Cycle touring in Southern Europe in September and October proved to be a great experience.  Our ride through France’s Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur and Corsica went pretty much as planned. All trips will have some challenges here and there to overcome, that’s what makes them an accomplishment.  Overall, we were very happy with this route plan and the tour. We felt fortunate that the weather never became an issue on the trip. We followed the extreme weather in Mallorca and in the Aude region in southwest France that occurred at the same time as we toured in Corsica under generally warm and dry conditions. Thank goodness it was isolated to those areas and did not impact us.

The total length of the trip was 35 days (the maximum time we are allowed to be out of the country under our current extended health plans) of which we cycled 20 days for a total distance of a little less than 1000 kms. The riding was typically on shared roads and the traffic was fairly light. Many times we were happy to be riding during the tourist off-season as the roads would be much much busier with car traffic in the summer months, not to mention the higher temperatures. Consistently, we found drivers in France to exercise caution and patience for cyclists on the road.

The tour had two separate parts – the first being France mainland and the second being the island Corsica. They were both very different experiences and we enjoyed them equally. Pat might prefer a few less of the hill climbs that Corsica is famous for but the hills in des Alpilles and Southern Alps were also a challenge. The small towns in the Provence-Alpes region are really enjoyable to ride through and visit. Two high lights were Vence and Cotignac. Corsica offered stunning natural beauty and of course daily hill climbs. But we managed by keeping the ride lengths a bit shorter and all the rides took advantage of the spectacular island scenery.

We loved our daily stops at the local pâtisseries and boulangeries and ate our fill of delicious croissants, baguettes and pain au raisins. The daily hunt for espressos and cappuccinos was also a most enjoyable challenge! We loved the way we were always greeted by young and old when we passed by with a friendly "Bonjour!".  The local people always made us feel welcome and we got the sense that they  appreciated and  valued cycle tourism. We enjoyed lots of the delicious, inexpensive red wine but alas, found the beer to be a bit pricey and not of "craft" quality.

A couple of key learning experiences included:  always check the maps on the Garmin GPS before leaving home,  drive everywhere you can in the "google car" as the  Garmin openstreetmaps for this part of France show some backroads that are clearly not rideable,  Maps.me is a pretty handy mapping tool and most importantly, have a good stock of high quality thicker tubes on hand. I have always used new Schwalbe tires before each trip but fell short in the tube department on this one.  Once we replaced our rear wheels with tubes from the infamous Super U everything rolled on smoothly. Patching tubes on the fly just does not cut it!

The weather is getting cooler on the west coast so it is time to think about heading up into the mountains. We hope to be back on tour next May (more Maggie May?) and as Steve Miller says “now you can start planning your next tour.” Pat says = no more hills. Scott says – all part of cycle touring. We both say - thank you for following along with us on this trip.

Scott and Pat

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