For my 6 day bikepacking trip I chose to do a route called ‘La voie bleue’. It’s a very flat route between Lyon and Luxembourg where you follow rivers and canals for the most part.
Getting to Lyon by train from Belgium can be tricky if you don’t want to put the bike in a bag. It’s impossible to get an intact bike on a train running between Brussels and Paris so I had take a less efficient route: Courtrai – Lille Flandres – Amiens – Paris gare du Nord – Paris gare de Lyon – Lyon. The HST between Paris and Lyon worked flawlessly with the bike, and cycling in Paris between stations was also quite an experience.
I had very sultry weather: key was to drink a ton (I drank 3.25 liters for the 70km stage when I arrived in Lyon) and carrying a camel bag was the easiest way to stay hydrated. The next days I started at 6:30am so I was able to make progress in more bearable temperatures.
I stayed in my tent at camping spots along rivers where I was able to swim/kayak. Swimming really helped to loosen up the muscles a bit. For lunch I mostly went to bakery’s, breakfast and dinner I cooked myself at the camping ground.
I liked the route a lot and the paths were a nice mixture of gravel and asphalt. I did however miss some diversity in landscapes. The river valleys you ride in stay very similar along the way, and you never experience a nice vantage point.
My distances in km were: 70, 132, 133, 144, 142, 110. I only really struggled with saddle sourness so still figuring out how I can handle that better for my next trip.
by Yourice