2019 Bike Ride - Day 4: Chartres to Saclas

So I decide to head back into the old town of Chartres this morning and have a look around, rather than setting off early which I had planned to do. I also want to get a stamp for my credencial, since the one I got at the cathedral gift shop yesterday was not actually the correct one, and on top of that it was badly stamped. The tourist office doesn't open until 10:00 so I have a couple of hours to kill, although of course there's plenty to see. When I finally get to the tourist office, there's already a queue of people waiting for it to open. Finally it's my turn, only to be told that the pilgrim stamps are given at the Café Serpente opposite the south door of the cathedral, and not at the tourist office. Only in France. Of course this should be obvious: in one of the main pilgrim destinations in France, it's at a local café where you have to go for the stamp that proves that you, as a pilgrim, have passed through the town. And had I known, I could have come here earlier and been on my way hours ago. Very French.

Chartres - Self Portrait

Chartres is putting on a light show tonight. Perhaps if I'd known, I might have planned my trip differently and stayed another night. Perhaps not, since light shows are hardly the reason for my journey. Last night I'd already seen some of the installations set up, each one with a security guard. This morning the guards are all still there. For some reason, the security guards are all black. Whether this is by design or just coincidence is probably a politically incorrect train of thought. But there it is; they're all black.

I'm sitting on the grass on the Place de l'Eglise at Allainville having my lunch picnic. There's a stop sign on the road that passes the square. A pretty pointless one it must be said, since there's actually no side road, just the square. But all the cars passing are dutifully stopping, most impressive. Allainville is not a big town, in fact it's hardly a little village. But of course it has a church and so it has a Place de l'Église. It seems that in this part of France whoever invented the names of the towns must have had the idea that the name of each town should include the word 'town', perhaps just to emphasise the fact that it is indeed the name of a town. So we have Morainville, Roinville,  Francourville, Houville-la-Blanche, and so it goes on.

Chartres - Trompe l'Oeil

The ride is longer than I'd planned, partly because it's rather hot today and I'm riding fully exposed through open fields for most of the day. And little roads, which I try to take to avoid the traffic and make life more interesting, tend not to follow the most direct route. I'm tired by the end of it. Near the end of the day's ride I pass by an airfield and am entertained by a couple of planes doing circuits over my head. The road I'm following meanders around enough for both planes to complete three circuits in the time I've ridden under their approach path.

Marthe, my host for the night, is a sprightly 90 years old. She's lost her husband 5 months ago but seems to be the sort of person who just gets on with life and although she mentions the loss it's more by way of explanation that she been a bit busy with arranging things "paperwork and so on" and hasn't really had time to keep the guest house on order. She doesn't normally take guests, but the owner of the B&B I had tried to book suggested I give her a call. His place was fully booked, but he said that his neighbour (using the term rather loosely as it turns out) might be able to help out, as a favour. And so she did; making a small house next to hers, essentially a two-story "granny flat", available to me for the night. Wonderful.

Chartres - Cathedral reflection

When I arrive we spend a while chatting and I admire her garden, which is obviously a labour of love and stretches up the hillside above her house. It reminds me a bit of Wendy Whitley's secret garden in Sydney: lots of little paths zig zag up the slope, unexpected little bits and pieces all over the place, and the whole thing at once ramshackle and planned. She takes me on a tour of the garden and we climb up the meandering pathway. I'm amazed at how she manages this since the path is steep, full of slippery bits, and the strong stones are all at odd angles.

The guest house is very lived in, being used by her granddaughters as well as herself (her artist studio is upstairs). It's full of all sorts of clutter and collections of things acquired over the decades. Shelves of books, paintings covering the walls, lots of large mirrors - she must have a thing for mirrors. I see myself walking throughout the house, climbing the stairs, getting into and out of the bed. There's multiples of lots of things, like people have brought something with them when they last visited forgetting that there was already one there; toasters, coffee makers, cleaning products, saucepans and so forth.

