In this episode of Join Us in France, Susan and Ron Crump detail their long distance cycling trip from Amsterdam to Rochefort. They discuss practical aspects like shipping bikes to Europe, navigating different terrains, and choosing accommodations. The episode offers insights into the challenges they faced, including safety on shared roads and unexpected weather. It’s not just for cyclists; anyone interested in travel and adventure will find value in their experiences and tips. Tune in for an informative look at what it takes to embark on a self-guided cycling tour through France.

    Table of Contents for this Episode

    Intro Today on the podcast Podcast supporters Bootcamp 2024 No magazine section Susan and Ron – Long distance trip through France The logistics of shipping your bike to France The best place to start a bike trip What was the end goal of the trip? Kamoot app and French IGN Map What types of roads have they taken? Dedicated bike routes Safety first Setting up for the night: planning 24 hours ahead Budget for a long cycling trip Behind the Postcard: Not visiting normal turisty places Rolling in on a bicycle makes local look at you differently than if you were on a group tour Chased by dogs? Leclerc Tour de France t-shirts A word of caution about planning a cycle tour: Road closures happen Charging your devices and cell phone service Worrying about getting their stuff stolen The why and the how Century rides in the US European rides Susan and Ron have done The Bicycle brought f reedom to the farmers Electric bicycles for touring Copyright More episodes about active vacations in France

    [Applause] this is join us in France episode 474 I’m Annie sergeant and join us in France is the podcast where we talk about France everyday life in France great places to visit it in France French culture history Gastronomy and news related to travel to France today I

    Bring you a trip report with Susan and Ron Crump about their longdistance bike trip through France and let me tell you what if you’re thinking of burning some calories and lose some weight in the New Year doing that sort of a bike trip is your ticket plus Susan and Ron have

    Plenty of experience and so many great tips stay tuned this part podcast is supported by donors and listeners who buy my Tours and Services including my itinerary consult service and my GPS self-guided tours of Paris on the voic map app or you can take a day trip with

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    Long long distant bike trip in France with Susan and Ron happy New Year you Guys bour Susan and Ron and welcome to join us in France Annie wonderful to have you to talk about your amazing bike trips you guys are hardcore right I don’t think s but I think other people look at us that way yeah we’re not so hardcore we just pedal we love to ride

    Bikes on this trip you took your own bikes right you shipped your own bike to France yes yes we did we we shipped our bicycle it’s not a difficult process but there is some Logistics involved and those are well naturally with the logistics of shipping a bicycle it’s

    Just finding the right box breaking it down putting it in the box and you know getting onto the right Airline it doesn’t charge you too much and shipping it over it’s not as difficult as it seems so the bike was on the same airplane as you were as cargo yes yes

    Goes as cargo okay so what we do to back up a little bit what we do is we go to our local bike store we ask for a box that a new bike came in we bring that home the so that’s the dimensions the

    Bike box is the same box that a new bike would come in a Tre bike a giant and then it has to be under 50 pounds which the touring bikes that we ride they’re called touring bikes and they’re a little bit heavier than a normal road bike they’re steel so they

    Start at about 30 pounds yeah right at 30 and then we’re able to put some of our gear in there our bags are called peners I think that’s a French word peners that’s our luggage our little saddle bags paner so we put our bikes our paneers our sleeping bags and our

    Helmets in with the bike and that goes on the plane it’s $50 for that oversized based on the economy ticket that we buy sometimes you can get a ticket that allows for that but for us our ticket level the bikes in our experience 100 oh yeah

    $100 ship the bike like you would a canoe or a set of golf clubs very good so we ship those and then we get to the airport and we have to reassemble the bikes indeed and it’s it’s not difficult and we go from there so is there a

    Reason why you bring your own bikes rather than rent a bike once you get here yes tons of reasons tons of reasons yes but the main reason is having your own bicycle that you know you you already know how to take care of it service and once you get to a particular

    Location like flying into amster D and starting there you can rent a bicycle but then there’s the process of how are you going to get it back to the start location are you going to do a loop vacation you know we do point to point so it’s it would be very difficult and

    Expensive right and we want to make sure we don’t have any we want to eliminate as many snfo ahead of time as we can true so our bikes we know our bikes we’ve prepared them new Chains new brakes everything’s ready to go and like Ron said we are traveling point to point

    So we need a Dependable bite we don’t want to break down we have although we kind of fly by the seat of our pants we do have a start and end date for plane tickets we want to make sure nothing happens and we love our bikes do you

    Unpack your bike at the airport and ride off we you can depending on the airport yeah that’s why we choose Amsterdam because it’s extremely bike friendly that particular Airport Shel however the two trips that we have done and we started in Amsterdam both times we did not we took the bikes on a

    Shuttle to our hotel room and took two days two nights to prepare and get our gear situated the way we want and then roll out but some airports you can certainly and there are plenty of YouTube videos of people putting their bicycles together right in the airport

