I am roughly taking this route, i am starting today i am no biketour experience and i am very hyped over this trip. If i make it 100 km or 1000 km so be it i Will be proud over that i tried!
I want all advice the veterans can give me and if there are anyone going the same route this summer hit me up!
by Spare_Friendship_424
5 Comments
What’s your plan for getting back home? Also google maps sucks for creating routes, would recommend Komoot instead
That awesome! I’m felling your hype, also gonna do my first bikepacking trip this summer! Can’t wait for the time to eat the road .
Have fun hope you have a good experience!
That is very exciting! I just finished my first cycle tour from Paris to Amsterdam. I stayed in hostels, no camping. Looks like you may take some of the same routes!
I used komoot for navigation over google maps and open source alternatives, and I highly recommend it. Google Maps is really built for cars and it shows, and free open source options can work but require effort to get set up. I paid for the full version of komoot, which is either $30 forever or $5/wk + 1 free trial week. (I did the latter, as my trip was 10 days.) Not only is the routing algorithm better, but it gives you information on elevation and road surface type. Also, you can see points of interest other users recommend and easily add them to your route.
My stops were:
Paris – Senils – Beauvais – Amiens – Arras – Lille – Ghent – Antwerp – Dordrecht – The Hague – Amsterdam
This averaged to 65km or 4h of moving time per day. Senils is a bit out of the way and you could go straight from Paris to Beauvais.
Road quality of Paris to Lille is very mixed. There are very nice dirt paths through forests, exposed paved roads through flat farms (tough during the heat wave), and bumpy cobblestone streets in small towns. I was impressed by Belgium’s intercity cycle network, which is mostly paved cycle paths next to rail lines with good wayfinding.
Are you camping, staying in hostels, using warmshowers, or a combination? Do you have a goal for your average km per day?
If you’d like, I can also send you the list of everything I brought with me!
You have a great attitude by the sound of it started and you are going to figure it out on the way.
If you are not used to rides of longer distances Comfort could be a issues do you have padded shorts/bib?
If you find you are getting chaffing stop at a bike shop and get chamois cream
If u are getting a sore butt don’t push though it to hard it will improve slowly day by day.
Eat a good breakfast and keep snacking in between meals u will need the energy, eat eat eat
Looks wonderful!