Just checked my finances for my long-planned September bike-packing trip to the Alps and after a costly summer on the domestic front all I can actually afford is a ferry fare to Roscoff.
So Brittany it is then.
Apparently it’s got some longish off-road trails called [url= http://www.voiesvertes.com/ ]Greenways[/url]. Has anyone here cycled any of these?
One thing I like about cycling the quiet back roads of rural France are the small towns and villages you come across, with bars and boulangeries and stuff. So I was wondering whether there’s any advantage (scenery wise or other) in using the Greenways over the back roads for extended journeys?
I was also wondering whether the surfacing of the greenways is generally suitable for 25/28mm road tyres?
Also, any info on the V3 Greenway from St-Malo to Questembert particularly welcome.
Merci Beaucoup in advance,
Rich.
Try searching this site below - Cote d'Amour produced about 15 routes.
[url= http://www.utagawavtt.com/randonnee-vtt-gps-search ]utagawa vtt[/url]
I've spent a lot of time in Brittany (mainly harbour towns), fabulous part of the world.
l live in jersey , theres some trail centres,one at lac de gureden (spelling ) theres a few more but forgot the names , google them !
Not sure that the voies verts are off-road - the site front page says velo ou roller, and as "roller" means roller or inline skates I'd guess it's two lane tarmac cyclepath all the way!
The routes on utagawa are gps traces of what others have done, usually full mountain biking.
The ffc trail centres are a mixed bag, with little consistency between the relative difficulty of routes between centres, but the route marking is pretty good. They usually have circuits of up to about 30 km.
More helpfully, have you seen geoportail.fr ? It allows you to display IGN maps for all of France, with satellite images too. Very useful for route planning.
Cheers, for the info guys, plenty to keep me busy route planning for the next three weeks. In fact, after perusing geoportail.fr & utagawa I'm tempted to forget the road bike and take an MTB as there seems to be enough info to get a decent off-road bikepacking trip together 🙂
The one small problem I do have is having to wing it between Roscoff and St Malo in a day to meet up with my friend whose coming over on a different ferry route. Better on a road bike than knobblies I think 😕
I used one as part of a route from Cherbourg to Paris a couple of years ago - Le Neubourg to Evreux in deepest Normandy. Middle of nowhere, straight across the fields was a lovely, smooth, tarmaced path which went on for miles - I think it was an old railway line.
Having said that, the whole route apart from the bit into central Paris was lovely, smooth, quiet rural French roads with pleasantly patient drivers. Vive la France!
Edit - Roscoff to St Malo is 200k on the dual carriageway, and very hilly! Did part of the route to pick up a stage of the Tour 2 years ago - lovely scenery but hard on the legs!
Kill the long distance by train, get your mate to meet you somewhere interesting. The Western part is great and much less busy, lots of hills behind Brest, stunning countryside. I've friends who live in the central parts (ie away from the coast) and they are very different again.
Is it too late to get the boat to Santander instead? It's way better there than Brittany (Picos de Europa are 50 miles away).
Back in Brittany the Voie Verts are off road, mainly canal paths and disused railways. They get dull as dishwater quickly. West is best and the area around Huelgoat is nice, as is the coast. The offroad route south out of St Malo is a bit tricky to locate, it's the other side of the hydro electric dam.
The cider is awesome.
Normandy +1!
Suisse Normande is where it's at! 🙂
my mate Rich says;
definitely do it.
look up 'red dog books' - a useful series guidebooks. specifically 'brittany's greenways' and 'nantes-brest canal'
tyres - robust. gravel surface.
very pleasant apparently. if I wasn't going gnar-core it sounds rather nice.
Nantes to Brest canal route should be really picturesque at that time of year.