    And take it off we’re not 25 anymore we’re 58 64 yeah so we need to get a good night’s sleep get those bikes put together and Amsterdam is absolutely the best place in our opinion to start a bike trip you are faced with flat roads dedicated bike paths you can get your

    Legs you build up some strength in your legs before you start hitting the hills of some other areas Germany Austria I had no idea we’ll get to that but I had no idea there was in Normandy I’d never been to Normandy on all of our trips I had never been to

    Normandy before yeah I thought it was going to be flat I thought we were going to be riding along the beach that’s not how it is what is that French word which start of the cin Kine Bine Bine yes yes oh my yes B Boku so what do you do with your

    Bike box because you’re going to need to save it and use it to go home nope we throw it away throw it away we don’t even bring suitcases we pack everything in boxes and throw them away at the airport our bike trip last year in the

    Fall of 20 2022 at the end we did buy suitcases and and a bike box from a bike shop and shipped everything back this year we left our bikes in France at Ron’s mom’s house ah so next year we’ll be able to eliminate that step and just

    Fly over pick up our bikes and continue our Loop okay yes right you because your mom lives in France in Ros for you were just giving me travel tips for rfor thank you very much because I’m going next week a wonderful place yes it’s a beautiful place so that’ll be very fun

    Okay so now we have the logistics you brought so you had your tent and everything right everything everything we had our tent we even had our peanut butter completely self-supported completely self-supported yes exactly and we I do want to give some Kudos out to to our friends who introduced us to

    Bike touring a couple years ago and we went on our bike trip in 2022 with our good friends the seros they introduced us to longdistance cycle touring and showed us the ropes and this year we were able to take what we learned and continue our loop around Europe on our

    Own we had always ridden bikes we’ve always ridden bikes our first anniversary in 1988 was spent on bicycles we’ve always ridden bicycles we love bicycles but to tour long distance is is something in its it’s very different and we’ve toured all over Europe and we’ve lived in Europe we lived in Germany two

    Different times but to take your bike and travel from point to point is such an adventure it’s so freeing it’s the most relaxed we’ve ever been although exhausted right completely exhausted at the end of the day day so where did you start well this trip you started in

    Amsterdam we know this what was your goal your end goal for this particular trip this year well the end goal was to get to my mother’s house in Roose fur so what we really wanted to do was ride the coast of Normandy there’s a lot of history there especially you know World

    War I and World War II there were some personal connections for both of us between you know my family from World War I on and her grandfather parti ipated in the Normandy invasion so we wanted to see those things and you know pay our respects to all those who

    Sacrificed over the years and then of course we wanted to see all of Normandy because we hadn’t toured up there at all not even by car a little bit of Britany and then coming down towards home in La Rell was very satisfying for me especially yeah so how did you did you

    Use an app to prepare this trip you have a map behind you but the people who are listening to the podcast can’t see that so did you use an app in particular did you use paper maps what’s the process well there’s a wonderful map it’s a

    French map I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it it’s called The French IGN map have you heard of the IGN yes well there’s a map for um that has all the bicycle routes the trains the the roads it’s the IGN map was it 924 maybe and we

    We bought that several years ago and That’s How We Gather our big picture we take the IGN map and we look at it and we decide our Point too and then we can see the bike routes it has the actual bicycle routes numbered on there and

    Then on a day-to-day basis we pick point A to B might be 50 to 60 miles and then we use an app we can either use Google Maps or there’s a bicycle app that we like called Kut k a m o o t yeah have

    You heard of Kut oh yes I use kamuta oh wonderful so we use that and that really breaks down that leg that segment yes compl so much it breaks it down you can see so many things on it you can even reroute yourself which we’ve had to do a few times because

    Google and Kut for the bike route isn’t always perfect nope often you land in what we call a goat path which is a very unpassable section of Road Trail Farmers back door their driveway so you have to kind of reroute but we do use that’s the tools that we use the map and

    The cud PA right so your bikes are not made to go on these types of really rugged paths are they right they’re not mountain bikes the tires are thicker what’s the width of the tires 35 and 38 centimeters so they can go on a a crushed gravel they can go on Sand they

    Can go they just don’t well you wouldn’t want to go on some of the roads that Kut has sent us on where we had to walk and push and be covered in mud and the bikes have fallen over on us and yeah we haven’t sounded very nice to each

    Other when I first got my electric bike I decided I was going to go into the city with the electric bike so that’s what 17 kilometers away and back but I told Google I wanted to go on the bike route right I picked the tab for the

    Bike oh oh jeez it sent me to roads like that the back arms they were like the path was like this huge hole in the ground my tire were G to get caught in that and I was gonna fall over I’m like I’m no you know exactly exactly that’s

    Happened that’s exactly what happened to us plus we have another you know 60 pounds of gear on our bicycle yeah you eventually learn to the night before you eventually learn to really blow up the Kimo route and really explore that and you learn at first when you first go