After doing my chores, with the help of a rather recalcitrant washing machine, I head back into the village and the restaurant.

I had asked Marthe whether the restaurant in the village is any good (a rhetorical question, really, since there's only one so that's where I'm likely to have dinner, good or not.) I know there's a restaurant since I've both seen it in my research about this town, and I've ridden past it on the way to her house. Yet she says that as far as she knows, and she's lived here 35 years, there's no restaurant. Just the "Arabe du coin" which is a colloquial expression for the local corner store, which in this case proves accurate, since the shop is indeed on a corner, and the owners are Arabic.

Before I go to the restaurant I visit the Arabe du coin, to buy a couple of things for breakfast. At the restaurant I ask the owner how long they've been open; they've been there for 1 1/2 years having taken over from the previous owners. Marthe probably doesn't go out much, and I can imagine she's not someone to spend time in the local restaurant.

The restaurant is not a busy place; there's only one table occupied when I arrive. A younger couple and what might be the mother, or mother in law (probably both).  And under the table is the dog. Only in France. It's a big dog, but it's well behaved it must be said and I only realise it's there when I see that what I at first thought was a large handbag or something, had paws. Still, I am sitting in the outside courtyard and they, complete with dog, are sitting inside, which seems a bit counter intuitive. Smokers are made to sit outside in France, but dogs still get to be inside. Both the woman and the man are on their phones. The mother and the dog just look bored.

Another young couple arrives, he's a smoker so they sit outside. Then an older foursome arrives, they have a dog so they sit inside. Theirs is a small dog and luckily neither dog seems interested in the other. Probably good restaurant training.

I appreciate my bike's good headlights during the ride back to my little house. It's pitch black and there's no street lights for much of the way.

Roinville - Yellow on Yellow

2019 Bike Ride - Day 3: Châteaudun to Chartres

It's even colder this morning; 8 degrees. I decide to wear long pants for the beginning of the ride. In the sun it's ok but in the shade I can definitely feel that's it's 8 degrees. The plan is to head out via the local  Intermarché, a large hypermarket on the outskirts of town to buy a lead for my phone battery. It doesn't open until 9:00 and when I get there at around 8:50 there's already a group of people waiting outside to get in. Interesting idea, queuing early to be at the shop when it opens. There's a McDonald's at the complex, so I throw caution to the winds and decide to go there for a coffee while I wait. I know this McDonald's since we've stopped here a couple of times in our drives to Versailles. The McDonald's is also closed; it opens at 09:00 as well. By the time I'm back at the supermarket I'm just in time to see the shutters open and the waiting crowd stream in. It's as if they are waiting for the Boxing Day sales! I buy some things for lunch while I'm here and then decide anyway to get that coffee from McDonald's. I go inside to the counter where there's a young woman stacking a machine with something. Order over there she says, nodding towards the automatic ordering machines that have largely replaced real people. Not even a hello or other greeting, I am clearly disturbing her first thing in the morning. I leave without my coffee, consoling myself that it would have been awful anyway.

Self Portrait

Later I approach a small village, Donnemain-Saint-Mamès, which my map claims has a café. By now I know better than to believe this - every village so far has only had boarded up shops - but to my surprise the Café de la Place is open. I go and have a coffee. I'm the only customer and the coffee is pretty bad; at least it meets my expectations. I sit on the square outside the local church and have my breakfast.

Bonneville is on my route. I know this town, but only from driving past it; the large buildings of some agricultural installation with rainbow colours were a landmark on our commute to Versailles. But we never actually made the effort to visit the town itself, so now I get to discover what it's like, and it's actually quite a nice place, with several old buildings including the old abbey which is now a psychiatric hospital.

