Hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking. My name is Arjan and it is time for a new Bikepacking Adventure! After prematurely ending my Wales trip because of injuries and a week’s worth of bad weather coming my way, I decided to go to Nantes. Well worth the visit and a good starting point for my 3 day trip along the Loire towards Tours.
Hope you like it, enjoy your rides and stay safe out there !

* If you like the music, unless listed below, it is on epidemic sounds.
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* Title music La Montagne by Jean Ferrat
Chapters:
intro 00:00
end of previous trip 00:40
start part 1 00:47
start part 2 01:25
04:15 unexpected pendulum
05:18 Trentemoult
06:12 there’s a elephant in the room
08:45 nantes centre ville
10:52 cookie story
11:30 finally cycling
14:13 barree or not barree
15:30 more annoying fences
17:28 great camp site

Well the car’s in one piece, I have to dash to get to a hotel and Hopefully some food cuz it’s 21:15 already and even in France that’s late so see you later hi and welcome to WannaGoBiking well I’ve left Wales and England  entirely

I’m now in France where I was just about to step on my bike however, my Break has  decided to quit on me this is so weird I just rode 30 m with it without an issue then I step  on the bike and then it makes that sound

So yeah that’s all my plans down the drain for today I think I’ll need to find a cycle shop and yeah hopefully one that has actually has time for me salut and bonjour to WannaGoBiking I am Southwest of Nantes in France

where I will be heading now , it’s about I don’t know-10K or so should be a nice River Crossing in the making as well and yeah let’s just do a bit of  sightseing Nantes and after Nantes I will be pretty much following the Loire River for 3 days is the plan

Towards Tours, the final destination in 3 days time so yeah hopefully I can make this one stick because my last trip down to Wales was cut short to various reasons mainly physical because  I’m still healing from some wounds I uh sustained after a crash but things are looking better now

And the terrain here is going to be much much easier I think there’s only 800 M of elevation gain over 3 days hopefully I can do some camping as well so lots of plans this is it for  now, let’s just get started see oh look at that beautiful tree alley

I will be slowly making my way towards Trentemoult which is an old fishing Village just opposite of Nantes and from there on I should be able to get the  navibus water taxi or something over to Nantes and Trentemoult, I’ve been there once four or five years  ago

A beautiful little fishing Village so um yeah lots of art shops and lots of tourists as well but also hopefully also lunch see you there sounds like a bird’s paradise here sand, the ennemy to all cyclists hmm, not so much love for this one

Okay apparently this is a cycle path, wow you could have Fooled me how cool! wow never seen anything  like this how fun it is a work of art : Le pendule so that up there in the  distance is the tour de Bretagne

I’ve been up there a few years ago I think it’s only one Euro sort of a token money you have to pay and then you get of course a great  Outlook I read online that it’s now down for renovations for quite a few  years so yeah no chance for that today

But I am hoping to get some lunch here in Trentemoult we shall see always exciting me and lunches well I’m guessing the elephant is having his lunch break we are in France of course so last time was down here they let this elephant roam  all across this terrain

And it would spew water over children all the time so that was great fun so yeah I’ll just have a quick look around and then make my way further into the inner city see that is one seriously cool Carousel again a very very cool  piece of art here the Rings, les Anneaux

Ah it’s in English good so the only time I’ve been to Nantes  before I was actually staying at Trentemoult where I had lunch and well that’s over there and at night all these these Rings were alight and that made for quite a nice scene

Certainly If you take  a little boat, that little water taxi back to Trentemoult very cool, they really have done  a lot of work here in creating art in this city and yeah pays off really does yeah I’ll just head in town now see if I can find some older artifacts as well

And then make my way along  the Loire River well Upstream so see you there cycling without a front wheel, well that’s an option that is one big elephant I don’t think I’ve ever come  across the city with so much art in it fantastic

And likee every good  French city this one has a castle as well so this would be the old castle that belonged to the Dukes or counts of Bretagne you can actually walk down in the trenches there

Right okay I think I one more short  stop to do and then it’s out of the city see you later maybe you can just about make  out the letters over there? you should be able to see an L and U so that spells LU and that’s  because apparently there’s some

Biscuitry industry here in Nantes and Lu Lu is probably one of the factories that used to be here so all that remains now is this little Tower but it’s a beauty isn’t it? fantastic well it’s a quite a bit of cycle cycling infrastructure here in Nantes

so really doing a good job that’s a strange tower all by itself all right so I think that’s The Loire again well I’m following this lovely track along the the  railroad and I am going to check out a place that I was just tipped by Stefan and

I think Axel- his son’s name- who have just met super super friendly guys fantastic people really he gave me some food for tonight and couple of tips so yeah that’s what you want yeah so they said there  was a pond up ahead in Oudon with some

Running water yeah so that might actually be an option  for tonight so I’ll just check it out maybe it’s full of people who are going to be there for swimming and as it’s a very beautiful summer evening I don’t think they will be leaving soon

So then camping will be out of the question for me but then I will follow my original  plan and go to a campsite that I found and if that fails then I’ll just cycle on because why not, beautiful day for it all right just continue shall

Okay route barree a 700 m, aucun danger so the road is blocked but someone wrote there’s no danger whatsoever, might just well so I’ll just go for it and see what it what it’s like if push comes to shove I’ll just have to double back 700 m, well I’ve done worse

And it’s kind of a a nice Adventure so let’s just go for it okay so apparently in March there was  a landslide or some some rocks have fallen down but were none on the route today or anymore so it’s perfectly safe to to ride okay I think I’m heading that way Loire a Velo

That’s what I’ll do see you huh there’s no way they’re  going to make it easy for us is there ? this right so this should be a little Pond there  quite a few people about but I’ll just have a I’ll check it out cuz the the little  village seems to have it all

There saw a supermarket even a restaurant so it  would be great if I could camp here but yeah I’m not quite sure if I can do that  first see if I can access the terrain merci ah such a shame really a beautiful  place lot of shelter

But so many people and I don’t think they will be leaving before 10:00 tonight if at all so yeah I can’t wait that long and see how it goes so I’ll just  go on to the campsite that I picked out before

And if that’s full or not to my liking then  we’ll just plow on won’t we all right see you later right I should be closing on the  campsite I selected,so see if we can find a nice spot if not then we just continue wow look at that how cute is this?

lots of trees here nice well unlike the  time in Norway that I camped I don’t think there’s going to be that many campers blocking  my way so a nice piece of shade as well yeah beautiful ride, not too hard it’s a good start  of or restart actually of the holiday

So after 9 days of cycling in the UK now back in France so I hope you enjoyed this video as much as I did riding it and I’ll see you in a next video Until then enjoy your rides and stay safe out there see you later

3 Comments

  1. I think I would swap the Loire for the UK any day of the week! I cycled there over 30 years ago and loved it. This brought back some good memories. Nice video. Take care. JP

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