    Down a goat path you think oh how long can this last I can push my bike 50 feet Yes you eventually learn not to even attempt it and and to turn around and Route yes more times than I can that I’m proud of we’ve attempted to just push

    Through when we should have just said oh let’s just turn around around find a go around it makes for great stories though yes and I have quite a few wounds where I’ve fallen and scraped and yeah yeah we do carry a first aid kit yeah that’s

    Good so did you have to take a lot of busy roads share the road with cars a lot or not too often not too often now a number of times we did by choice simply because it was the best route to take rather than going through those fields

    And zigzagging through Farmland that we knew knew we were going to run into some bad paths so we did opted for busier roads and nothing was too busy that we got on you know we stayed on some on the D roads and mostly they weren’t very

    Busy I don’t think so I was very comfortable and I find that you know unlike in the United States drivers are extremely comfortable and used to having cyclists on the road so there there’s a lot of respect for cyclists in France that you don’t find here no it’s true we

    Have to be careful we get ticketed if we get too close to the cyclist and that’s how it should be like I’m totally okay with that and we’ve actually seen that we’ve seen the police pull over cars who were not yielding to us or driving too

    Fast yeah I did want to expand a little bit on the bike routes I think I mentioned this in our notes for people who are wanting to do self-supported trips and the bike routes so in Holland in the Netherlands in Belgium Germany and France and Italy there are a lot of

    Dedicated bike routes bike paths there’s a lot of canals when you’re doing trips in a particular area you can get around and you may never have to hit a d Road where where you’re going in rer next week you’ll see tons of dedicated bike paths but when you’re traveling a long

    Distance point to point 3 weeks 1,000 miles you have to go on the road yeah you may be able to do your trip completely on connected bike paths but in our experience you’re going to have to hit the roads and the D- roads they’re wonderful they’re wonderful sometimes they have a dedicated bike

    Path right next to it yeah but if they don’t like Ron said the the drivers are great but just be prepared that it’s not all dedicated bike paths right people think oh I’m gonna ride my bike in France for three weeks I’m gonna do the euroo whatever you know and it’s going

    To be you 1,500 miles or you know 2,000 kilometers of wonderful bike path well just because it says Euro veilo marking doesn’t mean you’re not going to be on the road right right at the very least you will have to cross major roads at times and sometimes

    You will have to go along the major road and by major road a d Road so I should explain that a d Road is departmental that just means it’s the department that is in charge of maint of road maintenance most of the time these are smaller roads but you have some D

    Roads that are pretty big so some of them are dual D and n’s department and National in sections yes exactly so the traffic picks up the big trucks are there the buses yeah yes so you do have to have your wits about you yes you definitely have to have your wits about

    You have to be prepared your bike needs to be equipped with flashing lights you need to have the correct you know safety features that’s for for sure you know the flashing light on the front the flashing red light on the back if you know you’re going to be on a d Road

    That’s fairly busy well and anytime you’re on a road sharing the route with the vehicles you should have something bright on we have bright rain jackets that we put on the back of our bicycle so it’s you know lime green bright you see a lot of people in France wear the

    Vests also yes yeah the just the safety yellow vest and a very good helmet you need to have a helmet on you never know when you we’ve fallen over from standing still yes that’s a very heavy bike like Ron said the bike is 30 pounds then you

    Throw in your body weight and then you throw in 50 to 60 pounds of gear yeah and maybe 80 or 90 for ra because he’s carrying the tent yeah you need to be safe so gear is very important how long did it take you to get either set up

    Somewhere for the night how did you find places for the night did you go to campgrounds did you use hotels hosts whatever on this trip it was 22 nights on the road 22 days on the road we spent 13 nights at campgrounds we spent eight nights in

    Airbnbs or hotels and we spent one night in a warm shower home not sure if you’ve heard of warm showers or in my garden very recently yes it’s a wonderful reciprocal bike program bike hosting program and we do it here in the states we host bicyclist we just this summer we

    Had a man Gerwin if you’re listening from Holland from the Netherlands yeah and then we do the same and it’s free you find a host in your area and you contact them and you stay there so we had 13 nights camping eight nights in a hotel and our eight nights in a hotel

    Tell were because when you’re looking for a place to stay at the end of the day you normally look the night before you look at your route I’m going from A to B where am I going to stop we don’t plan too far ahead because you don’t

    Really know what’s going to happen the train could change the weather yeah so we plan 24 hours in advance but sometimes there’s not a campground where you want to go and we prefer camping we love camping in good weather as long as it’s not raining but sometimes there’s not a campground

    So you have to do a hotel or an Airbnb and we found some wonderful VRBO Airbnb guest houses jeets we stayed in a chatau one night yeah we stayed in an Old Mill and I can give you those if I haven’t already for your notes the names of some