There I am in Bonneville, I've just come out of the boulangerie where I've bought my morning tea when I see out of the corner of my eye something run across the road just as a car is passing. Clunk clunk as the wheels run over what turns out to be a cat. The cat is now literally in its death throes, lying in the middle of the road with its back legs kicking spasmodically. A few people have noticed and are looking. I think it's going to die says one, rather unnecessarily. I really don't know what I can do, and any thought of sitting at the café and having a coffee have disappeared. So I ride on, preoccupied with the cat and its death. I find a nice spot by the river where I can sit, forget about the cat, and eat my croissant aux amandes.

Lunch

There is some lovely riding along the Loir just out of Bonneville, the kind of ride that brings a smile to your face. The smile doesn't last however as I am soon back riding into the winds through exposed fields. And it will be like that for the next couple of hours or so. I stop during this part to have lunch: a picnic on the ground with a baguette, camembert and terrine de campagne. And a Côtes du Rhône to go with it all. This is France after all and I should get into the mood!

Close to Chartres I pass a large open area covered in fine gravel. There must be fifty or more people there, all engaged in games of boules. A very French way to spend your Friday afternoon. The path leaves the road and passes through a very pleasant park where there are lots of people out walking. I guess not many people work on Friday afternoon in Chartres.

The last part of the ride into Chartres takes me back again to an earlier ride; it reminds me of the approach to Burgos in Spain. The route follows a winding path through a forested park, along a stream. Very pleasant! Suddenly, up ahead, the famous cathedral pops out above the trees. I'm almost there.

Self Portrait with gnomes

I ride up to the cathedral (actually I walk the bike up a really steep part, I'm not up to riding that part anymore) and spend some time admiring the building and taking a photo of the bike next to the Chemin de Compostelle plaque. Memories of previous visits here come flooding back, including our first visit where we parked our campervan (with the kids on board) right in front of the cathedral for the night. You can't do that anymore! I head to the Auberge de Jeunesse and check in. It's a large but somewhat tired place, purpose built as a hostel with lots of good facilities which are now pretty run down. I almost have a heart attack when I get in the shower to discover only a single tap. A cold shower! Not even in Tamanrasset in the middle of the Sahara desert did I appreciate having a cold shower. And on top of that this shower has one of this press taps which gives you 5 seconds of water before turning itself off again. I press and press and press convinced that it's not possible that the shower could be cold. Sure enough, after what seems like a quarter of an hour (I am, of course, standing there naked and the windows are open - it is not pleasant) some lukewarm water finally appears.

Inside Chartres Cathedral

After doing my chores I head back into the old city to visit the cathedral. My timing is good since there's a service underway. The priest is African and I can't help bring taken back to my time in Africa. His accent is very African and I wonder how it must feel for some of the older people attending the service, who may well remember the African colonial times. Now the tables are turned, and it's an African preaching to them rather than the other way around. And in one of France's most famous cathedrals.

The restaurant I've selected for dinner turns out to look really appealing, until I spot the little note on the door: yes yes, we really are fully booked tonight. So I end up at my second choice, which is one of the restaurants right next to the cathedral. This type of place is normally worth avoiding, being tourist traps. But this one is recommended and I give it a go.

I'm sitting outside despite the cold. There are heaters. I try not to dwell on the environmental impact of having heaters outside. To my right is a table of Americans; two older couples. Not a word of French, not even a merci for the waiter. I ask them what wine they've chosen (they have a carafe, there are three different reds by carafe on the menu). I don't know, it's my wife who chose says the guy (his wife has just gone to the toilet). The other woman in the group helpfully tells me: it's the cheapest one.

The waitress takes orders without taking notes. She takes the orders for the table of four next to me, who complicate things, changing their minds, ordering multiple wines and she takes it all in her stride. She even stops by my table to ask if everything is going well, presumably having memorised the entire order. I am impressed. It reminds me how in French restaurants there are generally less waiters than, for example, in Australia. Yet they manage very well - they definitely have this well sorted and it's something that they could do better in Australia. 

The French table of four next to me also consists of two older couples (just like the Americans on my other side). Actually, they are not all that different. At both tables the men are doing all the talking. And at both tables, one guy seems to be the one who's in charge, or rather has decided he's the one to take control. But on the French table that guy seems obsessed with reading the menu out to the others, telling then what they should order, particularly with the wine. Ironically, they end up ordering wine by the carafe.

