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How do you go about it? With gravel being interpreted in the loosest sense of anything you can sensibly (or not so sensibly) ride a gravel bike on.
In the UK I've got pretty good at planning routes with a minimum of slogs through the middle of fields, or through tracks that are so overgrown with nettles and brambles that you can't see the singletrack any more. Starting with OS mapping covers what is a legal right of way and gives some pretty decent clues of the type of track, and cross-checking with Google Maps helps to avoid many unrideable tracks - inevitably there are still some, but that's part of the fun (so long as they're a small percentage of the ride).
But what's the best way to identify rights of way and potentially suitable tracks and quiet roads on the continent? Is there an OS map equivalent that enables you to tell the difference between a track and a bridleway, and between a track that you do have access to and one you don't?
Are there any good resources for long-distance off-road trails that would be a good start for linking up with other stuff?
We used Wikiloc in Spain and it worked very well for us
There are the vias verde / voie verte routes which I used a fair bit in france and spain
https://www.viasverdes.com/en/principal.asp
https://www.francevelotourisme.com/conseils/preparer-voyage-velo/voie-verte
Also i found this site very useful. You need to zoom in a fair bit for the routes to appear.
https://www.weserradweg-info.de/mobile/de/tourplanner/
Radfaren and then you have mountainbike or gravel options
Edit. Gravel seems to be what you want
i used this when touring in Belgium.
pretty good. has a gravel option when plotting route.
Been riding a fair bit in the Vendeé this year, loads of gravel routes - a lot of them highlighted on Komoot. Also the local tourism sites and offices have good guides and plenty of routes, for example:
https://vendeevelo.vendee.fr/accueil
as well as a downloadable route guide with maps and pics:
https://vendeevelo.vendee.fr/preparer-votre-randonnee/guide-vendee-velo
Vast majority of the routes are well signposted, some fantastic gravel riding. Open Cycle Map also highlights lots of routes.
For France I’ve used https://www.utagawavtt.com/
Ridewithgps.com combined with Street View and satellite view is also good
Open Street Map, RidewithGPS and streetview to check on such things. A lot of the gravel roads may only have the entry exit covered and in parts of France the camera car may not have travelled the road yet!
Open Street Map has a lot of the tracks mapped and RidewithGPS will show where the locals ride to help out.
Just tried that reserradweg site on part of my usual local loop in Germany.
If I put in gravel, it routes me via road or the long distance (hard pack) bike path, but had to choose mountainbike to make it choose the off-road route (also 99% hard-pack fire roads) many bits of which are more local numbered bike path rather than regional/national.
Will play with it more later. TBF the mountainbike route was pretty much as direct between points as one can get. Even more direct than a route I'd normally take.
Trailforks is well used in Spain and have gravel but virtually not existent in France. I've used Wicloc in France for road routes and it's been great but not tried it for gravel. They have started adding gravel routes to the FFC website but also you should be able to ride any of the blue routes on FFC VTT on a gravel bike and probably many of the reds.
As stated above Vendee is amazing for gravel riding tonnes of routes on the Gravel Vendee Facebook group,
Thanks all, some good pointers here.
Was bumming around Spain from Jan-June fe used komoot lots for gravel rides.
Indeed, if you enter mountain bike, most of those Tours are easily doable on a gravel bike.