major local traffic routes widely used by HGV transports e.g. the D612 between Castres and Mazamet. Google Street View can give you an idea of the traffic but its time consuming and not perfect.

Regarding accommodation, the Freewheeling France web site has a searchable list of bike-friendly accommodation.

Other tips:

Rural France is very empty. Some villages may have no shops at all, and of those that do, they will likely be closed from midday to mid afternoon. Do not expect to find anything open on a Sunday. My local supermarket closed for Sunday afternoons. Petrol stations are your best bet for being able to get water and snacks. English is not widely spoken if you wander away from the major tourism areas.

If cycling in the summer, it will be hot. We got up to 42C several times over the last 7 years or so, so heatstroke is a real risk in those conditions. Wear sunscreen. Many villages have "Eau non potable" supplies like this one or fountains (which should be dry during heatwaves but....) and I would use these to douse myself from head to toe and then set off again to get some windchill from the evaporation. Such supplies seem to be more common around churches and cemeteries. Some of the local riders would fill their water bottles from them but I figured I hadn't developed the immunity from childhood that they had acquired so I steered clear. Some more advice is available here.

It can also be windy, particularly as you approach the south and get into the wind funnel produced between the Pyrenees and the Montagne Noire. Steady 30kmh winds are not uncommon, mostly moving West to East, but frequently East to West too. Be ready for a long slog of a day if it goes against you!

Looking forward to the write-up. Good luck!

There's a book called France en Velo which does a route from St Malo to Nice.  I spend 2 weeks in France in the summer and if you avoid A roads everything else is a total pleasure.  Don't discount even the most basic roads as often the road surface is way better than a UK A road.  Cycle paths (Eurovelo routes) are good as well.

Sorry, a 4th suggestion. Take 2 sets of cycle clothes. As soon as you stop for the evening, wash that day's set by hand and hang up in your room. By morning the clothes will be mildly moist rather than bone dry. Put it in a plastic bag at the top of one pannier and if you need to stop for more than a minute or two, eg lunch break, hang the clothes over your bike. They'll be dry by the time you get to your next place. Plus it acts as a theft deterrent - I certainly wouldn't steal a bike covered in someone else's skanky cycling gear.

I did this a few years ago. Three recommendations-

a) Even if you can fit all your luggage in panniers, still get a handlebar bag with a KlickFix attachment then keep everything valuable in that. It takes a second to detach it and carry it with you into shops etc. Also ensure the bag has a plastic map wallet on top, for the following reason.

b) Get a small map of France and draw a straight line on it from your start point to finishing destination. Then get a series of much more detailed maps (Landranger are best) and work out the route closest to that line, not using busy roads. If you're not sure how busy one is, look at it in Google Streetview. Then get a few cards - I only needed 6 to go from St Malo to Marseilles - and write on them the major towns and villages on your route plus the road numbers in between. Then every time you get to a junction, roundabout, fork or crossroads, instead of fannying around with a map you just need to glance down at the card you're currently on, in the map pocket of your handlebar bag, and you'll see that you need to look for the N1234 to Baguette-sur-Loire.

c) For accommodation, aim for a town or village that has a railway station. It will almost certainly have a Hotel du Gare and hence a clean, inexpensive room with a shower, plus a restaurant offering a modest 3-course meal for ten or twelve quid. After cycling for the whole day you don't want to be wandering around the locale looking for a restaurant; and Hotels du Gare are used to single diners. 

One of the best rides I ever did. The sense of utter freedom is extraordinary. Bon chance!

On the accomodation front, I would be using airbnb.  We drive through Europe to get to Pescara in Italy every summer (no pandemics, obsv) and have found some brilliant quirky bargain places.  They're much more personal than hotels and we have found them easy to use and to book late in the day.

Sounds a great trip, write it up and post it back on here!

https://road.cc/content/blog/cycling-london-barcelona-better-lejog-280273

https://forum.cyclinguk.org (try "Carcassone" in the search box)

www.warmshowers.org

I've cycled quite a few miles in France, many of them before I found out that all French cemeteries have a tap, and almost every village has a cemetery. So, if you are stuck for a drink... There's garages where you can stock up. We also wait until mid afternoon before booking a hotel/b&b. Never failed us. We've even had a someone offer to come and pick us up when it ws getting dark. Things sometimes go wrong but I have always found the locals very helpful. Love cycling in France

Damn, I've just wasted an hour looking at maps and I'm not even going! France is big - but It's a straight choice between the flat but potentially windy coastal route and the arduous but beautiful Massif through heading for Albi and Castres.  

I'd take an overnight ferry to a Normandy port, or even Brittany - but you can take your bike on Eurotunnel (and cycle along the Normany coast, which is as beautiful and dramatic as our own Seven Sisters, but the French don't shout about it). 

Also, D roads are pretty straight in France, so if you find yourself with a headwind it might be with you all day. And sometimes for days on end.  Not suggesting that you time your ride to go with the wind, but it can be energy sapping - even on the Charente flats.

I suspect that the Canal du Midi paths will be very busy in the Summer - unless you get up very early.  It's a while since I've ridden it and I did it in early Spring, but it wasn't really suited to road bikes either (or touring bikes in my case). 

Kindle books that'll give you some perspective on your ride.  Jonathan Sumption's 100 Years War....so you can track the Bastides?  Or the Albigensian Crusade...

You can be pretty imaginative with the places you stay. I'd avoid the cheap hotel stops and plan ahead with a copy of Sawdays.  My wife and I stayed on our own in the Chateau de Crazannes....not even a night porter....amazing https://www.jpmoser.com/chateaucrazannes.html 

Ive cycled a bit in France.  One bit of advice stay off the main A roads, these are used alot by truckers and locals.  They wont go on the private motorways. 

Now the good bit, France being so big you can cycle almost exclusively on country lanes and not see hardly a car all day.  I stayed in guest houses on my cycling which were out of towns.

Take plenty of time , dont do mega miles per day-enjoy the scenery, smooth roads and cafe stops.  Remember France has a long 2 hour dead time after lunch, similar to Spain and Monday lots of places close all afternoon

I'm sure there will be others on here with far more experience and useful advice than me, but for what it's worth, some thoughts from me based on my own planning of multi-day trips (all in this country, though).

How far in a day is really down to whether you want to push things or dawdle a bit - and how much time you've got to make the journey. But I'd say maybe 150km a day?

My journey planning method (as I say, for in England and Wales) was to use Google maps to show me a route for the whole journey; then work from that roughly where I'd want to stay each night; then find accommodation for each night (I wanted to know where I was staying, rather than have to find somewhere at the end of a long day in the saddle); and then use a dedicated cycle route planner to plan each day's journey (I used Strava).

I hope that's some help, though as I say I'm sure others on here will have better advice.

Oh, and good luck. Sounds like a great trip.