The riding is the easy part. Here’s the bit that catches people out, and how I take it off your plate.

The Logistics Nobody Warns You About on a Point-to-Point Bike Tour

A point-to-point route is the dream. Coast to coast, one direction, a proper journey with a start and a finish you can point to on a map. The Vélo Francette is exactly that: 630km from Ouistreham on the Normandy coast to La Rochelle on the Atlantic.

But the thing that makes it a dream is what makes it a headache. You finish 630km from where you started and you carry everything. And when a road shuts or a village is closed, you sort it out yourself, usually at the worst possible moment.

I rode it during the impossible summer heat of July 2026, loaded and self supported and the first four days have just been published on YouTube. Here’s what each day taught me, and why I now take that side of it off people’s plates.

Day 1: the loaded-bike tax

Everyone sells the Vélo Francette as a gentle river route. Then you leave the coast and climb into the Suisse Normande, and on a fully loaded bike every hill bites harder. I ran out of water and limped into Domfront on dead legs.

The lesson: you start a long way from home and carry all your kit, and that weight changes every climb.

Day 2: resupply and navigation

Day two was a Monday, in high summer, in rural France. The shutters stay down. I rode 40km with nowhere open to eat, then followed the signs straight past my campsite on the wrong side of the river and had to double back. A 110km day became 127.

The lesson: when you’re self-supplied and self-navigating, closed shops and patchy signage cost you real miles and morale.

Day 3: the route is not always what you assume

The day I’d looked forward to most: the Loire. The first 57km to Angers were the best riding of the trip. Then I found the route doesn’t hug the river the way I’d assumed, and threw me up into the hills above it instead.

The lesson: knowing what a route actually delivers, before you’re tired and committed, is worth more than any packing list.

Day 4: the unexpected

Day four, the heat cranked up, and near the end I met a barrier, roads closed due to the heatwave, and no Velo Francette diversion signs, because nobody reroutes a national cycle route when a road shuts. So I worked out my own way to the campsite, alone, at the end of a long hot day.

The lesson: closures and weather happen, and without support you improvise when you’re least in the mood for it.

The thread that runs through all four days

The riding was the joy. The friction was everything around it: getting to the start, the weight on the climbs, the closed shops, the missed bridge, the diversion that didn’t exist. None of it is riding. All of it is logistics. That’s the point-to-point paradox: the format that makes the adventure is the same format that makes the planning hard !

This is the part I take off your plate

I’ve been supporting riders on French roads since 2008. You still ride your own ride, at your own pace, on routes I provide. I handle the parts that get in the way of a good day on the bike. On the Vélo Francette, and on any point-to-point tour in France, you choose how much help you want:

• Van transfers to the start or from the finish, so the “how do I get me and my bike there and back” problem disappears.
• Luggage transfers to each overnight stop, so you ride light with your kit waiting every evening. No loaded panniers on the hills.
• A fully supported trip, with the logistics, the bases and the details handled, so all you do is ride.

I made the mistakes on these four days so you don’t have to.

Want to see it rather than read it?

The first four days are up on the channel now, hills, hot dog, missed bridge and all. The last two days, the one that nearly broke me and the flat run to the sea, land next week. Watch the series →

If you’d rather have the journey without the headache, I’ll sort the bits that aren’t the riding.

Plan your Vélo Francette →

Tell me your dates and how much support you fancy, and I’ll take it from there. No pressure, just a straight answer on how we’d make it work.