There's a group of young guys, seven of them, who've just arrived. One of them is Leonardo DiCaprio. At least he looks just like young Leonardo when he was saving Kate Winslet on the Titanic.  Three more guys arrive, so it's now a large table of ten. It turns out that it's Leonardo's birthday, at least he starts getting presents. A bottle of wine, a polo shirt... Lots of cheek kissing goes on - something you're not likely to see in a restaurant in Australia.

I navigate beck to my hostel, which is dark and empty.

Chartres Cathedral by night

2019 Bike Ride - Day 2: Vendôme to Châteaudun

I'm a bit curious to see what they serve the working youth of France for breakfast. Knowing that breakfast in France is normally not the highlight of the day my expectations are fairly low. And they're almost met: awful coffee from an automatic machine, a large basket of pieces of baguette (nice and fresh it must be said) and some trays with apricot jams, honey and butter. There's also another machine dispensing dubious orange juice. The surprise is the row of cereal dispensers, probably reflecting an Americanisation of the breakfast culture for the youth of France. I am shocked to discover that the choice of cereals consists of Coco Pops, chocolate flakes, Sugar Frosties and some other anonymous sugary confection. And they wonder why obesity rates are soaring! No muesli or any other even remotely healthy cereals are on offer. I spot a little sign next to a bell push: hostel guests (i.e. not the regular residents) push here for a viennoiserie (croissant or pain au chocolat). A special treat for the paying guests. The woman offers me a yoghurt as well.

It's cold this morning - 10 degrees - and I can see the trees swaying in the stiff breeze. It looks like another hard ride.

Vendôme near the youth hostel

I start the ride by going back into the town; a little out of my way, but I want to go to the Chapelle St Jacques. I am on the Chemin St Jacques after all. As I ride I am thinking maybe I should put another layer on (I'm already wearing three) because it's actually pretty chilly, particularly with the wind. I've stopped to take a photograph of the graffiti artwork and am passed by a guy on a bike wearing just a t-shirt and shorts. I guess the cold is relative.

As you ride you obviously have time to think about all sorts of things. Today's ride is reminding me of the first day setting off from Amsterdam a few years ago, riding along the dykes through the tulip fields. There's no tulips here on the path along the Loir River, but it's pretty flat and so should be easy going. Except, that is, when there's a strong blustery headwind. It was like that in Holland and it's like that now. You expect the riding to be easy and it's anything but. I'm also taken back to my first ride along the Camino in Spain. There, every little village had a café serving excellent café con léché. You could ride from coffee to coffee, never being more than a few kilometres - or so it seemed - from the next coffee. Here, in two days' riding I have yet to get a coffee. The villages I've gone through are either too small to have any shops or more commonly they used to have some but they're now all boarded up and abandoned. Lots of cafés du commerce and bars du coin, but none of them actually open anymore. And in any case, from my experience, even if they were open, the coffee they serve would be pretty dire. Somehow the French just don't seem to be able to make a decent coffee with milk.

Montigny-le-Gallenon

I'm riding along the Loir and a local rider pulls up alongside. He's the typical French rider: all done up in his Lycra hear, complete with logos. He's on a Gitane racing bike, spare inner tube strapped to the frame. Normally these riders come in pairs or bigger groups but this one is solo and around my age. He slows down and rides alongside for a chat making him definitely not your typical French rider (I am normal ignored by French bike riders, obviously being not one of them). He rides a couple of times a week, 40 - 60 km in the morning; about what I ride in a day I tell him. But you're heavily loaded and have a lot of wind resistance he admits graciously. And then he takes the next side road which leads up the hill; much more challenging than the flat path along the river.

