In April/May 2015 I cycled from Clonmacnoise in Ireland to Finnistere.
My camino section ran from Dax, outside Bayonne, along
camino Frances to Santiago de Compostello and then on to Finnistere. Hope you find these notes useful. You can find out all the non-bike stuff in a standard guidebook, the
Brierley is quite good.
I'm in my 60's and was on a Koga randonneur with two panniers. If you ever want to take over the world this is the bike for the job, I had no problems whatever.
The albergues were extremely bicycle friendly, mostly having a shed or walled garden to store the bike. Only one, Cizur Menor, outside Pamplona, could not help. Albergues in villages or small towns were a bit better for bikes than those in cities.
Walkers, understandably, have priority claim on albergue beds but I was only once asked to wait until 17:00 to allow walkers in first. This was in the municipal albergue in Finnistere. This was probably a function of being a peregino in May, things may be a bit different in July and August.
I took the Via Napoleon walkers track over the Pyrenees, even though I had to push the bike almost all the way to the summit at Col de Lepoder to the all the walkers amusement! I had a lovely blast down the mountain road to Ibaneta and on to Roncesvalles.
I followed the walkers path when it was a nice dirt road but sometimes found myself using the N-routes when the path went to rough stones. The N-routes have almost totally been bypassed by A-route motorways so you have a wide margin and a traffic lane all to yourself almost all the time. The only problem is that they can be boring!
A warning about attempting to cycle the path to the Monumento de Perigrino at Alto de Perdon from Zariquiegui. It's very rough. Don't attempt the descent to Uterga! Instead take the mountain road down to the the N111 and then left on a local road to Uterga.
If it's not hot or seriously wet then the dirt roads on the Meseta from Burgos to Leon are wonderful. If it is wet the world turns into very sticky mud! Drop in to the wonderful albergue Gaucelmo in Rabanal del Camino, they have afternoon tea on the lawn!
The climb to La Cruz de Ferro is a wonderful mountain cycle through the clouds and the swoop down to Molinaseca is exhilarating. If you want a genuine medieval albergue experience you can't do better than the Ave Fenix in Villafranca del Bierzo. Be warned, it's not for everyone!
The next wonderful climb is to the Galician border at O Cebreiro. Another magnificent swoop down to Sarria and then it's only 100 km to Santiago de Compostello. The camino gets seriously crowded from here with people doing the minimum 100km walk that qualifies you for the compostello.
My last night on
camino Frances was in O Pedrouzo. I had an early start along the walkers route and got to S de C cathedral at 09:00, I got the first compostello issued that day!
All in all a most wonderful trip, I'm dreaming of ways to get back.
Gerry