Some details on the route

Greetings from the Lot-et-Garonne (47, Martin). I attach here the map from Julien Savary’s first booklet which covers the latter part of our journey and shows the bits of the Canal du Midi towpath which are ‘voie verte cyclable revêtue’ (surfaced greenway – red on the map!) and those which are ‘itinéraire cyclable non revêtu’ (non-surfaced cyclable route - orange). Just to recap, the various greenways from the Dune du Pyla to the Garonne Canal are all tarmacked, as is the towpath to Toulouse – so no problems there. After Toulouse, the towpath is surfaced as far as Port Lauragais. Then there are small red stretches as follows: through Castelnaudary; through Carcassonne; from Béziers towards Agde for a few km. The rest is orange. There are also a few exclamation marks, which the booklet describes as ‘difficultés’. The majority of these seem to be in the region of Sallèles-d’Aude, Argeliers, Capestang, Poilhès, but there are some around Carcassonne as well, which I will try to research. I will also ascertain which IGN maps are relevant and attempt to transfer the information concerning the towpath surface onto them and hence find alternative roads. More on all this later ... 
May I lead for the first day? I'm looking forward to finding our way through the initial twists and turns to Mios and onto the ex-railway line to Bazas. I hope the weather will be kind to us. Here it has been rubbish recently, with showers and temperatures of only 12 C max, altho at last things are beginning to change: temperature today is 15 C.

A final final meeting?

.. or an excuse for a taste of one or more of the Flower Pot ales?? We had previously mooted the idea of this possible meeting to cross the "t"s and dot the "i"s for our French trip. Assuming a Thursday we have 19/4, 26/4, 3/5 and 10/5 as possibles provided that Clyde is at his winter palace (ie UK based). We could cover:

Accomodation, where and what for each day.
Maps, what have we, do we need any additional ones
Ride leading - perhaps most important to/from the chemin d'halage to our nightly stops or to avoid those bits of towpath (if any) which are not rideable.

Can Clyde confirm which of these dates are feasible and then everyone indicate which of those is convenient.   

More Bookings

Bookings have been made for Agen (30th May) and Toulouse (31st May) In each case it is in a F1 Hotel and I have booked 3 duo rooms. I shall take the solitary option. I accept that it will cost me a little more but at least I shall not have to be concerned that I shall wake people up when I make my nightly visits.
Room cost at Agen is 40.90 euros which includes a buffet style "eat all you can" breakfast for both occupants and at Toulouse it is 42.90 euros (well sombody has to pay for Airbus). Thats 20.95 per person average which at current rates is about £17.50.
I also have a booking in Bordeaux on 27/5 for Martin and me as we travel on the same train (and in the same coach) from Paris.
I am assuming we go our separate ways from the Grau d'Agde and will be making a reservation (dont know where yet) for me for the 3rd and 4th June prior to travelling back on 5th.  Maybe my English friends might put me up????

Carcassonne youth hostel

When I booked this hostel, there were a number of options. I went for 5 beds in a normal dormitory for 115 euros (inc sheets and breakfast, etc) but there was also the possibility of a private room with 5 beds, costing 87.90 euros (all included too). I went ahead with the former because it seemed the more straightforward, I thought there must be something I hadn't understood (and Sylvie wasn't around at the time!) and maybe time was against me. But at the same time I emailed the hostel asking them to explain this anomaly. The guy who replied said it was a family promotion and there was no catch - altho I still wouldn't pretend to understand it fully. So there you are: it's now 17.58 each, altho we will have to join the hostels association. If we do it on arrival, it's 7 euros, but I'm not sure what that might extend to: it could just be the equivalent of the £3 extra per night in the UK, or it might last a whole year in France, but it's unlikely to be for the whole year anywhere in the world, since that costs £14.35 in the UK! So absolute total is 24.58 euros, not bad when you consider that we will be in the heart of the citadel and therefore extremely well-positioned for sight-seeing!

Rayon-du-soleil 2 June 2012

Given that we wanted to explore Carcassonne on the morning of our penultimate day and therefore didn't want to ride too far afterwards, I thought that Maurice's "Rayon-du-soleil" was a good bet for our last night, at 24 euros each, including beakfast. The wine tasting at Domaine des Maels was tempting but it was also the most expensive place I had found! I have sent Maurice (who, you will remember, likes cyclists) a cheque for 30 euros as deposit, the rest payable on the day. He has written to say that he has received the cheque and also offers some advice on how to get from the canal to his gite (for VTTs, he says. I will ask him if it's also OK for folders. If not, there's always the road!) Just to remind you, it's 46 km from Carcassonne to where we will leave the canal at Argens-Minervois, then another 5 km to Lézignan-Corbières. Wine buffs will know that Minervois and Corbières are both wine-producing areas, so we won't go short!

Some pictures of the surface between Carcassonne and Béziers

Just to give you an idea of why AF3V doesn't consider some of the Canal du Midi between Carcassonne and Béziers a greenway. From top to bottom these are: towpath near le Somail; road at Ventenac; towpath changes to road at Ventenac; towpath between Colombiers and Béziers. All taken March/April 2011. No worse than the untarmacked sections of the Erewash Canal towpath but I accept that it is not as good as the Mickleover Greenway! How would the small wheels of the folders fare over this sort of terrain?

More input for France, 2012

The Comments facility of this site seem to have completely frozen now so I am adding a new post to add my thoughts to those of others.
Looking at Clyde's initial proposals for routes and overnight stops I concur fully as far as Toulouse. This city has 5 F1 Hotels and,as far as I can see, 2 of them are almost on the "Chemin d'halage". These are Hotel Toulouse l'Union and Hotel Toulouse Ramonville.  I would be happy to book on our behalf if agreed on 19th.
As our basic remit is "Coast to Coast" I am wondering if we need to go as far east as Sete. There are Plages in the Narbonne area and either side of Beziers. I am familiar with that at Portiragne, east of Beziers, and I note there is a greenway mentioned in the AF3V website. There is also a HotelF1 at Beziers, albeit in the NE quarter a little way from the Canal (but on the  Airport side, if that becomes a significant factor). On a personal note, my friends from my working days live only 14km from Beziers and it would be a shame to be so close and not meet them.  
At a guess this could reduce the distance after Toulouse from its current 257 to about 225 to 230, spread over 3 days. The AF3V website and a (1998) book I have both suggest the towpath deteriorates after Avignionet Lauragais, a few kms short of Castelnaudary, and finishes after Bram, 15km beyond Castelnaudary but still some 25km short of Carcassonne. We may have to be ready to do some roadwork and I do wonder if the Toulouse to Carcassonne target may be stretching us to the point where we have insufficient opportunity to indulge in the local cuisine (Cassoulet, in particular). Unfortunately, there seems to be very little accomodation between the two "C"s.  A possibility may be to stop at Castelnaudary and then Trebes, just a few km beyond Carcassone. This would make distances of about 65km and 50km which should allow stopping time at both venues. The Canal starts to wander a lot more after Trebes and I know that the towpath approaching Beziers from the west is poor so maybe we could do Trebes to the staircase locks at Beziers on-road which might cut the distance to around 100 to 110km.   From Beziers there is the possibility of a flight back to GB, or a train to either Montpellier where there is a TGV service to Paris and an airport served by Ryanair or there is alternatively a train back to Carcassonne for the airport there.
Please give this your consideration.