If you are considering bicycle touring…do it!

If you are considering bicycle touring in France…do it!

Check out some of these titles to whet your appetite.

Graham Watson’s Tour de France Travel Guide draws from his more than 30 years experience photographing the Tour and highlights the culinary delights of the various regions the Tour passes through. Whether traveling by bicycle or automobile, Watson’s book conveys the experience of following the Tour and acts as a guidebook to the best foods, wines and lodging. It is a quick read and full of Watson’s gorgeous photography.

Another book to help organize your bicycle tour in France is Lonely Planet’s Cycling France. It contains over 6000 kilometers of suggested routes and information relevant to cyclists. France is full of back roads, back back roads and back back back roads and they are all wonderful to cycle. Lonely Planet highlights breathtaking scenery while including information about campgrounds, food stores, tourist information and more.

British author, Tim Moore’s French Revolutions comically details his three week escapade cycling the 2000 Tour de France route several weeks prior to the beginning of the race. Moore morphs from being a near couch potato to donning a cycling kit and eventually cycling up the most challenging climbs the Tour de France has to offer (i.e. Mt Ventoux). His witty writing style has been compared to authors Calvin Trillin, Tony Hawks and Bill Bryson.