    Of these places but camping is the best camping or warm showers is wonderful because we also we should talk about budget there’s also a budget involved when you’re spending three weeks on the road for us this year and last year we spent two months on the road so you

    Really have to have a budget and we try to keep that budget for two people yes between 775 and $100 a day so if we can get a campground for $12 we can eat better in the evening I can have two beers instead of [Laughter] one exactly and you are very exhausted

    At the end of the day right very exhausted so we have a budget you want to get to your site you want to set up we keep it simple we’re very simple people we have our tent we have our bed rolls we have a coffee pot that we

    Travel with it’s called a jet boil try to have coffee and pastries with that in the morning again keeping our limit 75 to $100 yeah we’re not visiting a lot of I did make a note to mention that we’re not visiting a lot of the normal

    Touristy places on our bike trips M it is really for us we really like to get behind the postcard and see real French people real life real Italian people real German people wherever we might be we’ve been married almost 40 years we’ve been together almost 40 years yeah we’ve

    Lived in Germany twice we’ve traveled to a lot of the normal typical tourist sites and we love them we love them especially the ones in France but when you’re on the bike our purpose the last two years and hopefully the next three years as we circumnavigate our Europe we

    Really want to get behind the postcard we want to see real life real people and on a bike you can do that and Ron pointed out yesterday I’ll let you talk about that how unassuming you are to think is the word when you’re on a bicycle let you talk about that yes

    Being a tourist being a tourist in France you go to all of the iconic tourist places and you look like a tourist you’re with a tourist Group which is fantastic you see wonderful things and learn about the history of France however when you’re on a bicycle

    No matter where you roll into you stop and people look at you there’s some French spoken broken English here and there and you are very unassuming you’re non-threatening you’re on a bicycle you appear to be almost like a vagabond and it doesn’t matter we can stop at any

    Cafe or Bakery and someone has questions where did you come from where are you going and and where are you from originally yeah questions and there’s always an offer of assistance you know are you looking for something do you need help there’s just good local conversation and recommendations oh stop

    Here go two blocks down the road that Cafe is got the much better coffee go there you’re going to hear those things yeah plus as you’re rolling through you can wave at people you’re on a bicycle you’re going slow you see real life if I

    Go to somewhere in France as a tourist I don’t see the guy who’s taking care of his lawn or walking his dog and talking to his neighbors but here I do I see real life yeah you do you do have you had any dogs chase you oh dogs I mean we

    Don’t really have trouble with dogs no that that is a problem on the bike and we live currently we live in Kentucky we’re not from Kentucky but we currently live here in Kentucky and we ride our bikes and there’s a huge problem and every cyclist in the world knows that

    Kentucky is famous for dogs dogs and dog problems but in Europe we have no problems no they’re behaved they’re very well behaved no problems now we have turned around a couple of times because we saw some monster dogs that look like they might not be very friendly chosen a

    Different different ra you know yeah but they were on their land they you know Kimo might have sent us through their Farm yeah so they’re just protecting their territory yeah Farm dogs you have to be a little cautious because they are yeah it’s their jobor right and I did

    Want to say that you throughout the years I’ve listened to your podcast because I am a huge Franco File I love everything French she does French and it’s so perfect for me that I married Ron because he’s half French and I’ve been able to spend the last 40 years of

    My life going to France vacationing in France and he speaks French and I try to speak French and for me that’s part of the experience is just practicing my French I’ll say no you don’t talk I want to order I want to order yeah I do it

    Just yeah and it it’s just been a wonderful life but to get really behind that postcard like Ron said and see someone taking care of their lawn or walking the kids to school or going into the pharmacy and yeah everyday things yeah we have to talk about Li lir aha

    Yes we have to talk about Li for the people who are listening she just stood up and she has her beautiful to of France L Clair shirt itair that’s the grocery store and he has a France T-shirt with a flag on it so they were they are

    Prepared we are prepared so I got this shirt Colette Ron’s mom got it for me you know all the laclair clerks wear these during the chy fronts they do yes at their cash registers yes they do so she went in and asked the manager if she

    Could have one for us actually she got it for Ron but I took it away it’s my shirt now and it’s the tour the the king of the mountain jersey with the polka dots all over it yeah and and it’s it’s my favorite souvenir it’s fantastic another thing that we enjoy doing like

    So many of your listeners we love being behind the postcard we love going to laclair inter marhe and catlon and the markets and on this bike ride we were able to do all those things every town as you know and as You’ explained this town’s markets on Tuesday this town’s

    Markets on Wednesday so as you’re rolling through you’re hitting a market almost every day yeah of course on the bike ride yeah how could you not exactly exactly you’d have to make a serious effort to avoid the Street Markets because they’re everywhere I do want to

    Throw out a bit of caution for someone who is planning a cycle tour okay like I said Ron and I really look at our map on a grand scale and say we’re going from Amsterdam to the south of France and then over 21 days we’ll break those down

