In the summer, my girlfriend & I are riding the EV6 from Nantes to Dijon and camping en route.

Anyone done it & got any tips? Other than eating all the cheese and drinking all the wine that is…

Haven’t done it, but I’d have thought the obvious advice was to go the other way.

Nantes to Dijon is all uphill… why not make it easier on yourself and go all down?

Dave

Whilst it is uphill, we are talking 1,000m elevation gain over 600km – I think it will be manageable. Plus this way we have the predominant winds at our back…

Jealous… sounds awesome. How long are you taking?

*pulls up a chair*

I have a slowly gathering plan for a big eurovelo pedal one day… Eurocircuit anyone?

Excluding travel either end, we have 8 days on the saddle. The route looks to be predominately off road, on cycle path. Don’t know if that is smooooooth tarmac calling for large volume road tyres or gravel in which case something like Small Block 8’s..

This is our first cycle tour longer than a 3 day trip round Mull / Ardnamurchan so alot to work out. Already got a dyno hub on the touring bike so looking at battery charging options to charge a buffer battery by day then phones / garmin by night.

I used a Plug2 to charge a very tired iPhone running GPS. Worked pretty well, but didn’t like the wet one bit.

I have riden some of the EV routes a lot is old railway lines and really gentle grades plenty of places to camp and even some toilets and barbecue spots ready built, some places i encounterd gravel and some times boken glass from beer bottles dont use skinny road tires and all will be great its very relaxing but you can miss a lot of interesting villages etc.

Get a cycle2charge tope cap, works really well and is way cheaper than a Plug. Not quite as nice looking though!

i looked briefly at the EV routes , too much of it uncertain – yellow and red.

the ev6 is one of the more complete ones so should be good. they do say they are offroad or on quiet roads…. ive noticed alot less rat running in europe so quite roads should be quiet roads 😀

I also looked at hte porto de santiago route and the camino de santiago but have opted for the trans sierra nevada mtb route in october 😀

I am planning to do 6 and then down 1 to Bordeaux then pick up the canal du midi after that train home.

ps. not all of ev6 just from orleans down to the coast, i live not far from orleans.

Wicki, that’s great to hear.

In mimd I had hoped for few hours cycle in the morning, big lunch and some siteseeing / snoozing in sun over lunch then short cycle to evening camp site for a BBQ & some wine. All interspersed with some cafe & photo stops.

Fingers crossed it all goes to plan!

Wicki, that’s great to hear.

In mimd I had hoped for few hours cycle in the morning, big lunch and some siteseeing / snoozing in sun over lunch then short cycle to evening camp site for a BBQ & some wine. All interspersed with some cafe & photo stops.

Fingers crossed it all goes to plan!

When you get to my neck of the woods this is worth a look and i think not far off route

https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g187121-d247337-i152684259-Chateau_de_Chambord-Chambord_Loire_Valley_Centre.html

I dont know when your planning to go but it can get pretty hot in summer, in 2011 I burnt my feet through my sandles (only place i did not protect with factor 15) really badly and had to stop the tour.

Hi!
Did from Nantes to Blois at the end of last September along the Ev6. Really easy going, did it on 28mm road/touring(?) tyres and had no problems.
We had 2 navigators armed with Google Maps and Garmins and the like, but I’m confident we could have done it following the signs.
On the whole it was nice weather at the time of year we went, got a soaking one day but rest was fine*.
Our daily routine was pretty much an hour or so of biking then a stop for coffee and croissants, an hour or so of biking breaking for a lunch stop of beers with cheese and ham baguettes, an hour or so of biking then an afternoon break for a couple of beers or maybe even a small red wine then the final hour or so of biking followed by beer, wine and food. Stayed in BnB’s. Cost a few bob, but didn’t really try to do it on the cheap.
RM.
* fine in a Yorkshire way – I had shorts on. The locals had their euro-puffer jackets on.

My pal and I will be doing the French section from Basel to St Nazaire this June. I think you are doing it in the right direction, the wind should be at your back most of the time. We are going east to west just because of flight logistics. We’re won’t be camping though, we prefer cheap hotels and guest houses.

If it’s anything like the other euro velo river routes it should be quite well sign-posted and have a decent infrastructure. You’ll likely be on tarmac or good gravel, 35mm touring tyres are what you want – comfort over speed. We aim to do 100km per day and that’s really not too hard as long as the weather’s good. Only tips I can give are start early in the day, have a comfy saddle and have the white wine with the fish.

We did the Euro Velo 6 from Budapest to the Black Sea last year. The route is much less organised east of Budapest but it was a good adventure. I just need to add the middle bit and I’ll have cycled across Europe 🙂

So jealous, a thread with pics post ride, please!