This page was last updated Thu 22 January 2015.

Contents: Tours (15)    Cycling info pages (1)   

Reports by Mike Bedard

All descriptions are in English, unless otherwise noted.

Tours

Germany and Austria: the romantic road and the Danube bike path
by Mike Bedard, tour started May 2007, submitted 27 June 2007

In May, 2007, my wife Carol and I joined three other couples for a cycle trip in Germany and Austria (with a weekend visit to Prague). This was my 21st cycle trip in Europe and Carol's 19th but only our fourth outside of France. I wrote this ``blog'' each day as we made our way from Frankfurt to Vienna so my verb tenses may slip from past to present and back because my proof reading skills are not dependable.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

Dinkelsbuhl on the Romantische Strasse
Champagne and Burgundy, the Auvergne, the Haut-Languedoc and the Midi
by Mike Bedard, tour started September 2005, submitted 3 October 2005

In September 2005 my wife Carol and I returned to France with our bikes for our 17th cycling trip in that wonderful country where the food is great, the wine is great, the cycling is varied and interesting, the roads are good and the weather is warm and sunny ..... normalement! Because we have criss-crossed the southern half of the country so often it had become difficult to find a route that we had not traveled before. But the Auvergne was an area as yet undiscovered by us so I planned a route that would take us through this lightly populated rugged region that makes up a large part of the Massif Central. Although we had done little training for this trip I was not concerned because I assumed, from the map at left, here, that we were essentially starting at the top and going to the bottom so it should be basically downhill all the way. It turns out that there is absolutely no correlation between north/south and up/down. As usual this trip report is far too wordy, dull, uninteresting. I need to develop a more concise, readable, enjoyable writing style. And you will find interspersed in the travelogue asides in which I attempt to educate the reader, my career in the classroom forcing me to seize every ``teachable moment''. Finally, I wrote much of this as we were experiencing it. I have tried to make the verb tenses coherent but there will be times, I'm sure, when ``rode'' slips into ``ride''. Please accept my apologies for all the above.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

The Lubéron, the Alpes-Maritimes and the Haut-Vaucluse
by Mike Bedard, tour started May 2004

This trip, our 16th in France en vélo, was quite different from our usual. My wife Carol and I shared a gîte (a fully equipped lodging that can be rented by the week) with three other couples for the first week in l'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue near Avignon. After our stay at the gîte we all headed by train to Italy. We left our bikes in Nice where we picked them up after our Italian experience to finish the trip with 9 days of cycling in the Alpes-Maritimes and the Lubéron. The others, who had not brought their bikes to Europe, did not come back to France with us. We had some glitches getting to the gîte due to incompatible flight schedules. I won't bore you with the details. Typically, as in all my other cycle trip reports, there'll be plenty in this report to bore you without adding travel difficulties.

That being said, I must report an end of trip occurrence that had, in retrospect, a significant bearing on this report. As we were leaving Aix-en-Provence for the Marseille-Provence airport on the last day of the trip I got a puncture in my rear tire just outside the city. We stopped at a bus stop where I could lean my bike and I set about removing the rear wheel and the delinquent inner tube, replacing the latter with a new tube. I pumped it full of air and then prepared to re-install the wheel. Carol held the bike frame while I negotiated the chain, the derailleur and the rear cassette. Surprisingly, it went in easily, but then Carol let go of the bike. I reacted, of course, but she was yelling ``MY BIKE IS GONE!!'' Sure enough, in the 60 seconds we were focused on the installation of the wheel, some jackal had seized the opportunity to make off with her bike, including her purse which was in the handlebar bag. Within the purse were her credit cards, some cash, her driver's license, her birth certificate, some other identification papers and a vehicle registration - AND HER PASSPORT!!

