Very Very Confused, With a Bike

[Isabel of Castile]

Hello. So I had this plan to cycle from Nice to Barcelona, without any real road biking experience. Currently I'm working outside of Angers and I've decided to scratch that plan. Then I stumbled on the Camino de Santiago. There seems to be a route from Angers (Path of the Plantagenets anyone?). I'm wondering if anyone has heard of this path and knows anything about it, and I'm looking for any tips for a novice cyclist that does not have a mountain bike. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

 

[Tincatinker]

You may find these links helpful: https://www.compostelle-bretagne.fr/index.php/guide-et-chemin/voie-des-plantagenets http://www.chemins-compostelle.com/itineraires/3/la-voie-de-tours

 

[jony jony]

Hello Isabel of Castile....I do not know anything about the Path of the Plantaganets but , depending on how far you will be cycling , and if you intend to stick to the Chemin De St Jaques de Compostelle route from anywhere near Angers then a true road bike, fully loaded , would not be up to the job .
These chemins /Caminos are mainly on tracks ...gravel paths...some rocky places....grass , and some tarmac but i would not want to ride a road bike with 4 or 5 bars of tyre pressure over any of these .
There is a route / chemin that comes down from Mont St Michel that joins the Paris route somewhere near St Jean D'angely and i suppose must pass near to Angers but as i said i dont know anything about it .

Regards.....John

 

[Penbaysail]

Isabelle - if you’re carrying a smartphone that can load an app called IPhiGéNie (published by the French Geographical Institute), I used it a lot on Chemin LePuy and on a GR path in northern France. Not cheap at $15 US for one year, but worth it for me for the number of paper maps that I saved on buying. Not sure if it has the route you’re looking for, but send me a PM message if you want me to check a route between a few sample villages along the way. IGN has 2 other apps - Géoportail and Outdoors - that seem to overlap. Each is a subscription, and I bought Outdoors and found it to be slow and clunky. IPhigenie just seemed to work fine.

 

[Isabel of Castile]

You may find these links helpful: https://www.compostelle-bretagne.fr/index.php/guide-et-chemin/voie-des-plantagenets http://www.chemins-compostelle.com/itineraires/3/la-voie-de-tours

Thank you! The last link was especially helpful!

 

[Isabel of Castile]

Hello Isabel of Castile....I do not know anything about the Path of the Plantaganets but , depending on how far you will be cycling , and if you intend to stick to the Chemin De St Jaques de Compostelle route from anywhere near Angers then a true road bike, fully loaded , would not be up to the job .
These chemins /Caminos are mainly on tracks ...gravel paths...some rocky places....grass , and some tarmac but i would not want to ride a road bike with 4 or 5 bars of tyre pressure over any of these .
There is a route / chemin that comes down from Mont St Michel that joins the Paris route somewhere near St Jean D'angely and i suppose must pass near to Angers but as i said i dont know anything about it .

Regards.....John

Thanks for the info. That's what I've been worried about. Maybe if I just don't follow the route exactly? It's all the same to me if I follow roads instead but end up in Bordeaux.

 

[Older Guy]

Dear Isabel;

I did a Camino Francis by mountain bicycle in May of 2016. I did train for it on spin bikes and also on roads/trails with typical 40 to 60 mile daily rides. My Camino legs/stages were typically shorter than 45 miles. This past summer 2017, I did a 400 mile coast to coast across England.

A good rule of thumb is that you should be able to go about three to four times as far by bike as by hiking. That means I would typically do anywhere from two to four hiking stages. Include some rest/recovery days and a bad weather day or two.

You asked for some advice for a new mountain biker. First and most importantly, don't carry your gear in a backpack on your back! Make sure that the bike you rent (lots of rental places that will deliver to your hotel and pick up from your hotel in Santiago) or the bike you take has a rear luggage rack and use water proof bike panniers to carry your gear. If you can't afford panniers, use a small pack and lash your gear to the rear luggage rack.

Go short distance the first couple days so you get the hang of riding with the extra weight on the bike.

Next buy a pair of gel padded bike pants or shorts! (Yes, you want two so one will be dry and the other will be washed/drying.) The gel padding is critical. The two parts of your body that take the most beating on a bike are your butt and your hands/wrists. That is why you also need to buy a pair of gel padded bike gloves! Depending on the time of the year either fingerless or full finger.

