Why Cycle the Via Francigena Off-road?
I really enjoy gravel cycling in Denmark. It’s so easy to get on a train and cycle back home through a variety of forest trails and coastal paths without ever having to share space with cars.
But as lovely as Denmark is (full disclosure: it isn’t for large parts of the time), I wanted a bigger story. For me a big part of cycling is the journey and after a while new routes become harder to find.
So in 2018 I made a decision to spend a week a year on solo gravel bike adventures. The first question was where?
I needed a journey (even at home I’m always a little frustrated ending where I start). And it needed to be possible to split into week long trips.
First up I considered cycling the Camino de Santiago or Way of St. James. I quickly discounted this for a few reasons:
A lot of people have done this route and it has become even more popular over the years. I had in my mind a picture of a crowded “hiker highway”. I really wanted to be able to cycle the route off-road and I feared upsetting some of the “rambler types” by cycling alongside so many of them.
Partly as a result of being a “hiker highway”, the route is very developed with plenty of overnight places; perhaps making it less interesting exploring.
It didn’t look that easy to split into clear week long stages (getting to and from some of the potential stages would take a day or two even from Copenhagen).
It’s perhaps a more religious experience than I was looking for (I’m fully agnostic myself).
Whilst exploring the Camino de Santiago, I came across a number of references to the Via Francigena or as some people called it, the Francigena Way. There were a few things that stood out:
It was 2000km, so a proper challenge. If you were going to walk the Via Francigena it would take perhaps 100 days; at one week a year you could be taking 10-15 years to get it done: hence why my approach is off-road cycling. I estimated it might take me 6-7 years on the bike (really depending on “how bad” the off-road was). [UPDATE: I completed the trip in 39 days / 6 trips (including a week with the family where we only covered 20km or so a day). Finished with exactly 50% off-road].
The route isn’t fully defined, especially in France. In France there’s so many paths and options. For example, in many places the GR145 Via Francigena seems to take a slightly different route to the official Via Francigena route. I also looked at the Eurovelo 5 map, which takes the name Via Francigena but as with most Eurovelo routes, it is almost exclusively designed for “roadies”. (The Eurovelo 5 route does eventually join the Via Francigena on the Po plain in Italy).
The other great thing about cycling so much off-road in France is that its always acceptable to cycle on the paths whereas in Britain its often a no-no.
It has a number of really “stand out” moments: crossing the English Channel, the great cities of Reims, Laussanne and Rome, crossing the Jura, the Alps and the Appenines and the amazing ancient cities of Tuscany.
All the areas are well served by train or plane; it’d be possible to get to many of the possible start/end points quite easily.
So that was it. Decision made. I checked out some other routes e.g. From Nordkapp in Norway to just about anywhere South; but after multiple trips to Norway, I didn’t want to spend weeks in the pouring rain in rather “samey” forest.
My first long-distance route will be the Via Francigena. I’m pretty apprehensive for sure; mainly because I have no idea how cycling the flat and windy routes of Denmark will translate into the hilly and sunny routes of the South.
I started in Canterbury on 18th July 2018.