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

My beautiful cycling partner, undaunted by the climb
Corsica - l'Île de Beauté
by Mike Bedard, tour started June 2003

After missing a year [...], my wife Carol and I were back in France in 2003 - the 15th cycle trip there. Inspired by the ageless Norman Ford, the 80+ year old Welsh born Texan who does annual strenuous solo European tours, we decided to try the mountainous Mediterranean island of Corsica. Norm, 20 years my senior, had done it 3 years before so we thought if he could, we could. We decided to go in June, before the really hot weather arrived. That strategy didn't work - we spent 2 weeks in 35°C/95°F temperatures. [...] having now experienced the patchy uneven pavement in some regions of Corsica, I'm tempted to recommend a mountain bike (with road tires) instead of a road bike. As usual, we travelled unsupported, staying in hotels and eating our evening meals in restaurants. On the days we cycled we averaged just over 60 km of cycling and we did just over 1100 km for the trip. If you've ever seen Corsica, you'll find that impressive. As always, I am not very good about reining myself in when I'm writing this stuff. Bear with me. There's good stuff included. You just have to be patient and look carefully.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

Cycling through les Calanche above Porto, Corsica
A Cycle Tour of South Central France -- Rhône Valley, Burgundy, Berry and Limousin
by Mike Bedard, tour started 2002

This is a log of a month long cycle tour in France that I took with my wife Carol and (for the first ten days) two friends in the summer of 1997. [...] This was my 11th cycling tour in France (9th for Carol) and my 13th in Europe. We are what many cycle tourists disparagingly refer to as credit card tourists.

We headed north over the rolling hills of the Beaujolais, vineyards everywhere, stopping at Salles-Arbuissonas-en-Beaujolais. [...] We passed Côte de Brouilly and Brouilly vineyards - we had planned to pass through all ten Beaujolais cru's on that day. (Quick trivia question for you oenophiles out there: Can you name the ten? Bonus question: Which one is the most recently included? Answers at the bottom of this trip log.)

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

The Périgord, the Pays de la Loire and Northern Burgundy
by Mike Bedard, tour started 2001

The summer of 2001 took my wife Carol and me (and our bikes, of course) back to France for the 14th time. This time we would be joining 4 friends (Sue Fleming, Patty Keeble, Chris McGee and Sue McDonald) for a tour of the Pays de la Loire and northern Burgundy after we had cycled by ourselves for 10 days from Toulouse to our meeting place in the Vend e. Our frequent cycling companions, Peter and Heather Stark, had also planned to join us with the others but a family illness caused them to remain behind in Canada - a great loss to our group. Carol and I had not been to the Loire region since our first cycle trip in France in 1984. Both Sue's had also cycled the Loire valley in the past but this would be the first cycle tour anywhere for both Chris and Patty. Because of the size of the group, all our accommodations had been booked before we left. As with all my tour reports you will be seeing my personal view of the trip, colored by my many biases, and a disturbing tendency to verbosity. As I always say: Caveat emptor! (Let the buyer beware!)

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

The magnificent Chateau Chambord
Burgundy, the Southern Alps and the Haut-Languedoc: Cycling France
by Mike Bedard, tour started 2000

Our annual European cycle trip took us (my wife Carol and me) back to France (of course - this was the 13th tour there!) We chose this particular route because it included areas we had not yet seen (for the most part). As usual, we travelled unsupported (no sag-wagon) but we stayed in hotels or B&B's and ate our evening mealsin restaurants. We averaged about 70 km a day, a lot of it in mountainous terrain - not bad for a 60 year old geezer (and his wife who is 2 years younger. I won't tell you her age). Once again, this trip log is far too wordy and full of a lot of personal observations which expose many of my biases. Consider yourselves forewarned!

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

Above the Combe Laval in the Vercors (Drome)
From the Pays de la Loire to the Côte Vermeille
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1999

Our annual European cycle tour took us back to France this year - 12th time for me, 10th for my wife, Carol. (We like it there.) This was only our second ``solo'' trip. We usually travel with one or two other couples. And this was our first French tour outside of the two summer months. As always, we travel unsupported (i.e., no ``sag wagon'') but we never camp. Rather we stay in small hotels or, occasionally, chambres d'hôte (B & B's). The following is a log of the trip - as usual it's far too wordy and filled with comments based on my personal bias. Caveat emptor! We averaged nearly 65 km per day in fairly mountainous terrain but since we are both ``banging on 60'', YMMV (your mileage may vary).

