[Closed] How long would it take to...

Hw long is a piece of string?
60 - 70 miles a day for me with 1 rest day every 5 or so.

It looks about 4-500 miles, so 5-6 days worth?

I'm not that sure that credit card touring is all it's cracked up to be; you will end up carrying at least one set of clothes, plus colder weather gear, and it's a pain on a road bike without panniers. I rode from Ostend to Gent with a small rucksack; only 40 miles, but I was glad to get it off when I arrived, and it spoiled the riding aspect for me.

It's also easy to mess up; one tyre rip in the wrong place and it's a walk to the nearest town and a prayer that they have a bike shop.

5 or 6 days of accomodation and food will get spendy, and you'll need the same cash for the return journey, plus the hassle of booking everything ahead.

It will also depend to a very great extent on the weather; i suspect that a day or two of rain and or headwinds will convince you that you never want to see a bike again.

I'd take a car.

I'd take a car.

What exactly are you doing on this forum? IMHO you seem to have gone into touring with completely the wrong attitude. I've done lots of what would be described as "credit card touring" - ie staying in hotels rather than camping. You don't have to carry as little as humanly possible, and you are allowed to use panniers - the crucial difference is that the load is still a lot less, so you can cover ground a lot faster with less effort. Accomodation and food in France isn't that expensive (even with current exchange rates) if you're staying in non-touristy places, and it is at the end of the day a holiday riding a bike in itself rather than just a boring journey that driving a car is. Also not sure how you think you're likely to rip a tyre so as to immobilise yourself - only had one tyre problem in thousands and thousands of miles, and that was fixable enough to get us to a shop (and that's on a tandem where all the loads are much higher).

IMHO it's all it's cracked up to be.

To answer the OP - how long is a piece of string? Our normal daily mileage was 60-70 miles, but if determined I could probably double that by myself - depends how long you're prepared to spend in the saddle. Meanwhile lots of people like to do far less. I'd grab yourself a Rough Guide to France and whatever other countries you might travel through (Holland obviously, Germany?), along with any region specific Rough Guides (Alsace springs to mind as somewhere you'll probably go through), and find some interesting places to visit on the way.

Well that's me told!

I'm looking at it from the point of view of riding a road bike, rather than from a 'touring' point of view.
I'm looking at it in terms of expense; if the aim is to get to Alp D'huez, then it's not the only way to get there, and won't be cheap as chips.
If the aim is to get to Alp D'huez, then spending 5 days getting there and 5 days getting back could be used to get there quicker and ride more while you are there.

If he'd said he was going touring, then fair enough, but he didn't.

On the contrary, if the aim is to ride a bike, then you'll get a lot more of that done if you don't spend 2 days of your trip sitting in a car! I've also always found carrying kit on the back doesn't detract at all from the experience of riding a road bike - you might go a little slower, but how much does that really matter? Your view seems to be rather clouded by a single experience where you didn't choose a very good method of carrying your kit.

He might not have said he was going touring, but neither did he ask for the best means of transport to get to ADH as quickly and cheaply as possible. Despite the impression sometimes given on here, bikes are perfectly valid as a means of transport (many years ago I claimed expenses for cycling from Malvern to Oxford for a 3 day conference).

Fair enough, my thinking was that for the length of time such a trip would take, maybe 12 days, my preference would be to drive down then spend 10 days riding, rather than travelling by bike.

I appreciate bikes are valid, and I agree that it would make a good tour. I have done other tours, but my experience of riding a road bike as opposed to a tourer was spoiled by having to take kit on my back.

I was also thinking of the hassle of getting bikes from Innerleithen down to Dover and back again; train is the best option, but again adds to the overall cost.

There may be an element of confusion over what is meant by a "road bike". I'd certainly term our tandem, or my hack bike (which could take a rack, and the Trigger's Broom predecessor of which has been used to tour) as road bikes, since they don't go off road. A road bike doesn't have to be a stripped down race machine, and I'd agree it's a bad idea to try it on a bike which doesn't take a rack of some sort.

We've always driven to Plymouth/Portsmouth/Stansted when going on our French cycling trips 😀

Ah, but the aim is to get to alpe du' heuz on a roadie then do a sportive. Personally i'm driving and no Smee i'm not support :-).

if the aim is to get to Alp D'huez, then it's not the only way to get there

I'd have thought that fairly obvious.. the OP was clearly after a cycle touring trip 🙂

But anyway.

I am taking a lot of time off in the summer, 7 weeks or so, because it is a couple of years since I have taken a decent length holiday.

I am toying with the idea of getting the ferry from Rosyth to Zeebrugge (£20 return with a bike) then riding down to the Alps, arriving a week before the Marmotte, then doing the Marmotte and maybe ride back taking a different route.

The purpose is to just go on a road trip and escape for a bit.