Customer Reviews

Lonely Planet Cycling France

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As of October 2001, this appears to be the best book available on the subject of bike touring in France. Neither Karen & Terry Whitehill's nor Jerry Simpson's books come even close to being as comprehensive as this book. The best thing about this book is all of the useful logistical information it provides. For example, the authors thoroughly document how to get out of Paris with your bike (both from Charles de Gaulle and Orly airports). They also explain the SNCF's fairly unfriendly policy with respect to bikes on trains. And in typical Lonely Planet fashion, they also document the myriad of important details for survival in France, such as how to make a telephone call and how much to tip.

With respect to the actual tour documentation, this book does a good job. There are tour choices in all regions of the country including Corsica. Routes are well documented and the road choices seemed pretty reasonable. Cue sheets are provided with good distance information between all intermediate points. Some tours have elevation profiles included. I would have liked to have seen a bit more information about food and lodging availability--particularly in the intermediate towns.

The truth about cyling in France is that the bike touring part is really easy. Unless you are worried about hills (in which case you should stay in the Loire), all you need is a Michelin map. The color scheme tells you all you need to know about route choices (seek out the white roads, and green highlights mean scenic routes). You can usually find some place to stay and eat in any town and if you can't, you can usually find another town a few kilometers down the road. All of France is wonderful for riding, so you really don't need a book to lay out a tour for you. What you do need is information telling you how to get around with your bike and how to survive once you are over there. This book does that exceptionally well.

Six of us used this book this past June for a nine day trip to the Dordogne region of France. The book is indispensable for do it yourself travel. It tells you everything you need to know regarding the nuts and bolts of putting a trip like this togethter. The suggested routes, restaurants, and hotels were all excellent. I would suggest another book to supplement this one as far as detailed information about the sites is concerned.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I spent the last 5 weeks cursing the authors of this book (and those that I met on the road with this book felt the same way). Do NOT waste your money on this thing. It is FIVE years old (I live in Seattle and met one of the authors before she left in June '99). The information is totally outdated and some of the campsites no longer exist! My advice is to get a good guide that is updated regularly, maybe get a good idea for a route from the Mountaineers and then get the Michellin map following the scenic (green) routes (or get the special bikes maps from any bookstore (librarie) while you are there). Cycling in France is a breeze. Enjoy France on the bike...there is no greater place to ride. Don't let McGuide mess with your fun. Live to ride...ride to live...

As with the 2001 edition, this new June 2009 edition is chock full of great information and has been brought up to date with prices now in euros and is still near current as of February 2011. ($1.US = euro.78) The routes detailed are great. I have ridden many of them in my 20 plus bike trips to France. The authors have put a great deal of work into this book.

However, the big drawback for this guide is the the color and type, particularly on the maps, making it difficult to read. The main body of the text is a small font with light gray ink and light purple highlights. The sample pages on Amazon on my screen are easy to read because they are larger and brighter than the actual text and are highlighted in blue, not light red-ish purple like the book. C'mon Lonely Planet, it's a guide book, not armchair reading for ants. Real people are going to be reading the maps and cue sheets after a hard day in the saddle, in fading light, through dirty glasses with sweat in their eyes. Capital letters are 2 mm tall. Lower case are 1 mm tall. Maps and cue sheets are half that. Forget the fancy artistic touches and just make the book readable in a larger font, bold black and white text without the use of a magnifying glass. I know it can be done as the infrequently used bold text that comprises only about 5% of the book is just right. Edit the text, make the book smaller and tighter and the text bigger.

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest, this is the best book on cycling in France. Period. If you are planning a bike trip to France, buy this book. Read all the general essential information. Scan the pages you'll need on your trip, enlarge them to be readable, print them and then leave the book home.

Unlike most of the previous reviewers, I've got the 2009 edition of the guide. I can't really give this book five stars without having road-tested it, but for planning a trip (or daydreaming), it's great. The book caters to a broad range of abilities and objectives: if you want to ride all the hors catégorie climbs of the Tour de France, you can follow the routes here, but there's also lots of good advice for enjoying France at a more leisurely pace, and it's never condescending. (The author's experience leading bike tours in France seems to have given him a much better idea than other some guidebook authors of what visitors are hoping for.)

Route information and cue sheets are detailed. The breakdown of routes into daily stages seems sensible (and humane), and the descriptions are engaging but not gushy. There are useful details about traffic, new cycle routes, wind and weather, holiday crowds, places to stay, and the practicalities of travelling to and from the routes with a bike.

My husband and I used this book about five years ago to tour the Loire region. We have traveled a fair amount but never on bike before this trip. This book gave us a plan of how to do that. (Just the information about bikes on trains made the book worth getting.) We added a little cycling to the beginning of our trip and split some of the rides so we could sightsee more. It's emphasis on backwoods ways of getting into and out of towns was fantastic to help us avoid traffic. We loved seeing all kinds of places we would never have encountered if we hadn't picked up this book. We paired it with the Cadogan Loire Guide for interesting background about where we were visiting and the lodging section photocopied out of some other guide.

I wish they would update it. I tore most of the extra pages out of it (for areas we weren't going to) before our first trip. Glad I saved them. We will use it again this year in Brittany but not without a Michelin map as a back up since it's now so old.

I've done 20 bike trips in France. I loved this book at first, but now is totally out of date and desperately needs a re-do. The first pages of general information about customs, train travel, history, language, cycling culture, etc are great. However, the rest of the book is filled with routes and acomodations that no longer exist and missing many many new routes that have come along in the past decade. For example, cycling along the Loire River is superb along the new EuroVelo6 bike route that did not exist at the time of this book's publication in 2001. It's a paved signed path along The Loire hundreds of miles long and totally separate from cars. France is promoting cycle tourism like crazy, but there is lots of new stuff to know. You can't put a bike on a TGV train for example unless you know the secrets to train travel. Lonely Planet . . . fresh edition PLEASE.

CYCLING FRANCE offers over thirty rides through French countryside, from route descriptions to maps, cue sheets and more. This take-along tote offers everything needed to get prepared, from what to bring and costs to different areas of France perfect for a bicycle tour. A 'must' for any planning a bicycle tour of France.

With this book, you find the most interesting roads to ride on. In addition, you will also find nice stories of professionals who ride these roads - experiences on what to do & what NOT to do. So, whether you come to france, or stay at home, with this book, you'll have your own tour de france in your room!