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Thinking of doing this in the Summer. Anyone done it or have a route?
And what are the long distance routes called, Gravel or grass, old rail tracks, etc. Ta.....
We were out in the northern part of France last summer. What you want to look for are "Voies vertes", literally "green lanes" or "green routes". They are a mixture of minor road, gravel, old railway tracks, canal towpath and the like. We were in Brittany and they were reasonably well signed except on the approach to St Malo for some reason.
The voies vertes website - http://www.voiesvertes.com/ Seems a little out of date, the map was last updated in January 2017
A Brit who I think lives in France so has lots of useful info - http://www.freewheelingfrance.com/planning-a-trip/veloroutes-and-voies-vertes-in-france.html
And another site - https://www.francevelotourisme.com/conseils/preparer-mon-voyage-a-velo/le-reseau-cyclable-en-france See the shot lower down on this page for an example of the signage.
Have a look on the gravel bike france FB page. I read a great article in this months 200 magazine (french) about a couple of guys who rode the 44 degree parallel from near Avignon to the Atlantic coast. The idea was that they drew with a highlighter a straight line across the paper map and the thickness of the highlighter line equated to 5km on the ground they centred it on the 44th parallel which gave them a 2.5km limit either side...
https://www.la-gtmc.com/
Here's a route that covers the bottom half of France, across the massif central. It's much more mountain bikey than fat-tyred roadie for the majority of it, at least in my experience of the segments below Millau.
I personally wouldn't recommend the last 2-300kms to the Mediterranean coast in the hight of Summer.
Uh, which coast to which coast? đŸ™‚
How "off road" is your idea of "off road"? The voies vertes are off road in the sense of being largely traffic free, but they're mostly things like disused railways. Then there are the grandes randonnés (GR) and suchlike, which are off road in the sense of normally being properly challenging; depending on where you are they can be anything from easy bridleways/fireroads to shouldering the bike and trying not to fall down a crevasse. (They're aimed at walking, really, but by and large the rural French guideline is that if it's a walking path you're welcome to have a crack at riding it; there are however some "VTT interdit" ones, like most of the GR34 round the Breton coast.)
Cheers guys. It is the VVT, I've ridden some of them, they're spot on for what I have in mind. Stamfords sell an IGN map with them on, I'm collecting it later....oh and North to south...
We did the Atlantic to Mediterranean coast to coast a few years ago. About 320 miles if I remember correctly. The route follows the canal du midi and starts west of Bordeaux, to Toulouse and continues to Carcassonne. The route after that was mainly road for the last day. (although other options might be available)
It was relatively easy to be honest. We did 50-60 miles a day over 6 days, very little height gain and 95% off road (until Carcassonne). So you could probably do it in 3/4 days if you pushed hard.
It was good fun, it's a beautiful part of the world to explore by bike.