We had to abandon our spring ride this year due to a combination of equipment failures and extreme heat. So this fall ride needed to be something smaller to re-establish my touring cred and give us a chance at success.

The planning began with a magazine article with pictures of St-Cirq-Lapopie, along the Lot river. I started to look at that area and saw that there was a marked bike route along the Lot. So that became the cornerstone of my planning.

Because we like to ride loops, I started looking for ways to get to and from the Lot river bike route. I discovered what looks like a fairly new bike route on the Aveyron river. So I joined the two routes up with some cross-country links and voila! I had a route.

Our equipment was somewhat changed from previous trips. We are still on our Bike Friday Tandem Traveller XL - a 1990's vintage travel tandem. But this year we lightened the bike and upgraded components. The bike now uses 1x11 shifting and has a new disk drag brake. This replaces the previous 3-speed hub which never shifted satisfactorily, and the very heavy Arai drum drag brake. We replaced the handlebars with flat bars for lighter weight and more comfortable touring. After our misadventures in the spring, we put brand-new Schwalbe Marathons on the bike.

We continue to use Ride With GPS for routing, and have a new Wahoo Elemnt Roam for on-bike navigation. Our Cardo intercom continues to be a critical part of our biking experience.

I spent the week before departure putting racks on the bike and assembling the 20kg of luggage we would carry with us.

Here is our overall route as ridden.

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