In August we toured Loire river valley on bicycles for almost three weeks (including driving there and back), altogether 800 kilometers in 14 days of riding. Because of a glitch on my Google Drive account I have not been able to download all the photos from the drive, so I am writing a post about our weekend (5.-6.9.) VéloDrôme tour — in the valley of river Drôme — first.
The beginning of the tour was a rerun of our tour on ViaRhôna last summer. We took an early morning train to Valance and started riding from there. Only that this time we tried to be too smart and got lost, and did a long detour to get on ViaRhôna, on which we continued a little past La Voulte-sur-Rhône where the river Drôme joins Rhône.
From the confluence we continued on flat country roads on the North side of the river to the start of climb to Livron-sur-Drôme. It was a bit too steep to pedal up so we walked. Eventually, the ascent turned into cobble stones …
From Livron we had a roller coaster ride to Allex, and then again a flat section to Crest, which we passed without visiting the town center. When approaching the town, we rode through a vast industrial area, where we were warned about experimentation with autonomous (driverless) shuttle buses. On midday Saturday there was not much going on, though. On our way we also crossed France’s longest wooden road bridge: it is 92 meters long and 8 meters wide with two lanes and sidewalks on both sides. Tour de Crest was impressive and could be seen from kilometers away: with its height of 52 meters it is the tallest medieval tower in France. We contemplated whether to visit it, but decided if yes, then will do it on our way back to Valence on Sunday (we ended up skipping the visit).
After Crest we must have missed a turn, since we ended up on a busy highway for a while, but we discovered VéloDrôme with the help of Google Maps. Then we followed rolling bike paths and rural roads all the way to Saillans, our overnight destination.
The best part of our trip was perhaps our accommodation in Saillans. We had rented a cosy and comfortable little hut called Coco Sweet on Les Chapelains campground. With the rental we received a Pass’Drôme worth of 50€ , which we could use in any local business. We decided to have dinner at the campground snack bar/restaurant. By the way, if you are anywhere near this area, we highly recommend this campground: it is clean and quiet and the couple who runs it are friendly and helpful; he (at least) is Dutch and both speak good English.
Before dinner we did a little stroll in Saillans in quite a hot evening sun.
The return trip from Saillans to Valence was pretty much a repeat of Saturday’s ride, only to the opposite direction, which offered a bit different views to the river Drôme. Also when leaving Saillans, we found the correct route through the idyllic medieval town of Aouste-sur-Sye. From Voulte-sur-Rhône to Valence it was not only uphill but we also had a strong and gusty headwind, which made pedaling really really hard. On the positive note, we reached the earlier train to Grenoble than planned.
There is also another branch of VéloDrôme that starts on the South side of the river and goes to Loriol-sur-Drôme. Maybe next time. A bientôt!