The ride along Loir is getting more pleasant as the wind subsides a bit. I ride into Cloyes-sur-Loir, bringing back a lot of memories of when we used to drive from Chemillé to Versailles, passing near or through this town, even though I am seeing a completely different part of it from the bike. We used to always stop at a rest area near this town. I ride into the town and up to the church, and as if on cue, the bells chime the hour. Amazing!

Riding a bike means you move slow enough to really notice and observe your surroundings. You see things you will never notice as you speed by in a car. You're more a part of the surroundings, something which I particularly appreciate when riding through forests and along rivers. I appreciate it a bit less when it's cold and raining, but that's not the case today. You also get to see people and their houses up close. The old man sitting in the sunshine in the kitchen. The workmen trimming a hedge. The kids playing with the dog in the front yard.

The path heads away from the river and into more exposed terrain and I am back battling headwinds for the final part of the ride.

Gîte d'Etape

I'm staying at the Gîte d'étape, which doesn't open until 16:00. So I have a look around the town and have some more of the baguette and cheese as afternoon tea. The rest of the baguette gets fed to the ducks who probably shouldn't be eating bread but don't complain; except to each other when they're not the first to grab the next bit of bread.

The Gîte is clean and neat and basic although it has everything you need, including as the woman running it is at pains to point out, individually allocated toilets, showers, and washbasins. No sheets but I have my own. Since I'm scrimping on the accommodation (both last night and tonight) I've decided to lash out for dinner, which will probably cost considerably more than my room. I discover a nice looking restaurant which turns out to be the number one rated restaurant according to TripAdvisor. I book a table for the night.

I'm the first to arrive - I've booked for 19:30, a half hour after they open. The guy assures me they will be full tonight. The menu looks promising but the service is a bit too obsequious for my liking. I get the impression they have been trained to perform in a certain way and they plan to stick to the script.

After about a half hour, there's a table of five women, and a bit later another table of two women. I realise that I'm the only male customer so far. A half hour later, the more people arrive and I no longer have to feel that my riding boots and gear would be out of place in such a pretentious establishment. Two older guys come in, both wearing rather grotty sneakers and generally looking like they didn't bother changing before coming to the restaurant. They are accompanied by a young woman who's most definitely got dressed for the occasion. Quite a contrast.

I've ordered the magret de canard, a dish which is very French, but which I wouldn't normally order since duck is not something I am a big fan of. But I throw caution to the wind, tempted by the description of it being slow cooked 6 hours. When it arrives, the waiter follows the script, and explains: this is the mashed potato, this is pureed carrot, and this is a tomato that's been roasted... While I'm eating the duck, which is impressively good, I think of the ducks I was feeding just a few hours earlier. I wonder if my slow-cooked duck ate bread?

The table set for nine arrives and now I am feeling overdressed. They are all in their very early twenties and there's no pretence there. Hoodies, exposed underpants, t-shirts and ripped jeans. The girls, on the other hand, are very nicely dressed for the evening, making quite a contrast with their male companions. I can't help thinking that when I was their age, there was no way I would ever have gone to a restaurant like this. Probably both because I would have had a completely different sort of place I would have gone to and also because I wouldn't have been able to afford it anyway.

During the meal, I realise that I am the only one in the place drinking wine. This comes as a bit of a shock given that I'm in France. Most tables have ordered an aperitif, but by they look of them, mostly non-alcoholic. And every table has a bottle, or bottles, of water, bubbly or not. The group of hoodies and torn jeans has a couple of beers. But that's it. I guess the drink driving laws have had an effect.

Finally, the remaining table arrives, a group of six. And so the restaurant is indeed full, as advertised. My dessert arrives, complete with an explanation by the waiter of its various components. And the table of six, a more conservative group than the rest, orders a bottle of wine, so I am not alone. Maybe they have a designated driver. All I have to do is negotiate the 200 steps down from the castle level to the river where my Gîte is.

And then, before I've left, the table of six (the ones who'd ordered wine) suddenly gets up and leaves, before they've eaten anything. Did they order? I ask the waiter and he explains that one of the group had recently had a stomach operation and couldn't eat onions. Since all the meals contain onions... So they all left. Just a little bit odd, to say the least.

