You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
As per the title, I've decided to take my mtn. bike with me on our family holiday next week to Sarlat. I sort of know the area reasonably well having been before but have never rode in Europe before, either on road or off so looking for some helpful advice.
I've looked on here and read some old threads plus been reading the results via google but my main query is, where can you actually ride in France off road? I've driven past lots of paths off the sides of roads in the area before and thought I'd like to ride them, is there a French equivalent of a bridleway/permissive footpath? Obviously I don't want to enrage some of the local farmers by trespassing (might start lobbing hay bales at me).
I do know of the long "green route" which starts out of Sarlat but that's not exactly the kind of off road hills or single track I'd prefer to find. There's always the roads to stick to if necessary as it's a beautiful part of the world but if I can get off the beaten track then all the better. I wouldn't mind trying to load some courses/gps traces into my Garmin and follow those.
Appreciate any help as I want to make the most out of having the bike with me.
I've no idea what the rules are but I've always just followed trails when I've been riding off road in France. I do tend to do some reseach before on Strava though - find your area, look for segments in the explorer and then look at what routes people did while doing those segments - string together and Bob's your uncle.
I was near there a couple of years ago though only on a road bike but it did look like there were loads of offroad trails when I looked... have fun 🙂
Cart tracks on the IGM maps were what I used. Was yonks ago though. There was some great riding around the Dordogne, road & mtb.
There's a French trails site for VTT - don't think it's wikilok. I've no idea how good the routes on there are.
French local authorities seem quite keen on promoting the use of the outdoors so that might be something to consider. A couple of years ago we were in the Massif Centrale and the local tourist office had maps of off-road routes. They seemed to be graded according to metres ascent per kilometre rather than technical difficulty and the grades differed considerably between one village/town and the adjacent one!
I'm there in 3 weeks or so ... I'll be searching for them too ... found a site with some video that looked suitably fun, DordogneMTB that I guess you've already seen (warning: scary narrow Euro bar content)
few more ideas here:
https://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/cycling-in-the-dordogne-region-of-france/
https://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/carte select the Cartes IGN Classique.
https://www.utagawavtt.com/search?city=&w= [1.09549,44.78640,1.47314,44.95137]&q=[1,2,3,4]&k=0&l=all&u=1&af=7838&aa=10
Double dashed lines are a fairly good indication of tracks on the ground. Solid black ones are an indication there might be one if it hasn't become blocked over time.
I use Strava Heatmaps to see if there's any recent activity.
I found some good, a lot of rubbish and lots of boggy and blocked - but that's in the Auvergne which is a bit more sparsely populated.
Since using heatmaps I've had much more success. Use streetview at the junctions of tracks and road where possible and it will give you an indication of whether it's worth it or not.
If there's no signs saying don't ride I tend to ride it until I get stopped and then give a load of gallic shrugs and "Perdu"
Oh and I will be a couple of hours east of you next week in Sunny Pleaux!
Yes I've seen those videos on that site, looks "interesting". I had a look on Strava too but not much came up, maybe it was being a bit slow or something.
Get an IGN 25k (blue ones) map of the area, then get thee to the tourist info there and ask them for a FFC VTT map of the area. Combine knowledge from the two and crack on....
FFC is the french cycling federation and VTT is mtb.
Signs look like the below (but normally yellow)
What IA above said, routes are normally well waymarked on telegraph poles etc. Look out for local off- road VTT randonees as well, many villages run events which are open to anyone and are really well organised with cake stops and everything.
Rubs legs excitedly
Off to the Ardeche on Thursday with mountain bikes!
It’s always a highlighht of the hol to get the local vtt. Guide from the tourist office and see what’s what. The local walking guide will also offer possibilities. I’ve never been told I can’t ride a path or track in rural France. In fact, most go between the fields, not through them like ours do so you rarely encounter actual farmers.
Sarlat is great and there’s masses of paths to explore.
Cheers for the help everyone. I'm looking forward to a few early morning rides before it gets too hot each day and the occasional 50km outing!
The gren lane route is a really nice family ride - 15km each way with a cafe at the far end for coffee and croissants. There's also lots of singletrack routes up and down some steep routes that you can find from the 1:25K maps. I remember one from the Palombiere camping up to the Erignac Gardens.