    To 21 segments and we really don’t plan beyond that we look at the map the night before decide where we’re going to sleep we get to that sleeping spot we decide what we’re going to eat things have always worked out well right last year and this year however I know what you’re

    Gonna say things do happen yeah and this year when we got to lar on June 18th do you know what happens in lar on the sen on June 18th this year you mean right what happens on June 18th uh I don’t I don’t know it was

    The Armada there was a huge PA ship Armada leaving ruin how you say that word theel ruin yeah I think so where Jon of AR is from oh yeah yeah so we could not cross the s in laav to get to doville to get to doville we started in

    The ARA and we needed to get to doil yes because we actually had our first hotel booked for the trip there yes we like we’re going to stay in right we wanted to see this casino in doville and see the it’s supposed to be where all the

    Parisians vacation go for that the big Film Festival they have there right right it wasn’t there at that time but we were gonna visit in doville and get a hotel and we were all set so that was June 18th and we start our track and

    It’s going to be a short day short day normally we average 50 plus miles a day wow that’s a lot it is a lot nope we traveled 21 days of biking 1100 miles which is about 52 miles a day wow that’s a lot but on this particular day we were

    Only going to do 35 and we had our little bike Route 35 miles I think maybe 38 short day we get to the sen we’re ready to cross the river every road every bridge and every Ferry shut down is shut down except the autobond there’s

    A huge over autobond that goes way up so the tall ships can get under it can’t go on the oton can’t get over and we’re rolling it up to all these different fairy Crossings what’s that word for Fairy in French Bach b back yeah roll up to them the je is there they’re

    Wonderful you can’t go yeah and we can’t say enough about how wonderful the garm are when you’re on a bike they’re wonderful yeah they were very helpful very helpful and we can’t get across nope and of the 21 days we’re traveling 22 days we’re traveling this is the only day we

    Have bad weather major storm major oage and the jeams are like oh there’s a major storm coming you’ve got to get you know we’re like well our hotel is over there well we never could get there we couldn’t get there it was Saturday we said when is the ferry opening they said

    Tomorrow we said tomorrow we can’t imagine that in the United States them closing something yeah till tomorrow so we were we were shocked for special events it happens it happens it’s hard to plan a thing like that because even if you had known about it and we and we

    Should have we should have that’s the detail I wanted to point out you should know a little bit about the activities going on what events are happening in in that area you should look ahead look ahead a little bit two days or so it’s deciding to roll upon the unknown that’s

    Part of the thrill of cycle touring but this one really threw us off we couldn’t get a tour Hotel there was a horrible thunderstorm and actually it was Sunday I’m sorry it was Sunday so nothing was open nothing was open for food which you know we’ve traveled to France tons of

    Time I was prepared I knew to have some food with us yeah but we were tired we were cold we were wet we couldn’t get to our hotel so what did you do I had a little freak out I had a major freak out we we freaked out a little bit for about

    60 seconds yeah we found a campground we rode back through the storm up a monstrous monstrous Hill oh that was awful pushing our you know bikes that weigh too much way too much and we got to the campground and it was just a field there was no restaurants there was

    A nice warm dry shower block yeah the the the sanitary block was our savior that night we were able to get in there and get into some dry clothes and wait for the storm to pass and then set up our tent set up our tent and I had the

    Night before I had bought two cans of lentils two cans of lentil so we each had a nice yeah can of lentils I had two apples two cans of lentils two apples and I always would have secret Coke in my in my bags Coke is our we don’t drink

    We don’t drink soda we don’t drink pop in in the States but on our bike trips we drink so much coke yeah our bodies are craving it energy craves that Sugar yeah so that’s what we had for the night and it it just added to the experience

    It was it was hard yeah but it added to our memory and our experience and it probably was the roughest Campground we’ve been to yeah yeah that sounds pretty basic like just a field and a sanitary Block H okay but there was electricity though there was a San and

    There was electric cords running everywhere and there was other people in camping cars yeah I think that’s something Ron wanted to point out to people wanting to tour also is how we navigate on the road how we keep things charged our cell phone service so I’ll

    Let you talk about that a little bit part of the logistics of every single day is how do I charge my gear charge your lights you have to charge your phones especially your phones because it’s your navigation system so finding a campground with good electricity available is very difficult when you’re

    Tent camping because the tent area usually has no electricity yeah so you end up usually in a sanitary block you know with all of your stuff plugged in and if you’re going to cycle tour you should prepare for that you can go on Amazon or something and find yourself a

    Good European plug extension cord that’s got us B ports and everything so you can plug five things in with only one electrical outlet yeah but tell about the lockers oh yes and we actually well when you’re on a bicycle you got lots of time to think and I’m thinking as we go

    From campground to Campground I told Susan and if I owned a campground that was going to be friendly to cyclist I would put in a system of lockers that had ports in there that you could plug in and you just lock it up and leave your stuff you can go to dinner come

