In which Doris thinks about the French Voie Vertes system.
Voies Vertes are the French network of dedicated cycle tracks, often old railway lines or towpaths. Some of them are amazingly fantastic, on wafty smooth tarmac they transport you through the countryside allowing you to look up and admire the view at 25kph. Others are not. You don’t know till you get there.
On the first few days we had a new phrase “surfaced when built” which is similar to the “ran when parked” description of rusting barn find cars with birds nests in their engines. “Surfaced when built” describes a road/track/hopeful route through the countryside that cycle.tracker has selected with its “paved routes only” option and that you only realise are totally hopeless once you are completely committed to using them.
But along the Loire we enjoyed the dedicated and smooth tarmac tracks, while thinking it looked rather like some Danube days – a levee stretching off into the distance, trees on one side concealing the river and fields on the other side.
And since then we have had some amazing converted old railway tracks, where the cuttings and embankments have avoided a great deal of short-term climbing. The local posters claim they will even be suitable for rollerblading.
So to celebrate the railways that have been converted into voies vertes here are a couple of recent pictures.
When we were doing the Epic Istanbul trip we had an unofficial daily maximum of 1000m of climb or 100km along, whichever came first. With the addition of Mr Electric we are travelling faster and so we can aim for longer days. The only challenge is understanding the battery discharge rate, which like an electric car takes ages to drop to 80%, then drops increasingly quickly, and over the last 15% or so it really has very little to give. And so the Recharge Lunch has been invented. Not for us, you understand, just for the battery. And unfortunately you really need to eat at least two courses and have coffee in order to get a worthwhile recharge. It’s gonna be a tough trip.