Bicycling in France

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We are very glad that we did not let our inability to speak French hinder us from this bicycle trip. Even in very small villages, there was always some way to get directions, to find a patisserie (bakery), to buy bread, cheese, vegetables, whatever.

I had thought that I would spend more time pondering while biking. That didn't turn out to be the case, so I ended up with fewer blogs that I had anticipated.

When biking, first, I quickly became aware that it is extremely important to focus on the path ahead...to always be aware of holes in the path, approaching bikers and walkers, of parents and grandparents with small children who are allowed to wander anywhere, and oh! yes! the dogs that can wander as well. IF they only knew how little I was in control of my bicycle, they would have quickly gotten out of my way. So, I had to be constantly "on guard." Different from sitting on a bus or train.

Secondly, the views were so spectacular...round a bend, and voila, yet another photo op...In fact, in addition to late starts, we were often slowed down for the first hour or so by stopping too often to take pictures. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to be there to thoroughly enjoy the view! Sorry about that! We did enjoy comparing views to those we saw in Iowa during RAGBRAI: grapes on the right, sunflowers on the left, and vice versa...nuclear cooling towers on the right, apple orchards on the left, and so forth.

Third: I was constantly having to anticipate: when to shift gears, should I follow the single path along the canal to go under the bridge OR should I go UP the path and pause at the road over the bridge? Well, always decision-making.

We were just fine with two changes of biking clothes and I probably only had 2 extra shirts; otherwise, we didn't need much because we only saw folks for less than 48 hours...

Would I do this again??? YES, in fact, we are already thinking about what parts to repeat and what to add to next year's trip.

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