For a recent trip I did into southwestern France, I worked with this set of requirements: 50 mile days, limited set of days, major transportation at beginning and end, small roads, small towns at mid points (lunch) as well as later in the ride to add to my depleted water supplies. My start was in Bordeaux with its great vineyards and ended in Bagneres de Bigorre (south of Tarbes) as a base to tackle three major Pyrenean climbs. Bordeaux has an airport with good connections and Tarbes had a TGV stop. This left about 180 miles to cover. Google has a good set of tools to assist your planning, with turn by turn routing, street view (not all cuntries allow it), satellite view, and distance covered estimates.
Start by taking a big, straight line view of the route.
Identify towns that have enough population to support several hotels.
On-line searches can help identify possible hotels, and Google street view can verify the search,
as well as adding to possible accommodations choices.
There are often resort hotels in the country side nowhere near a town.
After this survey is done, you can start using Google routing, with the bicycle option selected,
to satisfy your distance (50 miles) requirement. Google will not always give you the best selection.
I try to avoid industrial and commercial zones, giving a preference to
agricultural and residential zones, dragging the Google routing into small roads.
There will also be points of interest (castles, vineyards, churches, views …) that I want to go through.
These diversions do not always add to the distance.
There will be a lot of back and forth on the big scale to find a suitable route.
One city within a 50 mile ride will have the next town at 20 miles or 70 miles.
Keep expanding the big search to find the best city set.
I finally settled on Bordeaux – (via Sauternes) - Bazas – Eauze – Tarbes – Bagneres de Bigorre – Tarbes.
If you are lucky to be able to use some of the heavily used cycling paths,
such as along the Loire, there will be many hotel choices and the routing becomes easy, just ride until you get tired.
Finding accommodations in Bordeaux, and Tarbes is very easy, as they are big towns.
For Bazas and Eauze we had to hunt for beds upon arrival.
One town had three hotels, with only one open, the other had two hotels.
Hint, in France, the Hotel d’Ville is the city hall and sometimes the police station.
You will not find the kind of accommodations you are looking for at the Hotel d’Ville, nearby should be an info center that can be very helpful.
Bagneres de Bigorre presented a different problem. The plan was to stay in town for 6 nights as a base to ride some of the legendary col’s (Tourmalet, Aspin, Hourquette), so a special place was needed. Unknown during planning, there was a tennis tournament in town taking a bite in the hotel capacity. After multiple web searching did not turn up what I wanted, Google street view was used to ‘drive’ through the town looking at buildings. I came across a bed and breakfast that I could read the name of on the building.
This led to a stay in a beautiful hotel (Petites Vosges) with four rooms and a fantastic hostess .
On a trip through the Black Hills (South Dakota and Wyoming),
I anchored on the Mickelson Trail, a remote Rails to Trail endeavor.
The north end of the trail is Deadwood.
Spearfish canyon is a scenic parkway, with Spearfish, SD on the north end of it.
Next up is Devils Tower NP in Wyoming. Then back to the campground north of Custer SD.
Most of the routing was simple, as there is one road.
The tough stretch to route was between Spearfish and Devils Tower NP.
Here, Google maps came to the rescue.
I finally noticed that the old interstate was still sitting next to the new road.
The old interstate was safely accessible and empty. Routing done.
Several cat 3 and 4 climbs, on one there was some road construction.
I had a nice, long conversation with the lady holding the slow sign.
“Is this slow enough?”
What I did not prepare for was the empty stretch in Wyoming along the South Dakota border between Sundance and Newcastle.
A hot September day, headwinds, no trees, and one water stop. Vultures
Good thing I carry an extra few liters of water with me.
There are just enough campgrounds and hotels spread out along this route,
so there was no real issue finding a safe place to sleep.
The campgrounds in the Black Hills are simply stunning.
Wide (32mm) road bike tires were sufficient for the Mickelson Trail.
On the approach to Deadwood, some mountain bike skills were handy.
I had originally intended to park my car at the airport, but this would add a difficult day to the ride.
I made a phone call to the private campground I intended to use on the trail.
And, yes, for a modest fee, I could keep my car there.
Adventure Cycling Association is a great resource for US maps and suggestions for routes. I fully support their mission.
Be flexible. Enjoy the journey. You will get lost. It will rain. Carry extra water. Turn your phone off.