Absolute heaven, great biking, stunning scenery and food to die for. I can check with Mrs. Spirito to see if she has some course/route notes. Just mention the word Dordogne and she’ll talk for days.
yeah, please forward any france related biking tips to me.
My rough route plan is:
Start in Berlin, head south west to the France/German border, roughly follow the Rhine south to Basel in Switzerland then pickup the Loire and follow that to Angiers, there is a ‘eurovelo’ route on the loire so its a bit setup for cycling I think.
A good friend is getting married near Angiers.
Then north west to Brittany and take a ferry across to portsmouth, and fly out of London.
Awesome. the Rhine is good but you need to be well south of Cologne before it gets scenic as it’s very industrial to the North. You camping? The Municipal Caravan Parks in France are cheap as chips - like less than 10 Euro per night for 2 people with a tent. German Caravan Parks are amazingly well appointed but cost quite a bit more.
How long are you giving yourself to do the tour?
A month from when i land (berlin) to get to the wedding (angiers) then another 10 days angiers to london.
that works out at 70/80kms a day. I can always train sections if I run out of time.
And yeah I;m thinking I’ll pick up the rhine around Frankfurt. (though plans are very much fluid).
I’m tenting, and its just me.
Is that Angiers or Angers? Just looking at the map and it wont find Angiers. Sounds great mate. There will be hills a plenty near Switzerland. France is great but some sections will be very rural and quiet for days on end. German bakerys absolutley smash the bejesus out of French ones BTW 
Angers sorry.
Though the actual wedding is near Sammur.
i’ve got a leatherman blast and a crank brothers multi-tool, they are pretty much all you need but i also carry a shifting spanner, tape, spare tubes, cable ties, patch kit, pump and CO2 canisters.
don’t carry anything too unnecessary, bike shops over there should actually be reasonably priced
Be warned there will be miles and miles of ground to cover in some areas, especially in France with no bike shop in sight! Spare cable inners ( one brake one gear) is also a good idea. Some people rock spare spokes too, maybe overkill?
Occy straps are great for strapping down clothes onto the back of your bike to dry them off as well.
yeah, I’ve been touring in Aus and NZ a bit, so I plan to be self sufficient.
I’m planning to be able to almost totally disassemble my bike and take a spare tyre, spokes, cables . . . .
Mike, what did you end up buying? I need one as well and was thinking of this one?
I ended up getting a gerber diesel. But basically never used it.
Now I just carry the lezyne multitool that has everything and a opinel, guess i might have to take a tiny pair of pliers up to Nth Qland so I can replace my disc pads if required (shimano ones with the split pin with the bent tip).
and looking back, I can’t believe I carried a spare tyre!
what about soldering/supergluing your cable ends before you go?
I only use my leatherman because the screwdriver is better on it than my bike multitool. And I use the pliers sometimes. Scissors can be handy on a long trip to cut your nails.
I Thought I’d mention I have one of these on my keychain
Swiss+Tech Utili-Key Keychain Multi-Tool | EDC Guyd
6 in 1. Only used the blade once, screw driver a couple of times and the bottle opener is there… but most of my friends are well prepared, so I haven’t had the NEED for it.
I have a leatherman skeletoolCX
With my job the knife gets used daily, screwdriver pretty regualuarly, bottle opener not so much.
The multitool kit which goes with it works well. The cutters on the pliers are for show.
Would buy again.
I have a SOG Power Assist EOD in black oxide (i believe, can’t remember for certain).
It’s bad ass.
When i was in nepal may or may not have performed some bush self surgery on an infected heel with it. was sharp and worked good. i also used the bullshit sharp blades to fashion myself a bandage clip out of the bottom of a coke can(to wrap my bung knee). I also used the wire cutters to hook me up some sweet battery charging by tapping into the fancy hotel next doors wiring and some scrap wire i found on a pole.
The pliers are force multiplying so they hold onto stuff good and the other tools are all of good quality. It comes in a thick ass leather case thing too.
My pathetic attempt at a beard is that much thicker because of it.
would buy 3x over.
I picked up this multitool in Daylesford last weekend. It’s a lady’s leg, and a bottle opener.
