SafetyThird
Senior Member
- Location
- North Devon
So I’m thinking of doing my first bike tour in September and have been reading through this amazing site to gain some insight and inspiration and, well, i have questions, so many questions and i figured I’d ask for a little advice.
Years ago I cycled a lot because i did triathlons and lived in flat places, which meant I rode mainly solo and was mostly untroubled by hills. Fast forward 20-odd years and I’m a moderately unfit 58 year old trying to get back on a bike after about 15 years of not riding. I’m looking at a future where I would like to be more responsible in my travel and bike touring fits that really well. Also, my wife isn’t very interested in travelling like this so it’s a reasonably affordable way of take a holiday on your own if you’re camping.
During lockgdown I accidentally bought a touring bike. No, seriously, I had no intention of actually buying it. I was idly browsing eBay late one evening with a glass or two of wine and saw a Thorn Raven Tour coming to the end of its auction at far too low a price. I figured there must be people waiting to bid on it and thought that if I put a bid in it would start people pushing the price up. I woke up next morning to find out that I’d bought a bike.
Picked it up the following week and it’s gorgeous. Since then, I’ve started looking at tour ideas, put a son dynohub wheel on the front, fitted dynamo lights and added a Thorn low rider rack to the front forks, a different set of bars and a riser so that it fits me nicely, given it a service and other than that it’s ready to go. I already had a pair of panniers and a bar bag so a couple of small front panniers have been bought so I can pack all my camping gear for solo travel.
Now, the problem with riding any bike around where I live in North Devon is that you need to be pretty fit to be able to even start riding our hills. After a few rides where I ended up doing more walking than riding I decided on two things: one was an e-bike conversion kit which allows me to gain a bit of assist on the big hills but lets me cycle as much as I’m able elsewhere and means I won’t get stranded miles from home when I run out of legs. I’d be taking that off for touring duties as it only takes a few minutes to swap the wheels and remove the battery and controller.
The other was to tidy up the road bike and invest in a smart trainer and a Zwift subscription because the weather over the past few months has been appalling. I’ve just finished the Back to Fitness program and will be continuing those workouts to build enough fitness to join a local club for road cycling and start using the touring bike as well for getting groceries etc.
The local road riding club need you to be able to do minimum 40 miles as 12-15mph on these hills, so I have some work to do to even join the club but I’m working on it.
I’m planning to do a couple of short tours locally such as the Devon coast to coast this spring to at least get a feel for what I’m working towards and dial my gear in. I’m been backpacking most of my life and am well equipped on the lightweight camping and cooking gear.
I started considering the Via Rhona as my first tour as it’s mostly downhill following the river to the med. Then I found that getting to Geneva with a bike is problematic. I don’t really want to fly but trains are a bit of a nightmare and I’d have to box the bike for the eurotunnel and tgv’s which if you’re already getting trains to London from Devon is a pain and expensive.
I can get the ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff easily as I can either jump on the local train or get dropped off there by my wife, so I started looking at getting a train from Roscoff to Geneva but even with local trains, none of the booking options seem to allow you to book a bike ahead of time or show you that there’s an option for fully assembled bikes, every time I tried a booking it would say that option wasn’t available. So it’s then just turn up and try your luck with TER’s and then at the other end I’d still have to get back to Roscoff by train.
Most people will probably be way ahead of me and are quietly saying to themselves ‘do the Loire bike route’ and yeah, that’s kinda what I’m now thinking. I originally discounted it as not being ‘very adventurous’ and because, while I don’t like climbing up them on a bike, I do like being amongst the mountains but, as it’s my first tour, maybe that’s a good thing. I could cycle straight out of the harbour at Roscoff and there are trains that would get me back. Mind you, I’ve seen that the special Cycle Rhône trains stop mid September and so maybe I should get the train east and start that end, travelling west to the sea.
So, that’s where I currently am, reading journals on here and starting to wonder what to do. I know that’s a pretty open question, I’ll get more detailed as I make more decisions but if anyone has any advice at this point on whether the Loire route is better east-west or west to east, I’d appreciate it, most of the journals I’ve read seem to go west to east.
