Itinerary
After much change of plans ( 1st idea was Morvan, then Loire …) we decided to head to my mother’s place in Côte d’Armor (where we planned to end vacations anyway) and start from there.
I designed a mix of coastal and inland 270k itinerary. We would join the Canal de Nantes à Brest, follow it, head back up North, then follow EuroVelo 4 westwards towards Paimpol, then back home.
Weather has been nice, not too hot, not too windy, not a single drop of rain.
Itinerary was ok. A bit disapointed by this portion of EV4 which is too far from the sea.
Also, the hills are short but they are many, EG will build up fast – we did 2500mEG
GPX file can be downloaded here: https://nuage.hadoly.fr/s/zBMNBeSrDEqoN4D
The bikes and their load
Teens are equipped with decent road/city bikes. I have my new gravel.
Kids were happy with their bikes. I think teen #2 is getting a bit tall for his. But i think there was too much difference between my fitness level / bike and theirs, that at the end they ressented it a little.
Each carry their own stuff (clothes, mattress, pillow, sleeping bag) in 2 rear saddlebags.
I carry the tent. Common stuff (electric gear and cables, bathroom stuff, cooking gear, …) is spread among ourselves.
We each carried 1.5l of water in 2 inox botted with dual cap, the latter being a blessing on the very dusty trails.
I forgot the tools, but would have taken: 1 spare tube per bike, tube repair kit, all the wrenches needed for every bolt and screw of all bikes, chain repair tool, spare bolts, pump and used cutout tube and duct-tape of course. apart from a couple loose bolts, we didnot suffer any mechanical issue.
Sleeping
We slept in campsite. No bivy as the teens need their phone charged and daily shower. We have a comfy 4person tent, big but quite lightweigth.
10°c sleeping bag, 1/2 size inflatable mattress, inflatable pillow – i didnot take mine, i regret… we had warm layer clothes as pajamas too.
We were cold one night, enough to wake us up during the night. The next night i slipped a survival blanket under the tent to add an insulation layer.
We would get up between 8 (me) and 9h30 / 10h (the teens). I took about 1h30 to get ready to leave.
I love traveling with just the right amounf of gear, that fits in its place, with a mix of everyday tasks and a bit of unknown / uncertainty ( “adventure” ! ) here and there.
Routing
I’ve used https://bikerouter.de for routing. I like the different profile which are according to my experience quite efficient. For this trip i’ve used the “road bike – minimal traffic”.
Every stage has been designed according to campsite and grocery stores, which can be displayed on-map with the proper layer.
I’ve then exported gpx file to Wahoo gps element . Unfortunately, the whole route was too long for turn by turn routing, all i had was the route displayed, which was ok most of the time.
I tried to build a daily route from OSMand+ (my choice of mobile navigation application), then load it to Wahoo gps, but it would only display straigth lines without taking roads into account.
Mobile navigation was still useful for precise routing to campsite, shops. Wish i had not left handlebar phone handler behind… I use OSMAnd+ for mobile offline navigation. Don’t forget to update / download local maps before leaving 🙂 It did a good job to route us toward campsite and supermarket. Except for the last campsite, which turned out being a factory ( i’ve corrected the openstreetmap data ).
I’ve then wrote a nextcloud note (easier to access than a nextcloud file) with, for each day the distance, where we will shop and where we will sleep, plus any noteworthy comment (like “tomorrow is sunday, everything will be closed, so shop for 2 days”).
Whaoo gps battery life has been a real relief from previous rides where i would use phone for navigation; constantly worrying about battery level.
Every single day we did more distance than planned. Once arrived, teens were happy to find out they had rode 60k instead of 50. But this also attracted some complaints during the last k of day stage.
In retrospect the stages should have been slightly shorter (not exceeding 50K).
Cooking
Breakfast consisted of crepe and nutella / peanuts butter, puree of banana + oat
The lunch consisted of ham sandwich for the teens, salad (lentils, chickpea + tomato + cheese) for vege me. Peanuts and haribo as ride snacks.
Dinner was 3min pasta with various sauce.
Fortunately only 5 days of this regime.
I choose to bring along a petrol stove instead of gas. Wanted to cut waste, cost and not to have to take a spare gas can.
The thing is tricky to get started but works fine afterward. Still requires a lot of care in handling.
It might be interesting on long trip where gas bottle availability can be an issue. But a regular stove is ok for this short trip.
I was pretty happy to find that most campsite we visited offered a “hiker / rider” space with stove, kettle, cutlery, pots and pan, power outlets … We never had to eat sitted on the ground.
We also experienced an automatic pizza dispenser once.
Next time I’ll replace the heavy folding cutlery, impossible to clean up properly, by regular spoon, + opinel.
Final words
This ‘s been a great shared moment. We were happy to reach our goal, especially because the 2 previous rids we did together were “failures”.
I feel privileged to still share those moments with 2 teens. I hope it will last, but they are growing so fast toward their independence …