All the gear… (Picture: Jenny Forsyth)
Kitted out in my finest cycle gear, I’ve gone for the full Tour de France look. The idea of cycling along the Loire had me packing my finest padded pants from the middle aisle in Lidl and a rogue athletic shirt that’s been hanging in the wardrobe, still with tags on, for years.
But I’m clearly a few spokes short of a wheel when it comes to competitive racing.
Physique aside, my trusty steed is an e-bike, just the ticket for effortless rides even on hills. There’s also my telltale pannier with the company logo of Cycling For Softies. Well… the clue’s in the name.
Though I like to dress as if I’ve got a Strava record to defend, this type of cushy holiday is what my cycling dreams are made of.
The concept is you turn up, rent your bike, and the hand-holding begins.
Staying in boutique hotels, your itinerary is set – right down to inclusive breakfasts and pre-paid dinners each night – your luggage is whisked between hotels each day and, should anything go wrong, you can call the local rep for help. I’m almost embarrassed to describe myself as a cyclist.
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As well as dispensing with a heavy backpack, you can also let go of any navigation responsibilities, because it’s all handled by a GPS app downloaded on your phone before the holiday.
Download the route for each day, start pedalling, and the bossy voice kicks in, reminding you regularly where you need to turn and noisily sounding the alarm when you go off track.
In the spirit of eco-friendly travel, my sister-in-law Joanne and I set off early on a Friday morning on the Eurostar from London to Paris.
It’s easy to slip into the holiday spirit when you’re surrounded by groups of friends popping Champagne corks and wearing the obligatory berets or Disney mouse ears.
In Paris, we crossed by Metro to Montparnasse and caught a second train to Saint Pierre des Corps – our gateway to the Loire river.
Perhaps we’d been lulled by that party spirit on the earlier train. This time, we cracked open a red wine and sat chatting amongst ourselves. Or so we thought.
Suddenly, from across the aisle, a lady roared: ‘You’re talking too slowly’.
Giggling, I wondered if perhaps she hadn’t been able to follow our conversation. ‘I mean loudly,’ she continued. Oops.
Arriving at Chinon, a beautiful medieval town set on the banks of the Vienne River, we checked in at the three-star Hotel Diderot and began our culinary adventure tour with a superb dinner.
Though the holiday company is called Cycling For Softies, it could just as easily be called Cycling For Gourmands.
One of many gourmet meals on the trip (Picture: Jenny Forsyth)
Our first night’s dinner – pre-booked as part of the package – was a €58 meal at Restaurant Nemrod, which is listed in the Michelin Guide.
Smoked salmon with buckwheat blinis, red mullet with langoustine sauce and baked onions, and shared plates of chocolate brownie plus spiced apples with speculoos ice cream had us sighing in appreciation – and also considering how much cycling we might need to cancel out the calories.
The following morning, our guide, Chris, appeared for our briefing.
This involved showing us around the bikes, making sure they were the right height, giving us a bit of guidance about how to use the GPS and advice on immobilising and locking the e-bikes and recharging the batteries.
‘The idea is you won’t have to hear from me while you’re here, unless something goes wrong,’ he said.
I can’t tell you how happy that backup made me. The last time Joanne and I had cycled near the Loire – more than 20 years ago – we had no motors and no tools in case of crisis.
When my brakes locked, we flagged down a passing man with a van, who cheerfully agreed to take my bike to the next village.
And so, despite having the worst French, I trustingly set off with him while my husband and his sister looked on. ‘And that was the last we ever saw of her,’ Joanne is said to have joked at the time.
Our first day’s ride took us just 22km from Chinon to Montsoreau, which is listed as one of the ‘prettiest villages in France’.
It definitely lives up to the hype, with chic shops, a chateau made famous by Alexandre Dumas’s novel The Lady of Montsoreau, which now houses a contemporary art museum and, as we discovered on Sunday morning, a small but perfectly formed market.
Oysters, cheeses, rotisserie chickens… what more could you want?
After crossing the river, the flat path through the forest opened up in front of us, and we relaxed into the ride.
As well as clicking through the gears, e-bikes give you the ‘softies’ option of moving from eco to tour, sports and even turbo modes, so that even the steepest of hills seems like only a minor challenge.
Cycling alongside the sparkling river, pretty villages, grazing deer, vineyards and stately homes, puts you almost in a trance.
The market in Montsoreau (Picture: Jenny Forsyth)
There’s just you and the bike, the rhythm of the pedals and nothing to worry about except where your next coffee, wine, or baguette might come from.
The extra loop we’d added gave us our first taste of how e-bikes eat up the hills.
Veering away from the main path, we were suddenly forced into low gear and turbo mode – giving huge thanks for our electric boost.
