This past long weekend concluded our two-weekend dress rehearsal for the bicycle touring season of 2026. We encountered almost every aspect — good or bad — one commonly encounters on tours. We rode in heavy rain and chilly wind, but also under a scorching sun in the beginning of a heat-wave, first of the summer. We rode mostly on smooth recently paved bike paths, but also on dirt roads, bumpy country roads, and few kilometers on moderately busy roads.
We climbed some hills and descended some too. We missed a couple of turns because of misleading or missing signage, which led to some extra climbing.
We met a lot of bicycle tourers, singles, couples, and parents with kids. We also dealt with the hassle of taking the bikes on a train. Fortunately, the only things we did not experience were flat tires and other technical glitches.
So, this past weekend we booked two nights in Saint-Marcellin, a smallish town known for its cheese about 70 kilometers away in the Isère department, and planned to do some bicycle touring around there. We have been in that approximate region several times before when riding to or from Valence. Therefore, the route and the scenery being very familiar to us, and to be honest quite boring at places, we did not want to ride all the way, but took a train from the railway station in Gières, about 15 kilometers from us.
The next day we rode a 40-kilometer tour around Saint-Marcellin, but without the luggage. The route traveled on the open plateau above the Isère river and through walnut groves that offered very welcome shade from the scorching sun. It also descended down to the river a few times, just to climb up to the plateau, so the ride was nothing short of challenging!
It was not the most scenic route, but offered some nice views to the valley. Unfortunately, the low air quality made the photos look somewhat dull and lackluster. We finished the ride having beers from the local brewery Le Tonneau Dort at the bicycle event in the park next to our apartment.
The next day it was time to return home, but before that we did a longer bicycle ride from Saint-Marcellin to Moirans on the bicycle route La Belle Via, various legs of which we have taken several times in the past, although it was called the route number 63 back then — we still saw some old marking on the asphalt. The route runs from Annecy (and Chambéry) to Valence in the Isère river valley, mostly following closely the river but at places climbing to the plateau above it. We had lunch at Saint-Gervais, which used to be our usual destination on our bike rides from Grenoble. From Moirans we took a train back to Gières, and rode home from there (more on that below).
This was a nice weekend, and oh boy, the weather was so different from the last trip, maybe even too hot for longer rides.
Until recently taking bikes on TER trains has been free — before we could just board the train with our bikes if there were spaces for them, and even if there were not — but now at least our region requires us to buy tickets for bicycles (for 1€ each), which means we have to book spaces for them in advance.
This is not realistic, since when touring, you never know which train you are going to take. On our return trip from Moirans to Gières we bought ticket to a train that we could easily make to, but when at the departure station we noticed that the previous train (that was supposed to be there an hour earlier) was one hour late, so we bought the bicycle tickets to that train. When we got to the car with the bike spaces we saw that every single one was taken, and not only them but all the non-seating areas were full of bikes as well. The fellow tourers were great helping us to board as fast as possible, since they probably also knew that the train does not wait too long. We have been left on the platform before. Merci beaucoup!