Draft
With this trip in 2026 ride I have now completed 14 long-distance cycle rides in Europe starting in 2014. I have planned and led all of these. Two of these have included Spain, but the rest have been in France. The new feature if this trip in 2026 is a cycling from Spain through France back to England. Also, this ride brings my total SOLO rides to 3.
In 2025, I completed two long-distance bike rides, one from the south of France to Dieppe, and the other from Roscoff to Dieppe. The former was promoted to help raise money for Ukrainian medical supplies. This year, I’ve I have also used the trip done the same thing. I’ve completed a long-distance bike ride and also raised over £3,000 for medical aid for Ukraine.
The 2026 ride
This journey was much more difficult than I ever imagined. I think it’s mostly due to the heat. I had some other issues on the way, which could happen at any time, for instance, I was ill for a few days. My daily diary can be seen HERE . If you would like to DONATE please click HERE. My summary of my 2026 trip is here:
The Basque Country hills!
I was very concerned about cycling through the Basque Country. I knew it was hilly, but online and in actual real maps, paper maps, you couldn’t find out very much about the route. There was nothing like the Ordnance Survey or the French IGN map system, so that left me with concerns. My concerns were partly alleviated by the fact that it was a Saturday when I was cycling away from Bilbao, and that meant the traffic was light, and there were lots of cycling groups out on the road. That gave me confidence. I had to use a main road coming out, but then eventually I turned off towards Guernica, which was my first stop. That part of the route was quite hilly, and it just forewarned me about the few days that were to follow.
Guernica
Because I was raising money for medical aid for Ukraine, I felt I had to come to Guernica. This was the place where aerial bombardment of civilians first took place in 1937 as part of the Civil War, with General Franco getting assistance from Nazi bombers to obliterate the town. No thought was given to civilians. Today, President Putin is doing exactly the same thing, targeting civilians. It makes me both immensely sad and angry.
Heat and Hills
After Guernica, the steepness of the hills became a lot more serious. I was heading for the coast and imagined that I could go much further, but this is where the heat and the steepness of the hills kicked in. Over 35 C in the shade and over 2000 m of ascent in 3 days (over 6,500 ft).
By the time I got to ther French border got lost a bit in places, I eventually found my way onto La Vélodyssée (Euro Velo 1). [This route is some 1,300 km (800 miles) long through France. I didn’t do all of it as my destination was St Malo.]. The route actually goes on to Roscoff in western Brittany.
The EuroVelo Route 1 begins to be marked here. Not always that clearly and I got lost a few times. Cycling into some of the towns along the coast San Sebastian, and into Biarritz, and then beyond Biarritz, is on clearly marked cycle paths. They are super! I wish we had this sort of cycle path system more widly in England. Sometime though one is cycling on roads. I found that the motorists were very kind. I didn’t cut you up or hoot. I don’t think any motorist ever tooted me, and even the lorries gave me a wide berth!
Back to the cycle path, which was the main way of transporting myself up to the north of France, up to Brittany. In some ways, the path was easy to follow because it was a dedicated cycle path, and there were lots of cyclists on it. Sometimes cyclists were more dangerous than possibly cars. By this time, my Garmin had lost its connectivity with my mobile phone, and to be honest, I didn’t have the patience to try and get it reconnected. As I’d been doing before, I was just using the Garmin to track my route so I knew exactly how far I’d been and what the ascent was. It was only when I got home that I sorted this thing out, and then my cycling began to be republished, not just on the Garmin website, but also on Strava and other apps which I don’t even own. So I’m glad it went on them.
I imagined that the cycling up through the west coast of France with its pine trees and long flat areas would be easy, but in fact it wasn’t. The problem was there were lots of little hills and deviations, which meant the additive effect of all of the ascent in a day would be very high. For instance, on one day, it was about 800 meters. This is like 3,000 feet, and yet when you look at the map, it looks as though the land is flat. Along this stretch, this is where the heat really took toll, and I couldn’t reach some of the destinations I wanted to get to, so I had to limit the distance so I could cope with the heat.
On occasions, the routing of the EuroVelo Route 1 was not clear, and this is where I was grateful for my French version of the OS map, the IGN map. It was brilliant. You could look at that on your mobile phone, on your handlebars, and you could see exactly where you were going, and it was much better than the Garmin for finding routes and cycle paths. From here on in, I began to rely upon the French IGN map app.
When I reached Arcachon, it was clear that there was a ferry which would take off something like at least 25 miles of cycling. But the ferries were quite small. I had to work hard to persuade the ferrymen, the boatmen, to take my heavy electric bike. I must admit, the Giant Explore is a bit of a tank. We stripped everything off, and they hoisted it onto the roof of the ferry, and off we went.
Back on dry land again, we continued up through the forested areas of the west coast with its long sandy beaches and inland forest. The forests were much more extensive than I remember. The paths were mostly good in parts, but sometimes you were slowed down by the tree roots, which had burrowed underneath the path and made it very bumpy. So there were those types of things, and also this question of weaving in and out and there being little hills, which when you multiply them all up for the day, really does add up to quite an ascent.
After a few days, you eventually leave this pine forest area with its myriad of French campsites and access to the big sandy beaches off to the west. Coming into Aix was really a pleasure. The landscape changed, and the cycling was along a picturesque coastline, which eventually turns inland towards the River Charente. By now we’ve left the Gironde area, and we’re in the Charente department. Little did I know that a day and a half after I left the Gironde area, the forest fires would make it, devastating the area. I note this in my daily diary.
Another estuary has to be crossed, and this time, unfortunately, the only way is to go over a very high bridge. Because of the wind, which I think is an important thing when you’re cycling, I decided that I have to walk my bike over that bridge. It was very blustery and buffeting. Again, this is something one would have to factor in, which I didn’t in my planning, as it adds time to your cycling.
Vic Ient 