Also, if I’m missing something obvious in trying to book train tickets I’m all ears.
Thanks, Jay.
Years ago I cycled a lot because i did triathlons and lived in flat places, which meant I rode mainly solo and was mostly untroubled by hills. Fast forward 20-odd years and I’m a moderately unfit 58 year old trying to get back on a bike after about 15 years of not riding. I’m looking at a future where I would like to be more responsible in my travel and bike touring fits that really well. Also, my wife isn’t very interested in travelling like this so it’s a reasonably affordable way of take a holiday on your own if you’re camping.
During lockgdown I accidentally bought a touring bike. No, seriously, I had no intention of actually buying it. I was idly browsing eBay late one evening with a glass or two of wine and saw a Thorn Raven Tour coming to the end of its auction at far too low a price. I figured there must be people waiting to bid on it and thought that if I put a bid in it would start people pushing the price up. I woke up next morning to find out that I’d bought a bike.
Picked it up the following week and it’s gorgeous. Since then, I’ve started looking at tour ideas, put a son dynohub wheel on the front, fitted dynamo lights and added a Thorn low rider rack to the front forks, a different set of bars and a riser so that it fits me nicely, given it a service and other than that it’s ready to go. I already had a pair of panniers and a bar bag so a couple of small front panniers have been bought so I can pack all my camping gear for solo travel.
Now, the problem with riding any bike around where I live in North Devon is that you need to be pretty fit to be able to even start riding our hills. After a few rides where I ended up doing more walking than riding I decided on two things: one was an e-bike conversion kit which allows me to gain a bit of assist on the big hills but lets me cycle as much as I’m able elsewhere and means I won’t get stranded miles from home when I run out of legs. I’d be taking that off for touring duties as it only takes a few minutes to swap the wheels and remove the battery and controller.
The other was to tidy up the road bike and invest in a smart trainer and a Zwift subscription because the weather over the past few months has been appalling. I’ve just finished the Back to Fitness program and will be continuing those workouts to build enough fitness to join a local club for road cycling and start using the touring bike as well for getting groceries etc.
The local road riding club need you to be able to do minimum 40 miles as 12-15mph on these hills, so I have some work to do to even join the club but I’m working on it.
I’m planning to do a couple of short tours locally such as the Devon coast to coast this spring to at least get a feel for what I’m working towards and dial my gear in. I’m been backpacking most of my life and am well equipped on the lightweight camping and cooking gear.
I started considering the Via Rhona as my first tour as it’s mostly downhill following the river to the med. Then I found that getting to Geneva with a bike is problematic. I don’t really want to fly but trains are a bit of a nightmare and I’d have to box the bike for the eurotunnel and tgv’s which if you’re already getting trains to London from Devon is a pain and expensive.
I can get the ferry from Plymouth to Roscoff easily as I can either jump on the local train or get dropped off there by my wife, so I started looking at getting a train from Roscoff to Geneva but even with local trains, none of the booking options seem to allow you to book a bike ahead of time or show you that there’s an option for fully assembled bikes, every time I tried a booking it would say that option wasn’t available. So it’s then just turn up and try your luck with TER’s and then at the other end I’d still have to get back to Roscoff by train.
Most people will probably be way ahead of me and are quietly saying to themselves ‘do the Loire bike route’ and yeah, that’s kinda what I’m now thinking. I originally discounted it as not being ‘very adventurous’ and because, while I don’t like climbing up them on a bike, I do like being amongst the mountains but, as it’s my first tour, maybe that’s a good thing. I could cycle straight out of the harbour at Roscoff and there are trains that would get me back. Mind you, I’ve seen that the special Cycle Rhône trains stop mid September and so maybe I should get the train east and start that end, travelling west to the sea.
So, that’s where I currently am, reading journals on here and starting to wonder what to do. I know that’s a pretty open question, I’ll get more detailed as I make more decisions but if anyone has any advice at this point on whether the Loire route is better east-west or west to east, I’d appreciate it, most of the journals I’ve read seem to go west to east.
Also, if I’m missing something obvious in trying to book train tickets I’m all ears.
Thanks, Jay.