I also recommend that you buy a good quality gel saddle. They have saddles designed for both men and women and they are different in shape. Go to a good bike shop to try some out. I took my saddle that I trained on with me to attach to the rental mountain bike I used on my Camino and I also took my saddle with me to attach to the mountain bike I bought to the the English Coast to Coast.

For safety you need to have lights, a helmet, and a bell or horn! I also recommend a high visability biking rain coat (they have a flap that hangs down in the back and good ones have zippers under the arm pits).

The bike you choose should have at least a front suspension so your wrists don't take too much of a beating from road vibrations.

I would suggest that you go to a bike store prior to your trip and buy an inexpensive tire CO2 inflator along with a cheap tire pressure gauge. Buy extra CO2 cartridges and try to use one or two to change & inflate a tire BEFORE you do your ride! So many people carry them without knowing how to use them and it is very very hard to use a typical small hand pump to reach a high enough air pressure to avoid pinch flats.

Get a couple of light weight bike cable locks. Heavy ones are just heavy and two light ones will cause anyone to need to take more time to steel your bike, probably as much time as a heavy chain or U-lock.

Choosing your route is an interesting question. I like the advice of surrender to the Camino and it will provide (but always have a contingency plan). I did some road and some trail. In some places it is not fair to the hikers to take the trail because it is so narrow. In other places the trail is next to the shoulder of the road. In some places if it has rained, you really would prefer the non-muddy road. So plan on doing a some of each.

The next four pieces of advice I have are very important.

(1) Unless you are in super shape, if you are going to be going up a huge hill, use on of the luggage services to ship your heavy baggage ahead.

(2) If you injure yourself, if you are exhausted, if you get sick, if the rain gets to you......Take the train to the next place you want to stop! (You do need to do at least the last 200 km continuously to earn a compostella.)

(3) If you see cobblestones or a Roman road, slow down and be very careful as the uneven road can grab your tires and make you fall.

(4) Be very careful on long steep downhill stretches. This is for two reasons. Sometimes the road is slippery and your don't want to crash and slide off the road into who knows what or into oncoming traffic. Also on really steep long downhill stretches you will be exercising little and you will have the wind cooling your body. I nearly got hypothermia on the ride down from O'Cebreiro to Tricastela in a light rain and I had on a great raincoat, fleece, a down vest, bike shoe booties, full insulated gloves. At Tricastela I was shaking when I got off my bike and spent an hour in a bakery drinking hot coffee to warm up.

Good luck you should have a great time. Make sure you get lots of stamps for your pilgrim passport along the way so you can get your Compostella. They have a great set of bike racks where you will stand in line for hours to get your Compostella (so take a snack and water to enjoy and share while you stand in line). The place where you get your Compostella is a couple of blocks away from the Cathedral any policeman will tell you how to get there.

 

[hel&scott]

Thanks for the info. That's what I've been worried about. Maybe if I just don't follow the route exactly? It's all the same to me if I follow roads instead but end up in Bordeaux.

There are worse places in the world to end up then in Bordeaux… have a glass of wine sort yourself out, there are yellow arrows and markers by the cathedral if that helps. None of us stick to the route all of the time, and the way itself continues to change. Go the way you want, its the journey thats important.

 

[Peregrinopaul]

[QUOTE="Older Guy, post: 556156, member: 50319"
You asked for some advice for a new mountain biker.[/QUOTE]

Isabel, @Olderguy has posted the unequivocal, comprehensive guide for a bicigrino(a).

 

[Isabel of Castile]

Try

[QUOTE="Older Guy, post: 556156, member: 50319"
You asked for some advice for a new mountain biker.

Isabel, @Olderguy has posted the unequivocal, comprehensive guide for a bicigrino(a).[/QUOTE]
truly. @Olderguy thank you so much. Everyone has been incredibly helpful, and I feel so much better with all this info.

 

[Tandem Graham]

Hi Isabel,
My partner and I roughly followed the Voie des Plantagenets on our tandem bike camino from home (in Hampshire, UK) to Santiago this June/July. We passed through Angers too!
There is a walkers' guide to this trail, published by Lightfoot Guides, which I found useful when planning a route, but not particularly so on the road. While ours is a hybrid style tandem (or VTC en francais), we spent more than 50% of time on roads which ran roughly parallel to the walkers' path, since the surface of the paths varied from tarmac to grit, to gravel, to grass, mud, loose rocks etc. The Plantagenets Way goes as far as St Jean d'Angely. We then went via Royan and the ferry to the Voie Littoral (down the Medoc/Landais coast) to Bayonne, then traced the river valley up to St Jean Pied de Port. That was the first time we encountered significant numbers of pilgrims (bike or foot).