    Back and not have to worry about your stuff but I said that I told him that was a stupid idea and she said that is a ridiculous idea there is no way so that particular day we we rolled up on a camp round we found which was very nice and

    She goes in she always takes care of the checking in and checking out and all that stuff you know because she’s much more particular than I am and she walks out and she said I’m not gonna tell you I’m just not gonna say it Ron I said what she goes

    They’ got lockers here to charge your stuff so yeah yeah I was like I’m told you it’s a great idea when he told me I was like that is not feasible they’re not going to have lockers it’s a campground and then I get to the desk and like and

    We have lockers for your charging I was like oh you’re kidding me you don’t yes so that’s a wonderful feature to look for is on the road you amazing it was it was awesome makes your life much easier because you can just drop your stuff and go buy some dinner or whatever yes

    Because we’ll go into restaurants with all of our stuff and we’ll ask the restaurant you know the owners the waiters waitresses say hey do you mind if we plug our stuff in right there and then some will say most will say yes but in some places they say h no no yeah

    We’ve had people tell us no it’s really it’s so much fun yeah yeah on these trips and we also we carry two cell phones we each carry a cell phone we have T-Mobile here in the states yes and T-Mobile for $50 extra a month you get their international plan which we have

    Had no problems with we are never without signal nope even when we went to Albania last year and Montenegro and Croatia and Greece no problem T-Mobile just connected to each country seamlessly but you do run out of you do run out of battery power because you are

    Roaming or hitting those cell towers as you go we carry two phones and two spare batteries that usually gets us through the day but sometimes depending on how many miles and how much your phone is pinging off different Towers it can be a little difficult because you’re using

    GPS you’re using GPS course yeah you’re using Google Maps or commutes or whatever and exactly it’s going to suck in a lot of power just sucks it up yeah yeah did you ever worry about theft did you ever worry about somebody going to stick our stuff and ride off with it I

    Mean it’s always in the back of your mind it has to be I think that’s just normal you don’t want your transportation to be stolen that’s for sure and your gear you know so when we stop places if we stop to do some grocery shopping or something only one

    Of us goes in one stays with the bicycles if we’re at a cafe or something normally we’ve locked our bikes up and where we can we got line of sight on it all the time in the campgrounds it’s not quite that way I I think in the

    Campgrounds we feel a little safer we’re with like people who are doing the same thing other bicyclists so everyone’s pretty respectful there yeah did you run into a lot of other people doing the same thing you were yes yeah we did especially at the campgr matter of fact

    On this trip we ran into the same two people at two different campgrounds right you know so it was interesting everyone has their own wonderful unique story but your connection is that bike and the life on the road yeah and you’re so interested in where they’re from and

    What they’re doing and where they’re going and how they’re getting there and we always talk about the bikes you know we’re so interested in the bicycle itself and the why why are you doing it we we talk about those things too the why and the how you know we’re very

    Blessed I I said a few minutes ago I’m 58 and Ron’s 64 Ron’s fully retired now and I stepped away from my full-time job and I took a job with the school system so that I can have Summers off and breaks throughout the year so now I get

    Two full months in the summer and we’re able to do these things these wonderful trips yes as we you know move into this next it’s just amazing just been amazing and do you do similar things in the US or just in Europe we ride bikes in the

    US we have not cycle toured across a segment we do now is just this last two months we go on what’s called Century rides or metric Century rides two weeks ago we did an 80 mile ride and you de with groups of people kind of like a

    Marathon they have Century rides and a group of cyclists go out and we go out in the country and we ride 80 miles or 60 miles so we go to a different state and and do a ride with you know other cyclists and then come home the next day

    We hope to do some cycle touring in the states right now we’re focused on completing our Loop in Europe right so do tell where you’ve been and where you hope to go in France and other places well and in the fall of 22 we did our first cycle tour with our good friends

    Pam and Ralph who she had already said they introduced us to this which was fantastic because they were so experienced already but we did that you know the the name of it was a TOA Amsterdam to Athens we started up there and in the Netherlands and we followed

    The Ry down through Germany through eight countries yes and we ended up crossing the Alps from inbrook to brener and down into Venice Italy so we covered Italy Austria Germany and then we crossed the Adriatic on a ferry to Croatia to Split Croatia and then from there we went down through all of

    Croatia Albania Montenegro and into Greece and all the way down to Athens that was a tremendous trip it was an eyeopener to see you know the Balkans for the first time and of course to cross through Germany which was you know place where we met and spend a lot of

    Time there right we Revisited where we had first met where we were stationed in the Army where our children were born yeah it was fantastic we went to places we were too broke to go to in our 20s we actually we finally made it to the

    October Fest yeah nice yeah so that was our first trip it was 2,000 miles that was a great trip 52 days remember we had that budget you know we really have to keep it lot within budget we did a lot of camping and when we got to the

