In January 2024 my brother hurt his knee in a skiing accident. After minor surgery and crutches for many months he needed training to get his leg back in shape. I suggested he’d join me in biking along the French Atlantic Coast. He said yes!
So, in late September we brought our bikes, our mom and her best friend from Stockholm to Paris by train. Then dumped mom and her friend at an AirBNB in Paris and took the train to Dunkirk. From there on we biked mostly along the excellent Euro Velo 4 route. Oddly enough I had four flat tires in 11 days of biking, which is a record I really don’t want to break.
If you ever decide to bike along this coast, for the love of god, use an app like Windy or Flowx to check how the wind blows in the upcoming week! It can be the difference between 80 km a day in stiff headwind, or 150 km a day in pleasant tail wind! It is also, trust me, much nicer to have heavy drizzle in your back than straight into your face. An extra benefit is that if you chose the right direction, you can smile with pity at the noobs you meet biking the wrong way. I’m sure many smiled when they had 20 m/s (strong gale) in tail winds and met us struggling the other way.
This part of the world is rather flat, but gets hilly at times, with cliffs similar to the ones in Dover on the other side of the Channel. What is special is the biggest difference in the world between ebb and flow. This makes the coast rather dramatic, and the seafood is, unsurprisingly, very good.
The coast has some fiord-like inlets, so biking can be a challenge, at times across long and narrow bridges.
You’ll pass many famous WW2 museums. We visited the Overlord Museum, which was pretty interesting. You’ll also see some humongous concrete bunkers and cemeteries, reminding us of bad times.
After a week or so of cycling you’ll pass Mont-Saint-Michel, a castle/church on top of a rock a few km off the coast. Previously it was accessible only at low tide, but these days there’s a bridge. At peak season it is probably unbearably full of tourists. In late September it was just fine. We had a walk around and a decent dinner.
Further west from Mont-Saint-Michel is perhaps the most beautiful part of this coast. The bike path is pure propaganda for french vacation. The villages are small, lots of tiny hotels and restaurants.
The coastline is way longer that you’d think. Doing the whole Atlantic coast all the way to Spain is probably a project that will take you three weeks. Unless, of course, you have a very strong tail wind!
On our way home we passed by Paris and picked up our mom and her friend for two days on the train back to Stockholm.
Tour details (grading from 1 – 5)
- Scenery: 3
- Time of year: April to October
- Difficulty: 2
- Duration: 10 days
Credit Card Bike Touring 