Once over the Pyrennees (upon which I could write a whole book!), our route varied between the trail and roads, with help from the English Confraternity of St James (which has two separate written guides to Camino Frances for mountain bikes and road bikes respectively). The trail is slower, has varied surfaces and requires care and respect to avoid unnecessary conflict with walkers. But it is often beautiful and saves some sections which would otherwise be on rather busy roads. Where the roads ran close to the trail and/or were quiet, we preferred to use those. On the Frances, we met plenty of walking pilgrims at our frequent food stops and in our overnight accomodation (a mixture of albergues and small pensions/cheap hotels). We also gradually acquired a pilgrim 'family' of our own, of fellow cycle pilgrims who we met frequently and gradually got to know and shared tips and the occasional glass of wine/beer!

It was a tremendous experience. Culture, scenery, adventure and above all a tremendous sense of purpose, shared with the world and his dog en route to Santiago. I went from regarding it as a cycling adventure to being absorbed into the hugely positive camaraderie and (despite some initial cynicism on my part) spirituality of the camino and our fellow travellers.

I say do it for 100 reasons! But respect it, it's a long ride! Make sure your bike is in good condition and that you know how to fix a puncture and, just like the walkers, travel as light as you dare. You can buy most things you might regret leaving behind along or near the Camino.

Good luck and buen camino!
Graham

 

[Tandem Graham]

... I echo Older Guy's advice about carrying luggage on the bike, not on your back.
A spare inner tube is very valuable. Gel saddles are a matter of personal taste. I prefer a leather or other hard saddle. If you are already used to a particular saddle, it might be better to stick with it. But padding in your pants really helps!
I disagree about using luggage transfer services, unless you really are struggling. They do limit your ability to make spontaneous decisions about where to stay - an advantage the cyclist has over most walkers.
If you're like me, the planning of the adventure is part of the adventure, so read up and take or reject advice as you see fit. Do it your way!
G

 

[Isabel of Castile]

Hi Isabel,
My partner and I roughly followed the Voie des Plantagenets on our tandem bike camino from home (in Hampshire, UK) to Santiago this June/July. We passed through Angers too!
There is a walkers' guide to this trail, published by Lightfoot Guides, which I found useful when planning a route, but not particularly so on the road. While ours is a hybrid style tandem (or VTC en francais), we spent more than 50% of time on roads which ran roughly parallel to the walkers' path, since the surface of the paths varied from tarmac to grit, to gravel, to grass, mud, loose rocks etc. The Plantagenets Way goes as far as St Jean d'Angely. We then went via Royan and the ferry to the Voie Littoral (down the Medoc/Landais coast) to Bayonne, then traced the river valley up to St Jean Pied de Port. That was the first time we encountered significant numbers of pilgrims (bike or foot).

Once over the Pyrennees (upon which I could write a whole book!), our route varied between the trail and roads, with help from the English Confraternity of St James (which has two separate written guides to Camino Frances for mountain bikes and road bikes respectively). The trail is slower, has varied surfaces and requires care and respect to avoid unnecessary conflict with walkers. But it is often beautiful and saves some sections which would otherwise be on rather busy roads. Where the roads ran close to the trail and/or were quiet, we preferred to use those. On the Frances, we met plenty of walking pilgrims at our frequent food stops and in our overnight accomodation (a mixture of albergues and small pensions/cheap hotels). We also gradually acquired a pilgrim 'family' of our own, of fellow cycle pilgrims who we met frequently and gradually got to know and shared tips and the occasional glass of wine/beer!

It was a tremendous experience. Culture, scenery, adventure and above all a tremendous sense of purpose, shared with the world and his dog en route to Santiago. I went from regarding it as a cycling adventure to being absorbed into the hugely positive camaraderie and (despite some initial cynicism on my part) spirituality of the camino and our fellow travellers.

I say do it for 100 reasons! But respect it, it's a long ride! Make sure your bike is in good condition and that you know how to fix a puncture and, just like the walkers, travel as light as you dare. You can buy most things you might regret leaving behind along or near the Camino.

Good luck and buen camino!
Graham

Thank you!!! I think my plan so far is to follow a route along the Atlantic that was created by cyclefrance.com and then link it with St. Jean Pied de Port. Again, thanks for the encouragement. I shipped my bike here which became absurdely expenses after an unexpected tax. When it arrived the only thing I wanted to do was get rid of it. Now I might even go as far as to say that I'm excited.