How to Plan a Cycling Trip to France Part 6: Equipment List

How to Plan a Cycling Trip to France Part 6: To Take Bike or Not Take Bike, that is the Question.
I get plenty of questions from people wondering whether they should take their own bike to France. This depends on a couple of things, namely:

• Do you want to lug the bike around airports and in transport, and
• What are your baggage restrictions like

You should check out my BikePod, Scicon and BikeBox shoot-out, which may help you decide how to get your bike to France.

My position is that if you are flying Emirates (30kg baggage from Australia into Europe) or Virgin Atlantic (Erk! Heathrow! But your bike flies free) on the same route, or, if you're flying from North America (generally 2 x 23kg for all carriers, though watch out for changes to policy) and want your bike, then take it.

Bike hire is widely available in France, and is not expensive. However, I think having your own bike is desirable, so I make all recommendations on this basis.

However, by not taking your bike, you significantly widen the list of airlines you can easily fly without extra impost for excess baggage. You can read more about airline choices with regard to bike carriage here, or download my Flight Planner for the western EU here.

Which Bike Bag to Get

Nope, nothing worse than opening your bike and finding your pride and joy has been destroyed by some uncaring baggage handler, or through the travails of your international jetsetting lifestyle.

To save you from this devastating event, you'll need a GOOD bike bag. Check out the insanely thorough VeloNomad Bike Bag Reviews here.

My recommended bike bags (depending on what you want, and how much you can afford), are:

• EVOC Bike Travel Bag (with EVOC road adaptor kit)
• Scicon Aerocomfort 2 TSA
• Chain Reaction Cycles Bike/Wheel Bag Combo
• BikND Helium review

All are wheeled and relatively light.

I used the Scicon in 2009, and I thought it was fairly good, though it's nowhere near as robust as the EVOC, Polaris or OEM equivalent.

I used an OEM Bike Pod in 2010, and it had its own quirks.

I used the EVOC Bike Bag to go to the 2011 Tour Down Under, and it was awesome.

Out of these three, I rate the EVOC the highest; check out my review of the EVOC Bike Travel bag.

The Polaris is very light and robust. It does not pack down.

They're both wheeled, with the Scicon being a touch more convenient in terms of moving around airports and packing away, whilst the Polaris offers slightly better protection. The Polaris can tend to tip over a little bit as its wheelbase is not quite wide enough, so you'll need to be mindful of it in the airport – this could be a pain in the neck.

You could of course use a bike box from an airline, and whilst this is a perfectly acceptable means to get your bike on the plane, boxes are really unwieldy and also don't pack down well for transport in an Audi Superwagon.

Riding Gear

Pack all the usual stuff, but include things like boot covers, rain and wind jackets, warm gloves; you'll need them all, especially if you're climbing.

Backpacks

Really, backpacks are a pretty personal choice so I won't go into them too much here except to say, check out Vaude and Deuter. They both kick butt – I have one on my Amazon astore. I also have some camera/kit bags listed here, which will protect any expensive camera kit.

General Stuff

When reading this list, keep in mind I am a gadget nerd, and like to be connected to the net whilst away.

• Map book – this is ESSENTIAL (unless you want an AUD$2100 data roaming bill like I came home to)
• Ipod with TV-out cable
• GPS with Euro maps loaded
• Frame pump – do NOT take CO2 canisters onto the plane
• Compact Flash (CF) or SD card reader plus cable (if required)
• International AC adaptors Chargers
• For watching the tour, it would be highly desirable to have a TV in the van, or at least a crapload of data on your phone so you can stream TV (SIM cards for France with lots of data here). Sure, you could use a TV receiver too.
• Take energy bars, I use Clif Bars, or plain old fruitcake. Check out my SIS gels review.
• Get a helmet pod or bag from Wiggle or a Giro helmet pod from Chain Reaction and take it onto the plane or pack in a hard case. Check out my EVOC and Giro helmet bag review.

Summary

This has given you a brief look at equipment you need to think about, and as always, I can't cover it as deeply as I do in the 76 page Guide to Cycling Through France ebook, so check that out if you want more information.

You can download a packing list here.

In Part 7, we'll look at:

• Pitfalls, Tips, Tricks
• Insurance
• VISAs
• Money/credit cards
• Phone Roaming
• The language