I manage all 200 steps and am back at my Gîte for a well-earned sleep.

After dinner steps - Châteaudun

2019 Bike Ride - Day 1: Chemillé to Vendôme

Wind. Lots of it and all day long. A constant wind from the north- northeast, with blustery gusts, according to the weather report, of 50 km/hr. And of course my route today was to the northeast, so I had a headwind throughout the entire day's ride. So it was a slow and tiring ride for my first day, and I was glad to arrive at my destination, Vendôme.

Last year I wrote that it was uncanny how so often just at the time I rode into a town, the church bells chimed the hour. Well here I am, not even an hour into the first day of this year's ride and just as I ride into Les Hermites, the first town I am riding through, the church bells strike midday. Definitely uncanny.

Open fields all around

Here's looking at you...

I'm riding through wide open spaces with wheat and corn fields on either side stretching to the horizon. It's all been harvested and ploughed, ready for the next season. I'm very exposed and as I mentioned the winds are relentless. A small car, a Fiat Panda, passes me. As it passes I can't help noticing that on the passenger seat is a bale of hay. Not the sort of thing you'd be expecting, but perhaps in this region you shouldn't be surprised by this sort of thing.

In Vendôme I'm staying in the Auberge de Jeunesse, the youth hostel. It's a little out of town and in a decidedly seedy neighborhood. Not the sort of area you'd normally be coming to as a tourist. There's abandoned buildings with broken windows and signs saying "danger, asbestos". There's graffiti everywhere, which I have to admit is rather well done and adds a bit of welcome colour to the otherwise drab ambience.

The hostel is actually more than what I would consider a normal youth hostel. True to its name, it's full of young people. But these people are living here on a longer term basis. The place caters for young people who are on work experience assignments and are in vocational training. They are overwhelmingly male and from obviously not privileged backgrounds. I've decided to have dinner here (I am too tired to venture back into town tonight) and it's an interesting experience. The canteen opens at 19:00 and closes again 45 minutes later. When I arrive at 19:15 the place is already mostly full, with many large groups eating together. There's a couple of older people, but I'd say the average age is probably closer to 17 or 18. By 19:30 the place is almost empty again. Clearly people are not here for a leisurely dinner, just to get fed.

I'm sitting at a table by myself and halfway through my meal (three courses plus wine, this might be a canteen but we are in France after all) another older guy, who I've spotted at the cashier with a tray loaded with pieces of bread, joins me. He's from Brittany and is here working with the young people. He's got a strong accent and speaks rapidly and in odd sentences and I can only catch a small fraction of what he's saying; he speaks so quickly, moving around constantly as he talks. He keeps repeating himself and asks me at least three times where I'm from and whether I'm riding a bike. He volunteers that there was a guy here last week with a backpack and a stick and he was walking on the Chemin de Compostelle. He says it like it was a completely new concept to him, which is a little odd given that France is a country where long distance walking "Randonner' is actually a pretty common thing and is quite popular and well established. And this type of hostel is exactly the sort of place you would find walkers.

Tomorrow I'll have breakfast in the same canteen; I suppose it will be a rushed affair as well.

Vendôme - at the Loir with a bit of colour

Bike rides - an updated analysis

After having completed the third (and final) stage of riding the Camino de Santiago (Chemin de Compostelle) by bike, I'll present here the updated analyses of my rides in Europe to date. The results are remarkably consistent and they are a useful tool for future trip planning.

