More specifically somewhere near Villedieu les Poeles, which is about 15 miles north of Avranches. Am told there is good riding in Suisse Normande, which would be close enough, but struggling to find anything useful on the net. Waymarked trails preferred. Any ideas?

there was an ST article on Suisse Normande a year or so ago.

might be able to find it in a bit…

issue 28

http://www.rocknrolladventures.com/

I used to live in Normandy and I can confirm that Suisse Normande is stunning. Not sure there’s anything waymarked there, though.

http://www.ffct-lbn.org/spip/article.php3?id_article=115

http://www.ffct-lbn.org/aj/topo_vtt/index.html

very good riding in the area, on the vtt-ffc trails their are 30 trails around PONT-D’OUILLY all marked, though a occasional arrow might be missing you can get a book of the trails from the tourist office at LA ROCHE D’OETRE centre/tourist office for a few quid, the trails vary from 10 to 30k and can be linked together to form larger rides lots are muddy lanes and routes and farm tracks, with occasional singletrack, with good short sharp climbs and downhills even though the old black route french cross country championships is there as a good black run 13k long, in the last year i have done a week staying at lisieux a week in swiss normandy and a week in domfront, i really enjoyed it around domfront on the vtt trails there but i would not hesitate to go back to swiss normandy its a kind of riding i like a lot, any specific questions e mail me at mark4suzi@aol.com

http://www.ot-suisse-normande.com/pages/circuits-suisse-normande/39-les-circuits-vtt-ffc.htm

Lots in Suisse Normande. Some good quality trails too. All waymarked. Get the above publication from any of the local tourist offices and visit the VTT section of the FFC website too.

Thury Harcourt would seem to be a good base for a lot of the rides. There were about 40 or so in the FFC booklet from the tourist office about 8 of them black graded.

Having spent a couple of days with Russ of Rock and Roll last year I can recommend the riding. Some of it like the image above is brilliant but (and it is a moderate but) there is also quite a bit that is non-technical / linking. This might just have been the routes we went on of course and we certainly didn’t explore all the potential.

It is sort of “Downsy” – moderate to steep climbs – more singletrack than rocks (although there is some of both). Seems to be well drained in general.

Russ is a good cook and knows the area well so if you are thinking of a long weekend or simmilar to maximise potential he would be ideal. (As an aside I throughly recommend doing his half day kayak down the river from behind his house). The atmosphere is also nice; riding into a French village for lunchtime buying cheese / bread of the market etc.

I would go back and possibly will.

Thanks all, good info posted, especially some of the links