After purchasing Bike Friday Crusoes in March 2009, we looked forward to using them for multi-day cycling tours. We had cycled locally for several years on our mountain and hybrid bikes, but had never done an overnight trip carrying panniers. We planned to ride our new Bike Fridays as much as possible on day trips during the spring and summer so that we would be in shape for a tour of France in the fall.

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We had enough Aeroplan miles for business class travel, and in April booked our tickets from Castlegar to Vancouver to Paris—leaving Vancouver Oct. 13 and returning Nov. 16. Now we were committed and it was time to plan our route! We wanted to visit several areas of France where the sights were impressive and the cycling relatively easy, so we chose the Loire Valley and the Canal du Midi for the first half of our trip. Then on to Provence, where the November temperatures would be warmer and we'd be ready to tackle some hills. We planned to take the train between the various cycling destinations and bought a Eurail pass online—this turned out to be an unnecessary expense.

We both enjoy doing research and were highly motivated to plan our trip in detail. Al laid out all our cycling routes using Michelin maps and the Lonely Planet cycling guide to France. Eva checked out accommodation options (we weren't planning to camp) and during the summer began booking chambres d'hotes and small hotels.  We needed a place in Paris for the beginning and end of the trip where we could leave our Bike Friday travel cases while we were cycling. Eva was surprised to find that many Paris hotels were either already booked for mid-October or had no place to store our suitcases. Finally through Sawdays we found a modest chambre d'hote in an excellent location that did the trick. Accommodation availability in the rest of the country was no problem and many places featured low season rates.

As part of our preparation we took a week-long intermediate intensive French course at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Each day of the course we rode our bikes from downtown to the campus, and found that the 13 km ride each way woke us up in the morning and relaxed our tired brains in the afternoon.

By October 12, Thanksgiving Day, we were ready to go and enjoyed the hour long flight from Castlegar to Vancouver under beautiful blue skies. It was a nice change from the usual nine hour drive, and we had time that afternoon to visit with our daughter and climb the 853 metre Grouse Grind for the first time ever. We finished off a good day with a delicious sushi dinner.