    Balkans things were very cheap compared to Western Europe so this year we did we went back to the Netherlands we went back to Amsterdam and we rode all the way down we went through Rotterdam the hook of Holland gent bage eepa where the men and gate is yeah a lot of Canadian

    And British history in that part of Belgium and Flanders we went to I’m GNA say this wrong westram o UI s t where the Pegasus bridge is yes in in PR we went to the Pegasus Bridge y was wonderful there every day they have bag pipes where they still play the bag

    Pipes as they go across the Pegasus bridge and there’s so much history and still remembrance this was a 79th anniversary so it wasn’t a big anniversary of the Normandy next year’s going to be huge then we shot over to all the beaches we did all the beaches

    We did sword Juno Omaha gold and then we shot down to Mount St Michelle which was my dream we did not go up into the town but it’s very doable but we’ve seen 700 medieval towns but just to stand there in front of that it was something yeah

    My 12-year-old little self who always dreamed of being in France and I’ve gone to France numerous times but to stand in in front of that iconic M St Michelle on my bicycle with Ron was just magnificent then we shot down in the direction of Ren to Ren yeah we hit a fabulous by

    Chance because remember we like to fly by the seat of our pants we don’t want to know where we’re going we landed in this town just south just outside of Ren having a festival yeah that was wonderful it wasn’t the musical festival though although it might have been

    Around the same time it wasn’t their Musical Festival now that I think about it it might have been it was around the 21st and there was plenty of Music it might have been their Town Music Festival but that was great then we shot over to Laval and having been in

    Normandy and Britany we were in so many again Boku Boku Kine I was ready to lose my mind finally we got over to Laval and we were you know heading toward to the lair and we were on a canal path and finally we had about three days of peaceful flat riding

    Yeah that was that was a nice break and I forget what that so now we’re on the V ver the actual bike path y wonderful so when you do find yourself able to get on and connect with an official V Greenway euroo they’re wonderful wonderful and then we headed

    To Ron’s moms and we headed down to from Laval to aner no o a yes and then through samur Sam yes Sam that’s beautiful there also beautiful and that’s where we stayed in the Chateau for $12 yes oh was one of our nights in a chatau we found on

    Booking.com could not find a campground we had points on hotel.com we had stayed so many times for $12 we stayed in this beautiful oh that was nice which you know Ron is from lelle where of course Cardinal risho and all that activity occurred in the 16 00 yes so now we’re

    In samur and in this chatau the owner I can’t remember his name the owner of the Chateau his wife is the sister of cardinal risho the original yeah not that I was thrilled about that but interesting interesting fact that you know risho this this man who caused so

    Many issues in France yeah his sister lived in this hall and then we shot down closer to LA relle and now we’re heading you know through part car and newor yeah yeah onto serer where Ron’s stepfather is from and we should point out that Jean died this year so our bike trip

    Went from being six weeks to three weeks because the focus was now on getting home to his mom and doing some family things and wrapping up things with her of course of course wow so the whole trip although we tried to really enjoy the moments it it was more more

    Especially for Rod I’m sure it was kind of a pilgrimage home to say goodbye andit like the country like you mentioned before in a way that you don’t and you know in France there’s this historical perspective that the bicycle is what brought freedom to the farmers because Farmers have long hours

    Of work and once they could buy a bicycle well as soon as work was done they would go pH you know and and go somewhere go meet in the town go meet the girl whatever it was you know it brought a lot of freedom to people and I

    Think that’s one of the reasons why we still love it so much and why we have so much respect for people who travel by bike nobody I mean you said you look like a vagrant but nobody treated you poorly right I mean no no no not at all

    No no not at all you’re just so nonthreatening on a bicycle yeah yeah threatening you know immediately what it is and you must have seen some families that were doing this because I know couples that do this with young kids as well yes we saw her we saw lots of them

    So many with their children it’s so impressive and they have you know the little eight-year-old might be on his own bike but the four-year-old might be pulled behind the bike yes with that bar that connects to the little trailer you know and it’s just a Wonderful Life

    Those are the things that we did with our children here in the states when they were little yeah and yeah it’s just something that it’s fun did anybody scoff at electric bicycles or are these allowed on those trips well it’s wonderful Ron’s gonna talk about that because we wanted to mention that yeah

    We love electrical bicycles and as we age I’m sure we’ll get one but I want you to hear Ron’s take on this because it’s it’s very typical and you can see his Evolution as we were well they’re not they’re becoming popular here but just as like commuters but when we were

    Out on our first trip back in last fall I did see some touring bicycles out there that were electric and I will say Ralph and I both would talk about it say oh my gosh electric bikes for touring no way yeah that’s just not the right thing you

    Know and we keep going and as I progressed through Germany and and we could I see more and more but my thoughts changed on it my opinion changed I saw lots of people I think that we’re getting to a point either some physical ailments or age alone

