Ride, Revel, Repeat

Inside the rolling block party that is Cycle Zydeco

by

Outdoor Adventures

Early on the first morning of the Cycle Zydeco’s “festival on wheels” last spring, organizer  Scott Schilling awoke to thunder, lightning, and pouring rain.

He drove what was supposed to be that day’s winding route out of Lafayette toward St. Martinville, ending in Breaux Bridge, finding streets littered with debris and flooded from a storm that had dumped six inches of rain overnight.

He quickly began rerouting the first few miles of the day’s ride using the app “Ride with GPS,” an app many of the 500 riders had downloaded on their cell phones.

That first morning found me in the lobby of the Staybridge Hotel in Lafayette, waiting with other riders for word from Schilling. There, I spoke with Steven Nagle, who had traveled from Blacksburg, Virginia. He’d ridden Cycle Zydeco the year before and liked it enough to come back. For him, an ambitious rider who has completed the Des Moines Register’s Annual Great Bicyle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) fifteen times, the ride through the Acadiana countryside is more like a rolling block party. “I like Cycle Zydeco for its size, the flat roads, and good food,” Nagle said.

[Read more about cycling, this time in the Felicianas.]

Joan and Doc Williams (best known as the founders of Pack and Paddle, an early Lafayette outdoor outfitter) started Cycle Zydeco with the Lafayette Visitors and Convention Center in 2002. Ten years later, they passed the water bottle to Schilling, who, with a small army of volunteers and the Transportation Recreation Alternatives in Louisiana organization (TRAIL), took over what had, by then, become a nationally-known bicycle tour.

Cycle Zydeco is meant to introduce cyclists to Louisiana’s French culture, food, and people. It’s set apart from other guided rides as way to immerse oneself in the local color. The route is strategically set in proximity to local festivals, dancehalls, restaurants, distilleries, and tourist destinations across Acadiana.   

The ride is traditionally held the week after Easter. The school holiday allows the organizers to use the St. Bernard School campus in Breaux Bridge for a tent camp—a cheaper alternative to Lafayette’s hotel options, with shower trucks, music, dancing, food trucks, and a crawfish boil. Other overnight options included an RV Park outside of Breaux Bridge and a small tent village on the lawn at the Staybridge. On days two through four, the routes started and ended in Breaux Bridge, with bus shuttles running from Lafayette hotels and a nearby RV park.

We finally rolled out at 11 am, headed to St. Martinville, the only official rest stop on Schilling’s revised route. Though the rural roads were narrow, motorists for the most part give riders a wide berth. People we encountered along the way were welcoming, offering us water and directions. In St. Martinville, a bar near the official rest stop put chairs on the sidewalk to accommodate the overflow of thirsty riders. The stop in a small park on Bayou Teche offered live music some riders danced to, as well as bottled water, juice, fruit, and snacks.

Over the course of almost forty sweltering miles in the saddle that first day, I met cyclists from all over the country. Cycle Zydeco 2025 attracted riders from New Mexico, Michigan, Rhode Island, Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Alabama, and more.

Dorothea Goodwin of Ann Arbor, Michigan, described the air as “very heavy.” There was a group of women in their sixties who’d gone to the same high school in Tacoma, and some young riders from New Orleans whose Bluetooth music setup helped get me through the last two miles to Breaux Bridge.

A Louisiana native, I’d seen the small towns of Acadiana through the eyes of people from other parts of the country and in a way that only the slower pace of cycling permits.

“I love the music and the dancing,” said Lori Miller Horton of Kingston, Rhode Island. “I’ve been doing rides for twenty-five years, and this is the only one I’ve repeated.”

Cycling is one way some graduates of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, stay in touch. The day before the ride they were partying in the parking lot of the Staybridge. “This is my second Cycle Zydeco,” said Dave Wasson, of St. Paul, Minnesota. “We love the easy-going nature of the people here, the food and music. We love Breaux Bridge.”

Half their group, Wasson said, were on e-bikes. “The rest of us are on traditional bikes. We all stick together.” Bicycles on the Cycle Zydeco ride run the gamut from beater bikes, to expensive road and hybrid bicycles, to e-bikes, tandem, and recumbent bicycles.

