2019-09 Colomiers (Toulouse) to Albi

In 2019, we did self-supported touring for a little less than 2 months from mid-September through early November.

Day 9 - Colomiers (Toulouse) to Albi

We had to break our riding for a very very quick trip to Singapore to attend a birthday celebration. With our expected return into Toulouse at 9:00 AM, that would allow plenty of time for picking up our bikes and pedaling to Albi to meet up with an old friend. But, we missed our connection in Frankfurt and only arrived in Albi at 2:00 PM. We hustled to our bikes and left Colomiers around 3:00 PM, riding maybe 3 or 4 km before realizing that I'd left my bike trunk bag on the floor back at the storage unit. While my wife waited in the shade, I rode back, found the bag, and we started out again. After a little trouble getting through Toulouse, we were on the Route d'Albi (D188, D888, and D988) and, due to our very late start, we stayed on it for almost the entire ride. I'd originally wanted to take D13 out of St-Sulpice, which looks like it should be an excellent route. D188 and D888 were not too bad for getting out of Toulouse. There was some bike path. D988, while having some sections with a little road shoulder, doesn't have much as you get closer to Marssac. It would be better to avoid this section.

On our way from Colomiers into Toulouse, we made a terrible mistake in taking a bike path we found on-line from Rue Velasquez to the Pont d'Ancely. It was appropriate for single-track mountain biking. We had to push the bikes some. Fortunately, this is best avoided and there appears to be some bikepath and a better route to the Pont d'Ancely starting from Rue Valesquez along the north side of A621 on D1E.

Despite out missteps in my forgetting on e bag and our slight problems getting through Toulouse, we made it to Albi about 8:15 PM, which was only about 15 minutes after it became completely dark. Sunset had been at about 7:30 PM. Being pretty slow, we had been worried that we might only reach Albi and our hotel at 9:00 PM or even later.