    Precluded them from being able to tour anymore on a standard bicycle and the electric assist made it possible to still enjoy what they’ve always enjoyed yeah and I started to have I had a revelation that this is a wonderful thing yeah those people are still they

    Could be 75 80 years old and they’re still touring yeah long distance yeah now I will say that when we did talk to these people to every group it had at least one person who said I don’t really use the electric part except when I’m

    Need real help up a hill yeah you can turn it off right and if you do it’s actually a heavier bike than normal oh yeah yes but I am ready because there was still a stigma I am ready to purchase one when the time comes and I

    Would love to have one now just to commute around town yeah maybe not this next time but that maybe the time after we we might entertain the electric bike purchase that’s what I tell people is you know if it’s no biking or electric bike then just get an electric bike

    Because it know then you’ll get on the bike and go which you wouldn’t have done on a push bike because you’re afraid that it’s going to be too hard or you’re out of shape or you’re sick or you’re too old whatever it is you know and so

    Why not I’m sold on these things and you see them everywhere there’s some m the expensive ones too yes yes and if you’re going to to purchase some stuff at the market or you this is a load you need some it’s nice to have the assistance yeah yeah yeah fantastic and things are

    Coming around in the states too you do see more electric bikes now in the larger cities but in Europe it’s just exploded we had been there in 2019 prior to co we went our last trip prior to co was 2019 and we didn’t see many electric

    Bikes yeah and then went back in 2022 they were everywhere and I think that came out of covid you know over the20 and then this year again continued explosion that you it’s really hard to go to a bike store and you see mostly electric bike stores now yeah no it’s

    True and I think it’s also a fact that for commuters for City people they didn’t want to get back on the freeway I mean on the subway right oh yes you know because of Co they were worried about you know proximity to all these people

    And they just wanted to be on their own bikes which right I agree you should it’s better on your own bike rather than in a Subway yeah I can’t wait I can’t wait to get one yeah it’s gonna be nice but it’s not in our budget right now

    Yeah those are expensive my sister has a really expensive electric bike I think theirs are like s or 8,000 for those bikes mine was just two and a half th000 and I thought that was quite you know but I mean I ride it a little bit every day I just go do little

    Things you know nothing big like I rarely go more than 10K but it doesn’t matter I’m just if I have to go somewhere I go somewhere on the bike and it’s much nicer I think it’s so wonderful I think it’s fantastic with that between the Smart Car you know the

    Little electric cars and electric bicycles for commuting it’s good for it’s good for everybody it’s just it’s good for the environment better for the environment and it’s better for us I think as well well you know Ron and Susan it has been wonderful we’ve been talking a long

    Time so we’re going to have to call it quit there are more details about where you went exactly and all of that in your guest notes but it has been fabulous getting all these details about what it takes to go on a trip like this I wonder

    If you have inspired some people and if Susan and Ron inspired you do let me know because I will pass the message on to them I think it would be really spectacular to have people you know say hey I’m gonna do a long trip on a bike wonderful It’s a Wonderful way to

    Experience life behind the postcard real life and you can stop at all the major tourist things you can take breaks on the road yeah we didn’t do that so much this year but you know on our trip last fall we stopped and we explored Venice

    And we went to the October Fest yeah no this time you had a really ambitious schedule we really needed to make it from point A to point B you were moving a lot and we personally enjoy that athletic portion of accomplishing 50 to 60 miles a day and putting that back to

    Back it makes sound crazy but it makes us feel alive yeah but and there are plenty of cyclists we run into who are just doing you know 30 miles a day so it’s just pedal that’s all you have to do you just ped and next year we’ll pick

    Our bikes up they’re in France we’ll pick them up we’re going to go to tus nice head through too and maybe we can have coffee that would be lovely and then over to Barcelona we have a good uh I mean there’s a lot of biking along the

    Canal here right that’ll be easy yeah that’s pretty easy and then there’s the Pasa which is an old it’s between maame and B so that’s like a you would do this in a day it’s like 70 kilometers or something or 75 kilomet a perfect day yeah yeah and it’s along an old train

    Track yeah we like that once in a while you have to get off you know have to cross a road or whatever but it’s mostly you know very well protected so I think you would love that and then from the Pasa you can ride there’s another one

    Can’t remember the name of it but it goes all the way to Barcelona oh yeah see that’s that’s where yeah because we like to pick an end point where we know we have a major city and Airport to get in and out with our bicycles logistically

    Right because we won’t be able to leave them in France next time we’ll have to either sell them at the end or ship them home but it has been wonderful talking to you and I just want to thank you for everything over the years that you’ve

    Provided to us made our trips easier and yes I’ve just enjoy I continue to enjoy your podcast I listen to it almost every single day wonderful thank you so much both of you and I wish you many many more wonderful trips on your bikes thank you Annie the join us in France travel podcast is written hosted and produced by Annie Sant and copyright 2023 by addicted to France it is released under a Creative Commons attribution non-commercial no derivatives license I’m One Oh Where

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