Support and Gear (SAG) cars followed the riders with mechanics and first aid kits. (Not all mechanics are familiar with the different makes of e-bikes—something to keep in mind if you’re thinking about renting an electric bike for any organized ride.)

Leslie Todd of Baton Rouge had rented an e-bike for the ride, but couldn’t get the battery to work. She ended up riding the heavy bicycle with no motor assist for twenty-three miles. Before the second day’s stretch, she’d recovered and got the battery working, and she was able to ride the rest of the tour.

“This was Leslie’s first multi-day ride, and after a really tough day of riding a sixty-pound bike in the heat on Day 1, I was concerned she would lose her enthusiasm,” Sallie Williams, also of Baton Rouge, said, but “she’s talking about what her next ride will be.”

“Once the first day was over,” Todd said, “I had a really good time.”

Nagle’s perception of the guided riding experience as a mobile block party is on point. Each day’s suggested distances and stops are just that: suggestions. Finding themselves in need of water and shade, a group of riders I was with pulled up at a flower farm outside Breaux Bridge, which wasn’t an official stop. The gardeners let us fill our water bottles and wet our hair, arms and legs. Refreshed, we pedaled on.

[Read another story by Ed Cullen, on "Bikepacking in the Bayou State."]

Over the next few days, many of the folks I’d encountered explored the Louisiana destinations around us: riding out to Arnaudville for the Étouffee Festival and to visit the NUNU Arts and Culture Collective, before stopping at Maison Stéphanie near Cecilia. They were wandering the grounds when one of the owners came out to give them a tour.

A long-time bicyclist, I have ridden eighty miles in a day before, but I’d never ridden on an organized tour like Cycle Zydeco.

Cycle Zydeco is billed as an easy ride that doesn’t require great fitness, but a daily ride of thirty to forty miles requires bicycle and rider to be in good working order. I had trained for the ride with three, ten-mile rides a week. Before I ride a tour again, I’ll increase the training distances and frequency. It’s a good idea to have ridden the longest distance of the tour at least once before the big ride.

Marianne Bichsel, from Seattle, was also on her first organized bicycle ride. “I’m a runner,” she said. “It was a great ride.” I rode with her through the day on different stretches. I could have set my bike’s speedometer by her pace, which never varied.

Each day, we had until 10 pm to make it back to Breaux Bridge to catch the last shuttle bus to Lafayette. Most riders made it by late afternoon, with plenty of time to hit the shower trucks and change clothes for dinner. The Cycle Zydeco package includes Zydeco Bucks for meals at participating restaurants. I used some of mine at a Vietnamese food truck. Late afternoon on that first day, other riders had put their bicycles on racks in the St. Bernard School yard and were hydrating with bottles of water, soft drinks, and beer. A band was playing, and thoughts of the day’s heat were fading. Large fans stirred a breeze under a pavilion where some riders were dancing.

The shuttle ride back to Lafayette at the end of the first day left me tired and happy. The bus dropped me off at my hotel where I walked my bicycle through the lobby to the elevator and into an air-conditioned room with the promise of a hot shower.

A Louisiana native, I’d seen the small towns of Acadiana through the eyes of people from other parts of the country and in a way that only the slower pace of cycling permits.

Next year’s ride is promised to be ambitious. Long and short rides of thirty to sixty miles include visits to Jefferson Island, the Rip Van Winkle Gardens and Avery Island, Breaux Bridge, Henderson, Catahoula, Lake Fausse Pointe, St. Martinville, New Iberia, Loreauville, Cecilia, Arnaudville, Grand Coteau, Sunset, Opelousas, Washington, Carencro, and the Boudin Festival at Scott. The bands Rockin’ Dopsie Jr. and Chubby Carrier are booked, with more music announcements to come. Each day will start and finish in Breaux Bridge with shuttles. 

Registration is open and fills up fast. Cycle Zydeco 2026 will take place April 8–12. Find details at cyclezydeco.org.