Traveling to see the Tour de France / The Virtual Tour de France

The Tour de France cycling competition ended a week ago, but it isn't too early to start thinking about visiting France in 2022 and watching the massive cycling competition in person.

This year's competition lasted from Saturday June 26th until Sunday July 18th.

The event is a huge cash cow for cyclists. Each stage they manage to win is worth 11,000 Euros, and the person who wins the entire competition gets 500,000 Euros...

Which is chump change compared to a tennis tournament or a golf tournament, but in the world of cycling that is the biggest prize cyclists can hope for.

But for a little added excitement, you can also go there in the off season (when it is NOT currently the Tour de France) and then cycle the same route. Just start in Landerneau and copy the route of the Tour de France, from beginning to end with extra bits between the individual stages, until you end in Libourne.

For convenience sake I suggest doing the Paris section of the race after Laval instead of leaving it to the very end.

Will you be able to do it in the same amount of time the professionals do it in? Nope. Definitely not.

Counting the extra distances you will have to cycle, it will be about 5000-6000 km you have to cycle. So you will probably want 4 weeks to do it in.

But if you succeed, you will have spent 4 weeks cycling around France and seen some amazing pieces of scenery.

Three Hot Travel Tips

1. If you book your plane tickets months in advance you can some a good chunk of money.
2. Book your "cycling vacation" during the off season, so the tickets are even cheaper.
3. Book via Air France, as they often have the best rates for traveling to and from France. As Canadians we can get some pretty inexpensive tickets for flights from Montreal to Paris or flights from Toronto to Paris for relative little.
   

 Also you should decide now whether you want this to be more of a fun journey, or whether you are being competitive about it.

Two, you should decide whether you want to do the cycling version of "Glamping" (Glamourous Camping), or whether you prefer the idea of actual camping. Because sleeping in a tent and cycling every day is not for everyone. Even professional cyclists usually try to stay in the best hotels when doing the Tour de France.

Staying in a nice hotel to me sounds so much better than having to pitch a tent (and carry it with you on the bicycle!) for 4 weeks.

Assuming the route you choose is 6000 km you will want to spread that out over 28 days. But that still amounts to 214 km per day, which is a lot! If you are fast (30 kmph) it will take you 7 hours of cycling every day to reach your destination.

However...

You could just take a train from each stage of the Tour de France to the next stage. That way you are only doing the 3414 km that the pros are doing. True, it means you are spending a chunk of the time on trains (and may feel like you are cheating), but whatever. You are saving yourself a lot of time and effort.

That 3414 km divided amongst 28 days is 122 km per day, which suddenly feels a whole lot easier. You could cycle at a more leisurely 20 kmph and still be done in 6 hours each day.

Or... How about this idea?

Skip the Tour de France, visit a bunch of places in France that you want to see... And buy a cheap used road bike from someone when you arrive, and if it breaks you just buy a different one.

Personally there is a list of places I would like to see - mostly along the coasts - some of which a bicycle would kind of useless in visiting.

Eg. I would love to visit Mont-Saint-Michel, and just looking at it you know a bicycle will be rather useless there. Good place for hiking up and down lots of stairs... Not so good for bicycles.

Another place I would visit is the Alignments of Carnac, which is essentially a big graveyard of huge megalithic stones - beneath which are tombs of prehistoric kings. Very rocky terrain. Again, no point taking a bicycle there. Good place for a hike however.

Honestly France has lots of good places to go hiking. Pick a place and just go!