France – Page 2 – RuslanY Bike Travel

EuroTour day 5 – To La Charite-sur-Loire

The EuroVelo 6 route follows the European rivers and because of that it is very flat. It is well marked (at least the part that I rode today) and is easy to follow. It is a mix of pavement trails and some gravel sections.

I am staying in a municipal camping place near the town of La Charité-sur-Loire. Here is how the town looks like.

It is getting hotter and this week it is expected to reach 103 F on Wednesday and Thursday. Maybe I’ll have a rest day then. Today was already hot in the afternoon- I’ll try to start earlier tomorrow to avoid the hottest part of the day.

EuroTour day 4 – To Sully-sur-Loire

Today was the second part of the ride towards the EuroVelo 6 route. It was longer and with some unusual terrain.

When planning this route I specified the start and end points and trusted the RideWithGps would come up with a bike-friendly route. Usually it picks good roads but this time it picked some crazy sections such as mountain bike downhill single track (which I had to hike-a-bike uphill) and some non-existent forest roads (which I had to detour).

Other than that it was a good ride. There were not many cars on the road and the ones that were there gave me plenty of space.

I have reached the EuroVelo 6 route in the town of Sully-sur-Loire. Now I will follow it East along the Loire river towards Switzerland.

EuroTour day 3 – To Melun

Today I started the ride towards the EuroVelo 6 route. It is about 100 miles to get to it so I am planning to ride that in two days. First day was the shorter part to the town of Melun.

The route was going mostly through the Paris suburbs. I thought that on an early Saturday morning there would not be any car traffic. But there were many cars on the road which made the ride a bit stressful. Wondering where all the people drive to on a Saturday morning.

At some point the route was going through some park via gravel and single track roads.

I am staying in the campground near Melun next to the river Seine.

This campground is very different from the usual campgrounds in US. It has swimming pool, playground and a restaurant. The lady at the reception was very nice and gave me 1 day free Internet access card.

EuroTour day 2 – Ride to Eiffel Tower

Today I stayed in Paris in order to buy the remaining items for the tour. I needed the white gas for the camp stove and some food. The white gas in France is called “Essence C”. It is usually sold in hardware stores. There was one nearby and it had a 1 liter bottle available.

I had some time available in the afternoon so I decided to visit the Eiffel Tower (since I am in Paris). The Google directions said that it would take 1.5 hours via public transportation to get there. It is only 13 miles so I decided to ride a bike there instead.

This was a fun ride. At first I was concerned that the streets were full of cars and the bike lanes were narrow and sometimes were not there at all. But I soon discovered that the drivers are very forgiving here. They expect bicycles (and scooters) on the road and they give them enough space.

Interesting thing I noticed is that cyclists do not obey the traffic lights and cross the road on red. I don’t know if this is allowed here but the drivers do not beep or yell at them.

EuroTour day 1 – Flying to Paris with a bike

My cross-Europe bike tour has begun. My friend dropped me off at the airport in the morning with all my huge luggage. Here is how it looks.

Hoping this would arrive to Paris undamaged

I had to obtain a permission from the airline in advance and also pay an extra fee of $150 so that I could take the bike with me on the plane .

Fortunately the luggage arrived in Paris with no damage to the bike or the equipment. I took a taxi from the airport to the AirBnB place. The AirBnB place turned out to be a really nice house in the Paris suburbs.