Little extras you won't find in a pilgrim hostel

 The Financial Summary:

	Camino part 3 (2018)	Loire à Vélo (2016)	Camino part 2 (2015)	Camino part 1 (2014)
Food	666 (29/day)	234 (33/day)	320 (29/day)	430 (21/day)
Accommodation	552 (24/day)	287 (41/day)	317 (29/day)	308 (10.50/day)
Travel	6	0	31	247
Other	6	0	21	87
Total Cost	1,230	521	689	1,072
Daily Average	53	74	58	33

(all figures in Euros, daily averages exclude special days)

My most recent trip, the third and final part of the Chemin de Compostelle, was the most expensive. This is not really a surprise, because it was also the longest. Looking at the daily figures, which are rather more relevant, it's also not a surprise that this trip was the second-cheapest. This is mostly driven by the accommodation, and is because I tried to stay as much as possible in pilgrim hostels and refuges. The figure would have been considerably lower had it not been for a few nights spent in hotels or B&Bs (Chambres d'hôtes). The latter is a bit misleading in France, since the price can be - and usually is - quite a bit higher than a simple hotel, and they are often rather more than a simple room in someone's house. My most expensive night was, no surprise, in the rather touristy town of St. Emillion in a Chambre d'Hôtes which cost Eur121. On the other extreme, my cheapest night was nil (zero), the very  next night in Cadillac where the pilgrim refuge is in an original pilgrim "cell" in a building which today is part of the psychiatric hospital. Most municipal pilgrim refuges were around eur8 which is, of course, amazingly cheap accommodation and is in line with the prices in Spain. For the Loire à Vélo trip there was obviously no pilgrim accommodation involved and this is reflected in the daily accommodation cost, mostly staying at basic Airbnb places (in effect, more the "traditional" B&B concept of a room in someone's house.) I never camped, but that would, of course, be a way to dramatically reduce your accommodation costs, particularly if you don't stay at formal campsites.

Sleeping in a "cell" won't break the bank

The food was comparable with my previous two trips, which again is not a complete surprise because my style of eating was about the same: a basic breakfast, some fruit and snacks along the way but no formal lunch as such, and a decent dinner, generally in a local restaurant (although sometimes self-catered when staying in hostels). I tended to treat myself to a reasonably decent meal for dinner, with prices generally around eur25 with some notable exceptions.

The Engineering Summary:

	Camino part 3	Loire à Vélo	Camino part 2	Camino part 1
Total number of days	23	8	14	18 *
Total distance ridden (km)	1,514	572	1,110	1,031
Total time on the bike (hrs)	95	34.2	75.8	66.8
Average speed for the trip (km/h)	15.9	16.7	14.7	15.4
Average hours ridden / day	4.1	4.3	5.4	3.9
Average distance ridden / day	65.8	71.5	79.3	60.6
Longest distance ridden in one day (km)	86.1	85.3	105.7	84.5
Shortest distance ridden in one day (km)	38.0	63.2	49.7	34.0
Most hours ridden in one day (hrs)	5.4	5.0	7.1	6.2
Least hours ridden in one day (hrs)	3.0	3.8	3.5	2.1
Highest daily average speed (km/h)	17.9	17.8	15.0	19.1
Lowest daily average speed (km/h)	12.5	15.6	13.5	12.4

* Includes one rest day

Again, these numbers are pretty consistent, and probably reflect the fact that my riding style hasn't really changed much. Four hours a day on the bike is a pretty reasonable number if you want to be comfortable, see some stuff along the way, but also cover a bit of distance. The 5.4 hours I spent on average each day for the second Camino reflects the fact that this trip was a bit time-limited, forcing me to cover a minimum distance / time each day. It wasn't an unreasonable load, but if you're not time-driven, it's better to keep the on-bike time to a more realistic figure. You'll enjoy the ride a lot more! The average speed is again pretty similar to the other rides. The differences are essentially driven by terrain, with hills obviously reducing your averages. It's no surprise that the Loire à Vélo ride, which is essentially flat terrain the whole way, has the highest average speed. The differences in averages might not seem much, but in practice they are significant.

So there you have it; some rough planning numbers would therefore be:

Distance/day: 60 km
Hours ridden/day: 4 hours
Cost/day: eur55 - eur75 depending on your accommodation.

Some tracks are easier to ride than others