Armed with two hire bikes, Explorer Thomas and his wife Erin cycled the Loire Valley in France over 11 days – oh and their two kids towed along in a trailer behind. A full family French affair.

The full ‘La Loire à Vélo’ cycle path runs from the Atlantic Coast at Saint-Nazaire and follows the Loire River all the way past Orléans to a town called Nevers, a total distance of around 650km.

This path is also part of the less romantically titled ‘Eurovelo EV6’ which can be ridden all the way through France, Switzerland, and Eastern Europe, ever onward until the Black Sea near Bucharest, though this may be a little ambitious with kids.

For logistical reasons, our journey began at Orléans, a direct train ride, south of Paris and finished at Nantes (which has an airport). A distance of about 400km, which we did over 11 days.

Read more: Remember to leave no trace

 

Setup on point

L’Équipe (The Team)

Our little family of four cycled with another Australian couple and their two kids, who are smarter than us and so hired an electric bike. The plan was that they’d attach the trailer with their kids to the back of the electric bike (along with any heavy gear) while their second non-electric bike would carry the lightweight gear and child seat.

However, this wasn’t to be. The trailer didn’t actually fit onto the electric bike so had to be attached to the normal bike. My wife Erin and I used non-electric bikes in an attempt to get our quota of annual exercise in one go.

Passenger prince

Passenger princess

The first thing I did was attach the kids’ trailer onto Erin’s bike, the plan being that I’d pack the heavier gear onto my bike and also take our older child on the attached seat, while Erin would tow the trailer with the lighter gear… but the kids had their own plan and wanted to ride together.

So my little wife started the trip towing two kids, as well as a random assortment of whatever we could fit into the trailer, as quickly as possible.

Read more: A Parent’s Guide to Bikepacking With a Baby

Le Grand Départ

It was early evening by the time we finished packing. We found a sign for the path, ‘La Loire a Velo’ and began cycling along the river bank and across a long bridge.

‘Where are you going?’, a helpful French cyclist asked casually as he passed by.

‘We’re camping in a place called Olivet, but don’t actually know where it is.’

‘I do. Follow me’, he said.

With that, he launched off, at a pace that may have seemed sedate to him but was frightfully fast for my wife and accompanying kids trailing behind, who could barely keep up.

We hadn’t even had a chance to look at a map, so found ourselves blindly following a French cyclist with no idea how far we needed to travel. Eventually, he came to an abrupt halt at a river.

‘You cross here. Bridge is broken the other way. Campsite is just along there’, he explained with a vague gesture towards farmland on the other side.

We thanked him for his help and then pretended to move our bikes towards the river while he cycled away.

‘We’re not actually going to ride through the river?’ asked Erin.

‘Definitely not’, I replied, turning my bike around as we got ready to follow the track.

 

Back on track! Or so we thought…

 

But who should we meet around the corner but our cyclist friend.

‘No. No. No’, he insisted. ‘Bridge closed. You need to go that way.’

And so we did. And he was right. About a kilometre down the road, on the other side of the river was the campsite ‘Camping Olivet’.

The campsite didn’t accept Visa, so we cobbled our change together and had €5 left for a bottle of wine. As the evening rolled in, the adults drank surprisingly good French wine on plastic camp chairs while the kids took advantage of the camp playground.

Our first morning’s ride, from Olivet along the Loire, followed a dedicated gravel bike path, under a canopy of trees, through a series of little villages and orchards.

Once again, the kids insisted on riding together, which was cute but meant my wife still had to carry the weight of both children in the trailer. On downhills the kids took turns yelling:

‘It’s not Super-ba. It’s SUP-PA-BAAA!’

To this day, I still have no idea what Sup-pa-ba is. Erin and I agreed to swap the trailer over to my bike later that night.

The next stop was beside one of the orchards to feed the kids and stretch their legs.

 

Attention, pickpocket!

 

After a minute, our three year old came running back with an armful of apples he’d pilfered. That night the campsite manager assured us that it was fine and that it’s a childhood rite of passage. I’m not sure the owner of the orchard would agree.

Camping Municipal

Throughout this trip, we applied the inverse rule of travel. This states:

‘When visiting an expensive destination, stay somewhere cheap. When visiting a cheap destination, stay somewhere expensive.’

This meant we ended up staying in a succession of municipal campsites.

These camping areas are maintained by the French local councils and cost about €15-€18 Euros a night for the whole family.

The sites are pretty basic and are normally located in the middle of a village – it’s the French equivalent of staying at the local showground. You get basic facilities, but are forced to traipse a couple of hundred metres to the local restaurant for a glass of French wine and inevitably brilliant food.

 

She knows exactly what’s up

Catastrophe!

