Euro Velo Route 6

Trans European Cycle Plan

It’s the 1st of September and Sue & I are off on our second bike adventure.

The long term plan is to cycle across Europe to the Black Sea, following the Eurovelo Route 6 starting from Nantes in France, (50 kms from the Atlantic)

The first leg is from Nantes to Freising, where we hope to be at the end of September. Then hopefully continue in the spring; if we have the desire to do so!

2 years ago we cycled back to Gloucester on the Eurovelo Route 1, accompanied by our little dog Huxley. It was a great experience so we wanted to try another one of these long distance routes.

This year we’ll soon have a combined age of 130🤭, so we’ve therefore decided to go with pedal assist bikes, to help our old legs. For those who are not familiar with these machines, they have an electric motor which helps you pedal. However if you don’t pedal, they don’t go anywhere.

It’s a bit like a match funding programme: the more you invest, the more you’re given.

The bike has 11 gears and there are 4 power settings; therefore you have 44 choices.

Both bikes are the same except Sue’s has a small frame to account for her short legs!

We’ve had these machines for 6 months and have found them superb. This month long trip will be a real test for them!

Day 1 Sept 1st

Borde Neuve-Agen 63 kms

Agen was our first destination and where we boarded a train to get to Bordeaux then onto Nantes, to start the EV6 route.

I wanted to see how hard it would be to travel with a fully loaded bike in a train???

Very strange place with spectator seating!

A scene I thought more common in Roman times!! Shame, no public executions today!

Or do you invite people to watch your animals being slaughtered??

The journey along the canal cycle path was very pleasant under the shade giving plane trees. They are in a period of moulting their bark in great slabs.

After arriving at Agen, we found our train was delayed by 2:30hrs🤬

Luckily another earlier one was able to take us, but with a 45 min delay in our schedule it meant we’d not catch the next train booked to take us to Nantes.

We were both tired after a hot day, so when we arrived in Bordeaux, we were somewhat relieved, and found a hotel close to the station. After a pizza and a wine, we were in bed by 10!!💤