Project “Alongside the Loire”
This project is to get to the Atlantic ocean from the city of Blois, following the course of the river Loire, and by bike of course.
Birth of the project
During our bike rides around Blois, and via the different tours of “the Loire by bike”, we came with the idea of developing a project bigger than a one day ride. The fact of growing in the middle of a natural environment like the Loire urge us to organise a trip of several days with the aim of getting to the ocean, while keeping in mind the connection to nature and conviviality. This is how Chatmouettes was born.
Goals
From Blois, the aim is to get to the city of Saint-Brévin on the Atlantic coast, via “the Loire by bike” route, which runs alongside the river until its mouth. And all this by making daily stages of no more than one hundred kilometres, along the route. Most of all the aim is to enjoy the wild scenery of the Loire, beside the “performance aspect”, and to take the time to discover the surroundings. None of the stopover towns are planned in advance, the route will depend on our mood, and our urge to discover whichever area. Hence, we will be able to explore the surroundings if the area is worthwhile …
In this instance, several journey alternatives are possible according to the hazards of the road, the weather, and/or the desire to enjoy friendliest sceneries …
Therefore, we can plan more than one route :
1st scenario : we reach our target of Saint-Brévin before the end of the first half of our journey.
We can decide :
- either to go back home by the same route but in opposite direction. In other words, it’s a round trip.
- or to stay on the premises the remaining days to explore the surroundings, eventually to go down to the coast by bike if we still have enough days remaining. Then to go home by train.
2nd scenario :We reach our target of Saint-Brévin after the first half of our journey. In this case, going back by bike looks doubtful.
We can decide :
- either to stay on the premises the remaining days, then come back by train.
- or to cycle home part of the route in the opposite direction and the other part by train.
3rd scenario : We don’t reach our target of Saint-Brévin before the end of our journey. Then, there’s an issue… In this case, we will have to reconsider our capabilities of “Sunday cyclist” or to stop drinking beer at night !
We can decide :
- either to take the train and to go back home crying
- or to go on, and hence, to miss work
Route
Our route is quite easy, and to summarize, it could be entitled : from Blois to Saint-Brévin.
But for more details, here are the main cities we will cross :
- Loir-et-Cher
- Blois (0 km)
- Indre-et-Loire
- Amboise (43 km)
- Tours (71 km)
- Langeais (102 km)
- Chinon (140 km)
- Maine-et-Loire
- Saumur (175 km)
- Gennes (194 km)
- Angers (236 km)
- Montjean-sur-Loire (276 km)
- Loire-atlantique
- Oudon (314 km)
- Nantes (344 km)
- Saint-Brévin-l’Océan (400 km)
Period-duration
The project will take place during a period of 3 weeks, with only one commitment, having to come back before the last day.
July seems the month the most appropriate to achieve our project, why ?
- the days are longer,
- the weather is supposed to be nice (in theory, as this is summer), it is the opportunity to lighten our backpack (less clothes to carry)
- the girls wear skirts
- the camp sites are less busy than in August.
Therefore, we need to plan our adventure for July 2011, from the 9th till the 30th to be precise, the last 3 weeks of July. But it will be planned for a maximal period of 3 weeks, due to “having to go back to work”.
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