As we depart our campsite at Montrichard, I hear an ominous crack and a second later the sound of a hundred items cascading across the cobbled road. I look down, and one of my saddle bags has exploded and wedged itself into the wheel.

Read more: Beginner’s Guide to Bikepacking Bags

I spend the next hour moving all my heavy gear into the trailer with the kids, which is still attached to Erin’s bike. I then stuff my sleeping bag and clothes into a large plastic bag inside the broken pannier.

The clasp that bolts the pannier to the bike rack has mangled itself and so I use a couple of bungees to Macgyver a sling for the miscalcitrant luggage. We decide to leave the kids’ trailer on my wife’s bike until we get a chance to fix the saddle bags properly.

Our next stop is Chenonceax. The most beautiful chateau in the Loire.

Can see why it’s the most beautiful

😍😍😍

We explore the gardens with the kids, but the highlight is a ride to the other side of the river Cher, where the kids discover that sticking feet in the river results in a swarm of fish.

It’s a free French fish foot spa. I stick my hot feet into the river and you can almost see the water foam as thousands of little fish gorge themselves. It’s a bit disturbing.

Shortcut Time

The cycle path doesn’t have a direct route between Chenonceax and Amboise, but a quick glance at Google Maps shows us that a 20km jolt along the D-31 would do the job.

Bad call.

The D-31 is a beautiful road for cars… but not for a small woman towing a trailer with two kids and the heavy luggage.

We really should swap it onto my bike, but it’s too dangerous with all the trucks and cars passing us at terrifying speed.

Napoleon once sent an urgent order to plant trees along the main marching routes of his armies throughout Europe in order to provide shade.

‘But sire, the trees will take 40 years to grow’, came the response from one general, to which Napoleon replied. ‘That is why the order is urgent.’

Unfortunately, the D-31 didn’t exist when Napoleon was Emperor and there are no trees.

We cycle through the glaring heat of the mid-summer sun. I gallantly walk Erin’s heavily laden bike and trailer up the final incline where we reach a Lidl supermarket and both gulp down gallons of water.

 

They were great sports!

 

Meanwhile, our wiser friends followed the shaded cycle path along the river and had a lovely day. After setting up camp, cooking dinner, and putting the kids to bed, we’re too tired to switch the trailer over and have an early night.

Le Petit Déjeuner (Breakfast)

The next morning, the kids eat a traditional French children’s breakfast. A croissant dipped in hot chocolate, and a small glass of orange juice.

 

Salut!

 

Later, as we ride across the bridge towards the campsite in Saumur, I notice that riding uphill feels much easier than earlier in the trip. After ten days, our fitness is clearly improving. I mention this to Erin who glares at me, as she struggles up the hill, trailer and kids in tow.

We stay at a more upmarket campsite tonight where the kids swim in a large outdoor pool watched over by the Château de Saumur. The kids join the campsite holiday program the next morning, despite our son’s insistence on only speaking ‘Australian’.

The next morning our group splits in two after our friends look at a map, and decide to skip Angers and take an alternate and much shorter road route.

Our first stop is a manual ferry crossing. This resembled the fox, grain, chicken scenario as we couldn’t fit all the children, bikes and both parents onto the ferry in one go.

 

Don’t get to do this every day

 

Angers was a highlight. I wouldn’t describe myself as a ‘tapestry guy’ but the Apocalypse tapestry was magnificent. A 100-metre long series of giant hand stitched friezes, displaying various scenes of torture from the book of Revelations – it’s much better than I make it sound.

These tapestries have somehow survived centuries of use as horse blankets before being rediscovered, collated, and now beautifully displayed at the chateaux in Angers.

By the time we cycle into Rochefort, we were tired but happy. It’d been a great day. Our friends didn’t look quite so stoked. Once again, we learnt the value of sticking to the official path.

Adieu, Loire!

Most of the ‘La Loire à Velo’ maps highlight the journey from Orléans and end at Angers rather than Nantes.

The quality of the track declines noticeably as we approach Nantes, and we realise why this part of the trip wasn’t included on the maps. It’s fine, but Nantes is a proper, working city, unlike the day dream that is the rest of the Loire.

The scenic wonders give way to concrete and glass. Nantes is a lovely city, but it’s a proper city. Not a nostalgic relic of a bygone age. We’re back in the modern world.

 

What an adventure!

 

We return the bikes and it takes about two minutes to uninstall the trailer from my wife’s bike. In hindsight, I probably should have done this about ten days ago.

For our final night in the city, we splash out on a nice hotel. It takes an hour to check in and then we all migrate to the town square where the kids chase each other around statues, while the adults drink French beer as the last rays of sun disappear over the horizon.

We raise a glass and ‘salut!’ to a job well done.

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