The Bikepacker: Velofrancette 2026 - Trains, Trains, Trains

Cycling Stats

Cycling in Nantes

Cycling Route So Far

Travelogue

Today we travelled north by train to St Malo on the coast.

In fact, by three trains.

We were up at 5:00 so that we had time to drink coffee, finish packing, leave the apartment in a suitable state and then get ourselves and bikes to La Rochelle railway station to catch the 6:17 to Nantes.

The plan worked well. We arrived in good time and used the working (hooray!) lifts to get our bikes over to Platform E.

These trains have a single carriage that is designated for bikes and capacity is limited to six. You have to book and pay for a place for your bike, which we did. We were first in and got the only dedicated space for two bikes. That didn't stop a French woman jamming her bike alongside The Mule though, leaving very little space for people to squeeze past. As I was very obviously one of the cyclists and sat nearest to these three bikes, this earned me lots of dirty looks from passengers, especially the more rotund ones!

Meanwhile three other cyclists stored their bikes by the doors.

When the ticket inspector came it transpired that at least one cyclist hadn't booked and it took forever for the ticket inspector to sort this out.

When he came to us, I presented our tickets and bike reservation details. He smiled and I got the distinct impression that I was awarded a French attaboy. Attagarcon?

It took a little over 90 minutes to travel to Nantes and so we arrived just after 8:00. Unfortunately, our next train (to Rennes) wasn't scheduled to leave until 14:05 so we had lots of time to kill.

The station Pret a Manger supplied a decent breakfast and we used the time to look into how we could spend our time. It turns out that Nantes has a physical, actual, analogue not digital, green line painted along some of its streets and parks. Follow the line and you're led past the key sights. So that's what we did, on our bikes. We stopped occasionally, including at the huge cathedral where we went in one at a time (the other minding our bikes and stuff) to have a look.

Eventually we went back to the station, spent even more money at Prets and then sat in a park across the road, eating lunch and waiting.

It was eventually time for our train to Rennes so we found the platform and wheeled the bikes onto the appropriate carriage. The space for "max 3" bikes was really narrow and we only just squeezed M2's bike into it. Mine ended up by the doors, leaning against a partition. The train wasn't very busy so this seemed ok.

But then a couple of ticket inspectors appeared and explained that our bikes should be hanging vertically from three hooks that we hadn't noticed. This made sense but at the same time didn't seem to be the absolute rule that was being suggested because the information graphic in the bike space looked like this:

I.e. with three bikes shown with their wheels firmly on the ground. Without wishing to be an annoying, argumentative tourist.... I pointed this out and expressed reluctance to hang the bikes, placing lots of weight on a single wheel rim and the front forks. The response (in English) was plain and simple. "We don't care!"....."..but the train is not busy so your bikes can stay where they are!". Phew! Anyway, lesson learned. We'll watch out for hooks in the future. Neither of the other two trains had them. In fact all three used different bike storage systems.

In Rennes we had no time to do anything but wait for our connecting train to St Malo. Getting the bikes on and lashed to the wall was straightforward and it took less than an hour to get to St Malo.

It had been hot and sunny in Nantes and we'd sought shade to sit in. At St Malo, it started to drizzle hard! We put our rain jackets on and cycled the 2 km to our Airbnb apartment.

The apartment is on the first floor of an old building. Getting bikes up stairs is something I'm an old hand at. But these stairs were a nightmare, the worst I've encountered, even worse than in Angers earlier on this trip!

I more or less had to carry the bikes vertically. M2's wasn't too hard. The Mule, which is heavier, longer and has wider handlebars almost got jammed and M2 had to help from above. But after much grunting and cursing, it was Mission Accomplished. To get The Mule out tomorrow, I'll be taking the front wheel off. Hopefully that will make turning the tight spiral easier.

That's it. Food and sleep are next. In that order.