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

A Cycle Tour of North-East Italy / The Italian Lakes, the Po Valley and Venice
by Mike Bedard, tour started September 1998

This is a log of a tour of northern Italy that I took with my wife Carol and two other couples (Jim & Mary Holmes and Brooke & Rosie Keneford) in September 1998. We had a rocky start due to problems transporting our bikes and a little rain but, all in all, it was a very enjoyable trip. As always, we stay in hotels or B&B's, we eat at least one meal a day in a restaurant and we carry everything we need on our bikes. We are all now ``late middle-aged''. (That's quite a euphemism. We're all around 60 years old!) Your mileage may vary!

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

A Cycle Tour of South Central France - Rhône Valley, Burgundy, Berry and Limousin
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1997

This is a log of a month long cycle tour in France that I took with my wife Carol and (for the first ten days) two friends in the summer of 1997. [...] This was my 11th cycling tour in France (9th for Carol) and my 13th in Europe. We are what many cycle tourists disparagingly refer to as credit card tourists.

We headed north over the rolling hills of the Beaujolais, vineyards everywhere, stopping at Salles-Arbuissonas-en-Beaujolais. [...] We passed Côte de Brouilly and Brouilly vineyards - we had planned to pass through all ten Beaujolais cru's on that day. (Quick trivia question for you oenophiles out there: Can you name the ten? Bonus question: Which one is the most recently included? Answers at the bottom of this trip log.)

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

Eastern Brittany/Western Normandy
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1995

This was our 10th cycling trip to France but our first north of the Loire river. We were very apprehensive about the weather but our worries were unfounded as Normandy had a sunny and dry summer that year. We travelled with another couple who have joined us for four European trips (and a fifth this year - 1997). We are all middle-aged (actually getting to be late middle-aged). We travel unsupported but we stay in hotels or chambres d'hote (B&B's). We average about 60km per day. We dine well. It's an elegant life we lead!!

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

A Cycle Tour of the Atlantic Coast, the Charente-Maritime and the Dordogne
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1994

This is a log of a trip I took with my wife Carol and two other couples (Brooke & Rosie Keneford and Jim & Mary Holmes) in July of 1994. In one sense it was a miracle trip because Carol had fallen on the ice in early February and had broken her hip. However, despite her appearance and her ladylike demeanor, she is very determined and as tough as nails. So, barely five months after breaking her femur into two pieces and with a stainless steel plate and a bunch of long screws still in her leg, she was on her bike for a 1100 km cycle trip in France.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

A Cycle Tour of South-West France -- The Massif Central, the Lot and Dordogne rivers, Gascony and the Pyrenees
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1993

This is a log of a month-long cycle tour in south-west France with my wife in the summer of 1993. I've tried to keep it simple, but the rush of great memories made that difficult. With nice pictures.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

A Cycle Tour of Southern France - Provence, Languedoc and the Gorges du Tarn
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1992

This is a log of a cycle tour in France that I took with my wife Carol and two friends in the summer of 1992. Although we landed in and departed from Lyon, the entire trip took place in the south, east of Toulouse. As with all our tours, although we carry everything with us on our bikes, we don't camp. (Been there! Done that!) Instead we stay in hotels (or the occasional B&B) and we usually eatin restaurants.

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard

Cycling Southwest France 1991 - Gascony, the Pays Basque, the Périgord-Quercy and the Rouergue
by Mike Bedard, tour started 1991

This is a log of a cycle trip we (my wife Carol and I) took with two friends (Heather and Peter Stark) to southwestern France in the summer of 1991. I am finally (ten years later) getting around to writing it up because I am now REALLY retired and I am feeling guilty that I haven't done it before now. Because of the delay I'm sure I'll miss some important things but there is also an advantage because I now have the experience of ten more European cycle tours and can bring that to my recollections of this trip. As always, I depend on my wife's excellent journal of the trip as my aide memoire. I could never write these reports without it. We cycle unsupported (i.e., no ``sag wagon''); we stay in hotels; we eat our evening meals in restaurants. As you get older you will allow yourselves these luxuries.

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Going down hills in Gascony was much easier than going up

Cycling info pages

Bikes on Trains
by Mike Bedard

See all 16 reports by Mike Bedard