I’ve wanted to visit Corsica for a long time, and figure I should do it before I get too old to face the hills.  I hope I'm not already there. I'm thrilled to have found a travelling partner for this hilly adventure.  My friend Mel is a much stronger cyclist than me, but she has been injured all winter with a bum ankle.  In fact, she'll be returning to Calgary for ankle surgery at the end of May. I've been fortunate to have had some great trips with Mel and her husband, including climbing and skiing in BC, cycling in Colorado and Utah, and sailing in French Polynesia. He's staying home this trip, so it'll just be the two of us.

Timing 

I hope that late April and early May will have good weather, and it won't be too hot. At three weeks, the trip will be short by CycleBlaze standards. 

I loved Sardinia in October, but the November weather and closed businesses chased me away.  I already have travel plans for this September, so spring it is! We'll have nice long days, and my fingers are crossed that the temperatures will be perfect.  Perhaps not quite warm enough for ocean swims? But we are Canadians, after all, and used to cold water.

The Route

Our trip has been designed to follow a relatively new cycling route called the Grande Traversée 20 (‘GT20’j, the cycling counterpart to the famed GR20 hike across Corsica, reported by my friends who’ve done it to be some of the toughest hiking ever. The official GT20 route starts in the northeast city of Bastia, and ends in the southern port of Bonifacio. It will include plenty of time along the stunning coastline, but also a fair few days going up and over the mountainous middle of Corsica. It looks fabulous. And tough! On a metres/km basis, this route is about 2.5 times hillier than my trip to Taiwan, which was hilly enough.  The difference? Taiwan had some super flat days, and Corsica won't have any of those. Our s-shaped route will allow for shortcuts if the weather (or other factors) cause a change in plans.

We won’t end at the terminus of the GT20 route in Bonifacio, because we need to finish in the west coast city of Ajaccio, birthplace of Napoleon, where we’ll get a ferry back to the mainland. Then we’ll have a couple of days at the end biking from Toulon back to Nice along the Côte d’Azur.  We depart France the day that the Cannes Film Festival starts.

Built-In Excuses

Mel and I are both less fit than we'd like.  Mel broke her ankle early in the winter so spent the snowy season recovering instead of skiing, and more recently has been hampered by a snowy, cold spring in Calgary and availability of only her mountain bike for training. Her gravel bike (named Pebbles) that she'll use for this tour is already in France. She'll leave earlier than me to spend some time in Chamonix and then drive her bike down to Nice.  I ramped up my cycling too quickly and ended up with a slightly strained hamstring, so have been on light duty since early April.  Fingers crossed that we'll both be okay with the many hills we'll need to climb. We're both pretty determined, I'd say, so that's in our favour. 

2025 Travel

Will travel be unusual in this time of global weirdness? (Thanks, USA). I understand that Europeans are being especially welcoming to Canadians. I'm not usually one to wrap myself in the flag, but my panniers will be sporting a prominent Canadian flag luggage tag.  Language will be less of a problem than in most countries - Mel has lived in France, and my French is good enough to get along at an intermediate level. I'm not sure if Corsicans will speak French or Corsican to tourists, but from the sounds of it, Corsican is pretty close to Italian, and I know enough of that language to be polite, at least. 

It was not easy finding someone in Nice willing to hold my bike bag.  I think I tried seven hotels that said 'no'. I was referred by one to a paid bag storage company, NannyBag, that has locations throughout Nice. But ultimately found an apartment-type hotel in Nice that will hold it.  

We've got all our nights on the mainland booked, plus will spend a night on the ferry both coming and going.  We'll be winging it on Corsica, figuring that the weather could impact our route. We won't be carrying camping gear, mostly because I fear the extra weight of camping stuff will slow me down even further on the long climbs, but I also see that lots of campgrounds only open on May 1. Will we regret the lack of camping gear or our lack of reservations? Time will tell!   

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