The Family Bike Touring Guide

So it’s bank holiday Monday, the weather is great and we’ve had a lovely few hours together as a family out on the bikes.

I should really be in France this week helping up run the youth programme at Le Pas Opton (a Christian holiday park), but instead we’re all here at home in the UK, and that’s fine. Plans change, and if the hardest part about this Coronavirus lockdown is that we have to change our holiday plans then I consider myself extremely fortunate.

Having said that, I’m slightly frustrated by our summer holiday plans being quite up in the air. We planned our summer bike tour super early this year, intending to ride around some of the south of France near the Canal du Midi with a further few days on the coast before heading home.

All the accomodation (mainly airBnB) is booked, route sorted etc, but now it looks like the whole plan could change.

To be clear, changing our plans isn’t an issue. It’s the not knowing whether we’ll need to that’s the frustrating part. So far we’ve had one airBnB host cancel on us, leaving us to either find alternative lodgings for a night or cancel the whole ride (with some large financial penalties).

So here we are, knowing that most likely a tour abroad won’t happen this year, but still holding out for either the rules to change or for all the hosts to cancel so we get full refunds.

If only English weather was more predictable, we could just plan a nice ride closer to home, but a summer break cycling in the rain is no fun for anyone.

Still today has been a good day. Let’s start with that and see what happens next.

Tags: bike, Coronavirus, covid, cycle tour, Cycling, France, freewheeling, touring