Family holiday in quite rural area in Normandy in 3 days! The bike is going too. I’ve already studied a local topography, there are some woods I want to ride some time. The question is: how are French like towards the classic “wander around”-style mountain biking (read: bridleways and cheeky footpaths)? There are no mtb-parks in the area.

Are the bikes allowed on the paths there?
Is the “STRAVAAAA!” warning respected by French people? 😉

Worth asking in the nearest tourist information office for a map, something like “carte des itinaires de VTT”. There is a difference between paths for walkers “sentier” and those for biking, I’m not sure if it’s a legal distinction as in the UK or simply a usage based on some local agreement.

Tracks assigned for biking have a (small) symbol that’s a triangle with two circles to the side. The triangle points to where you should be going, i.e. for straight ahead it’s above the two circles; for going left it’s to the left. They can be quite hard to spot at times as they are roughly 15cm square!

Strava? Qu’est-ce que ce? – outside of Paris it’s hardly used.

You will be fine, in my experience you can use both GRs and PRs (roughly Bridleways and Footpaths) with no problem and they are usually marked with flashes of paint on trees so that you can follow them fairly easily. Never had any agro from either walkers or horse riders..

Have you looked on strava to see where people have ridden ?

French countryside is generally pretty quiet in my experience – I wouldn’t worry too much about riding footpaths except through farms/farmer’s fields etc. Others may say different though – only done it a couple of times.

Found some good cheeky riding last week in very rural NE France and I’m not dead. Proof.
There were some signs but my French is not so good

I also saw a few other people acting moderately sheepishly as if they weren’t supposed to be there including a man with a dog and a naked lady getting out of a car. No one seemed that fussed.

Found it with strava using global heat map. Fantastic riding.

I did the London to Paris off-road ride with BHF in June and loved France, we rode from dieppe to a place called Lyon la floret and then on to Paris, was manly bridleways and forest tracks and hardly saw a sole! Anytime we did meet anyone they were very friendly! Even when we had to ride on the roads I found car drivers much more cycle friendly!

Normandy is excellent for mountain biking. There’s a region called Swiss Normandy that is around the Orne valle South of Caen. The river has cut through limestone making cliffs and valleys that give good riding. The region has lots of routes marked out by the FFC, the French cycling organisation, that are marked out like this:

Numbered routes are graded according to distance and climbyness rather than technical skills needed. Hence blues are flat and short while blacks are long and hilly.

The trails are pretty much empty as the French tend to ride in clubs on Sundays, so there’s nobody out on any other day.

You can order a bunch of maps of the routes in that region here.

If you’re looking for French OS type maps (IGN) online, go to http://www.geoportail.fr, search for a place and select the IGN maps.

@shedfull We were in the Massif Centrale a couple of weeks ago and the grading varied enormously. It seems to depend on whether the routes are “en famille” or “sportive”. The family ones were definitely graded according to effort. A blue route at one of the latter was technically somewhere between a blue and red at a UK trail centre, harder technically than the blue at Gisburn for example.

It may vary between regions as well, I’ve not been to Normandy so have no idea how they compare to those we rode.

I’m off soon to. Cheers for the map link. 🙂

OP as @shedfull says Swiss Normandy has some decent xc riding and a cool hill with a. Cliff overlooking the river. You can get a VTT (velo tout terrain = mtb) map at local tourist offices. I will dig up a link, back in a minute. The IGN map site is very useful, if you wish / are interested you can buy the paper maps when you are there.

As for paths as far as I know there is no such thing as a bridleway in France and riding on paths is ok as long as you are curtious, French like to say Bonjour to everyone

Edit: here you go. I got this from vttfrance.com grades are based on length / climbing not technical difficulty you can probably find GPX traces on uttawaga.com too. I know the area quite well as the in-laws (French) have weekend place in Nirmandy and we’ve driven around quite a bit, yet to bike there myself

Hum not sure that’s working http://www.vttfrance.com/carte.php?c=14suissen.jpg

As said, I’ve never had a problem riding any paths and just following my nose with a map in Normandy. If you’re in the west then there’s a pretty good old school guide book called “La Manche à VTT” – it’s got 50 routes on individal pull-out map sheets spread between Cherbourg and Avranches in the south, the routes all seemed to be signed on the ground too. If you’re in that area you’ll find it in a tourist info office or bookshop.

Over in the East I’ve had fun riding in the Foret de Brotonne (East of Caen on the south side of the Seine) – just followed by nose round there hunting Singletrack fairly successfully. Otherwise much of the riding is very much like old school riding in southern England – follow a map and you’ll find a mix of muddy farm tracks, over-grown bridleways and the occasionally woody singletrack gem 🙂

Thanks a lot guys – much appreciated! 😀

We’ll be staying very close to Avranches, so I’ll definitely try as much as above as I can.

There is a difference between paths for walkers “sentier” and those for biking

No, there isn’t. It’s just suggested routes, nothing to do with who is or isn’t allowed where.

Which what the following sentence hinted at!

There’s a region called Swiss Normandy

It’s called Norman Switzerland (Suisse Normande), but for some reason most of the British refer to it as Swiss Normandy. I’m guessing they just look at the two words and shout the simplest Anglicisation of them they can manage, rather than actually trying to understand them 🙂

Bez that’s soo pedantic 😉 , I can’t even be bothered to verify with the Mrs (French) who’s sat next to me watching some old French movie (l’Invitie)

OP have fun, Normandy and the Calvados region are worth exploring, I would say as far as France goes it’s not that rural it’s just we are more used to the overcrowded South. As an aside if you have time visit Trouville and try and eat some seafood at the small stalls opposite La Centrale or eat there if you can get a table. The beaches there and especially at nearby (and relatively ritzy Deauville) are very nice. Honfleur is very pretty.

Which what the following sentence hinted at!

And I clarified! 😉

Plenty of smallish forets with leisure trails near a ranches plus what I saw last year theres a lot of cheeky stuff in the same woods.

a naked lady getting out of a car. No one seemed that fussed.

Found it with strava using global heat map. Fantastic riding.
😳