Sorry for my absence for the last few days – how time flies by when the sun shines and there’s a million things to get done!
One little pleasure I had yesterday was to get out on the bike for a few hours in the sunshine. There is a ‘marked cycle route’ that goes past our house and travels about 70km through the local countryside and villages, and it is nice to see the orchards coming into blossom.
It’s a route I don’t take very often, especially early in the season, because it is a whole magnitude harder than most routes around here and if truth be told it’s also less scenic than many of the rides in the region as well, but as our holidaymakers often turn up with bikes it’s a bit embarrassing if I have to say it’s too hard for me to get around the route that is signed from our driveway…
Curiously the region as a whole around here isn’t especially hilly, but the waymarked route that tourists are supposed to follow rides up every hill within a 30km radius, many of them of the ‘short sharp shock’ variety (not very long but very steep). The first few it’s quite entertaining in a sort of masochistic way, but towards the end it stops being funny!
It’s hard enough riding the route alone on a proper road bike, but completing the route on a heavy hire bike with children in tow and a picnic in a backpack would be a feat equivalent to scaling Mont Blanc. Even worse if it’s a hot sunny day of course.
It seems to me it has been designed solely as a little joke to play on tourists, some kind of plot between the local Tourist Office and the local Bike Club.
Most notably perhaps, on the several times I have ridden the route I have never actually seen members of the local cycling group on the route itself. They are all out on the more ‘normal’ roads, which are of course kept quieter by ensuring tourists are all off somewhere else, struggling up a 1 in 4 hill and miles from a cafe!
It makes me wonder – everywhere in France has ‘scenic routes’, marked trails, most beautiful villages, tours of vineyards etc – but how often do they represent all that is best in an area, and how often would a visitor be better off just ignoring all advice and suggestions and exploring wherever their fancy took them…
Here in the Pyrenees, cyclists like nothing better than have a day trip to do one of the cols included in the Tour de France. For me it is a source of terror watching them free wheel downhill if I am in a car behind them. My husband sometimes takes his bike to the foothills and then sets off, he’s hugely satisfied if he can do a col in half the time one of those serious cyclists takes. He can also say..ah well of course my bike weighs twice as much/ different tyres etc etc. I think it’s great that so many people have a go, even the not quite fit enough who occasionally get off and push. And they all wear lycra/ wrap around sun glasses, regardless of age or size!
If I had a bike the downhill part would frighten me more than the thought of pushing it up on the uphill part. It was lovely to see all the cycling fraternity on Mt Ventoux last year when down that way on our hols. We stopped for a picnic half way up and that was in the car. BTW my exercise regime permits only the down half of a press up.
Glad to hear it Lesley – I can keep up with most of the local cyclists when going up hills and on the flat but a lot of them go downhills at speeds which I would never dare to try and match. So then I spend the next uphill catching up with everyone again!
In the Loire area, following the scenic routes means crowded roads whereas by nipping off into the hinterland you get much better views and more interesting places.
Funnily enough this morning I noticed a big new sign had gone up on a road near us specifically telling people to learn left for a local chateau – in fact going straight on is quicker (about 7km instead of 12km on the ‘recommended’ route), very easy to follow, and about the same ‘scenic’ level. There are no other towns along the way whichever route is followed so they aren’t trying to ‘trick’ people to go to a local cafe or bar. Who knows how the mind of the tourist office works…?
We have those horrible brown tourist signs in the UK. I would remove the lot and find your own way having planned what you want to do out of a guide book. When we first toured france by car( as i stopped riding a push bike when I left school)We used the Michelin green guide books that I thought excellant. I still have them all and still enjoy reading them as a reminder.The michelin maps are a very different story though and I think the Ordanance Survey Maps are the best I have ever come across. But i find a sat nav very good if you use your common.