About to ride from Barcelona to Paris starting next week and wondering if anyone knows of any must visit places along the way?
We have around twenty days to do the ride so are not in a huge rush.
Any information would be great. Thanks
scottridesabike just did paris to barcelona this week.
He is on a plane now but im sure will chime in.
Scott did Lyon > Barcelona but did travel to paris as well.
Cool. Yeah the basic idea is to go up the south east coast of France and from there we are not really sure. Probably just zigzag towards Paris.
Ha ha…everywhere!
Sounds like a great ride. I didn’t get there, but I heard Aix-en-Provence is amazing.
Yo, I just did Lyon to Barcelona, loved it, so beautiful, I don’t know what you’re motivations are or what you’re riding but I took a fixed/nobr akes job so I kept my route fairly flat. I went south from Lyon for about 300km then across south west to the coast and down, around the Pyrenees, and into Barcelona. A friend suggested skipping Paris-Lyon because I’d have been basically following the highways, and it’s a lot of the same countryside. Have you got a bike bag? I’d be inclined to suggest a bit of Pyrenees, up along the coast to Montpellier, Lyon, the alps and then train it to Paris? I got a SIM card in Paris, which didnt work in Spain, but I pretty much winged it using Expedia to book accom on the go and google maps or apple maps (cached a lot of the time?) for navigation. Road signs once your on anything other than A? or N??? Are minimal, but there are so many roads it was pretty easy to link up with my preferred route if I did miss a turn, only got caught out once and had to backtrack but probably only cost me half an hour, I also got an app called city maps 2 go, works offline with your gps signal, lots of touristy info, but limited to available cities only, if you have more questions shoot me a pm, I’d be happy to share more detailed route notes and pics, Instagram @scottykent4000 for highlights of my ride also
For reference my route was fairly direct and was 730km, I did it in 7 days, one rest day, and for my money, don’t worry about ‘missing’ anything, the place is so fucking awesome to ride through, the little towns, the bread, the wine, the ladies…
Water is difficult to get for free, but cheap to buy, anywhere from 30€cents to 1€ for 1.5L, if you can be bothered stop and buy a full baguette, meat and cheese etc from the supermarket, readily available in bigger towns and you’ll smash lunches that way, pack a knife, smaller towns still rock the siesta lifestyle as well, so be aware, annoying sometimes. I’m fairly sleep deprived after partying in Barcelona all weekend and I guess I’m being a bit all over the place right now sorry
Ha… Yeah we rode from Paris to Lasuanne for CMWC then up towards Berlin(check out our blog Rolling Turns) about a month ago and after putting on about 15kgs worth of kebab it is now time to hit the road.
Barcelona seemed the best place to go as the weather still looks to be good and we have to fly out of Paris on the 7th.
We have touring set ups so camping is no problem.
Just wanted to see if anyone had any must see spots or cycle routes. The more scenic the better. Keen to stay off the busier roads and explore a bit.
Thanks heaps Scott. Photos on Insta look great.