The path takes you through rolling hills and open fields to the beautiful village of Fontevraud L’Abbaye, a prison in Napoleon’s day but now a sprawling historical site and exhibition centre.
Stopping at a café for spinach tarts and coffee, we got chatting to another visitor who considered it a must-see.
‘Eleanor of Acquitaine – what a woman,’ he said, launching into a long list of her heroic deeds before spending her last days here.
Beautiful Chinon from the castle above (Picture: Cycling For Softies)
We slunk out of town, hoping he wouldn’t notice we’d denied Eleanor her dues by doing the full tour.
Wheeling in for our first night ‘on the road’, we checked in at the four-star Hotel Marine de Loire.
We didn’t feel we’d cycled far enough to take advantage of the massages on offer there, but spent a happy hour in the spa and even took a dip in the outdoor pool.
In the evening, we got a further taste of the local wine – the Chinon – with a delicious tasting session in the hotel, then enjoyed more excellent food at Ververt – another Michelin Guide restaurant.
The hotel breakfast, served in a beautiful room with Martha’s Vineyard-style décor, was the best of the tour.
Wine tasting at Hotel Marine de Loire (Picture: Jenny Forsyth)
Retracing our pedal strokes towards Savigny-en-Véron, we set out on the longest route of the trip – a whopping 46km to Azay-le-Rideau.
It’s almost entirely flat but, this being a tour for softies, we were warned to take advantage of a local Carrefour to buy supplies before heading through the forest, where – quelle horreur! – there might not be a shop for an hour or so.
Although I suspected we could last the distance, we obligingly pulled in, bought sandwiches and submitted to the cashier’s demands to search all our bags. I’m not sure if this is usual in France, or if we looked like suspicious cyclists.
Again, following our GPS guide’s advice, we stopped for a tour of Château d’Ussé, known as the Sleeping Beauty castle, as it is believed to have inspired Charles Perrault’s famous fairytale.
You could spend nearly every hour of the day visiting châteaux on this trip, but the sight of those famous turrets looming in the middle of the countryside made it impossible to pedal past.
Apart from the grand grounds and centuries of artwork, the chateau has taken its Sleeping Beauty backstory and run with it.
Jenny with her cycling partner, Joanne Perry (Picture: Jenny Forsyth)
As well as all the Maleficent-style merchandise in the gift shop, there’s a mock-up version of the tale in one of the high corners of the castle.
Expect models of ‘the most beautiful princess’, a wicked witch at her spinning spindle and that handsome prince leaning in for his (non-consensual) kiss.
Bizarrely, the Disney Cinderella song Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo was playing in the background. But, like the fact that Perrault also took all the credit for a story told orally for years before he wrote it down, that’s a small detail.
Arriving in Azay-le-Rideau, we checked in at the Le Grand Monarque, a four-star hotel originally built in the 18th century but recently restored.
Bikes parked, it’s an easy walk around this beautiful, stone-filled town, which has a centrepiece of – you guessed it – a stunning chateau.
Chateau of Azay-le-Rideau is an early nod to feminism, as although it was built by Gilles Berthelot, his wife Philippa Lesbahy is credited with directing most of the work while he was away on business.
The magnificent Azay-le-Rideau (Picture: Cycling For Softies)
For our last day of riding, we motored up steep hills, through forest tracks and past the wine-growing area on the 36km journey back to our starting place, Chinon.
Having ignored the GPS guidance to stop off at a museum devoted to dried pears, we arrived in time to spend time wandering the town and relaxing back at Hotel Diderot.
Bikes and helmets parked and locked for collection, we had one last treat in store: dinner at Les Années 30 in the heart of the village.
We’d thought Nemrod would be impossible to beat, but the set menu (€39-54 including a cheese course we definitely didn’t need) was to die for.
It felt strange, on the last day, to be dressed in civvies rather than cycling pants as we made the same journey in reverse back to Blighty.
This time, there was no animal calamity hold-up, no shhh-ing on the train and just time to enjoy a Croque Monsieur in the Paris sunshine.
Charming Hotel Diderot (Picture: Cycling For Softies)
I’ll admit the French favourite seemed something of a step down after all those Michelin-approved meals we’d been eating.
Which is part of the reason why, with a milestone birthday coming in the next few years, I’m already planning another ‘softies’ cycling tour.
Jenny Forsyth was a guest of Cycling for Softies, but don’t expect us to sugarcoat anything – our reviews are 100% independent.
She went on the four-night Chateaux of the Loire package, which starts at £715 per person, including B&B accommodation, bike rental with e-bike upgrades available, luggage transfers and route information via the RideWithGPS app.
Four nights half board (breakfast and dinner) starts at £1,130.
Cycling for Softies is offering £100 M&S vouchers when you book before 31 January, plus up to £200 off April departures.
Please note that the Loire trips restart in April 2026.
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