Maps to use in france

surfingdream

I am planning on doing roscoff to santander in september and am wondering what types of maps to use to get pretty good detail on the ground something similar to 1.25 or 1.50 in OS standards just so i can pick up small lanes and cycle paths and canal paths as im not keen on riding roads for long periods of times. This is the route we are copying [url=mhttp://www.molesoup.com/cyclewestfrance.htmlain]mhttp://www.molesoup.com/cyclewestfrance.htmlain[/url] aswell as cycling to santander for the ferry home. any information on what sort of maps i would need and any information on cycling from spanish border to santander on smaller quieter roads

cheers guys

Dan

trickeyja

Last year I was on holiday in France. The cottage we stayed in had bikes and maps available to use, and I did go cycling several times.

I would have thought for a tour, to be honest, you would only need a road map of the area. I was able to navigate fine just using a detailed tourist map. The numbering system in France was much better than in England. Most minor roads had numbers so you could compare to the numbers on the road map to check you were going in the right direction.

The roads across the French countryside are often very quiet because the country is much larger and the population more spread out. It is good to avoid main roads though. If you wish to view the detail, http://www.ign.fr/ is the equivalent of Ordnance Survey and they provide 1:25000 and 1:50000 maps, though from Roscoff to Santander, it could be expensive - they are 8 euros!

I would be looking at something like this: http://loisirs.ign.fr/5294274/serie/car ... france.htm

psmiffy

If you use the IGN 1:25000 or 1:50000 from roscoff to santander you will need a seperate pannier for them - ive always used the large scale michelin. still need 4 of the larger ones or at least 7 of the smaller ones depending on how close you stay to the coast plus maps of northern spain. michelin show all the smaller roads that are any use and with a little practice its not difficult to work out what the terrain is

the hilly nature of northern spain tends to make it a little trickier to find small roads that go anywhere

dpiper

The standard Michelin road atlas 1:200,000 i.e. 1 inch = 3 miles. They show cycle routes in green dotten lines very clearly and the whole book is just £14. Just tear out the pages you need

andymiller

<pedant mode>
IGN maps come in either 1:25k or 1:100k. SFAIK there's no 50K.
</pedant mode>

The 100K maps cover about a departement: useful if you're planning on exploring an area but you'd need quite a lot for a cross-France trip.

trickeyja

andymiller wrote:

<pedant mode>
IGN maps come in either 1:25k or 1:100k. SFAIK there's no 50K.
</pedant mode>

Here are the 1:50000 IGN maps:
http://loisirs.ign.fr/documentArticle.do?idDoc=5294258

Special K

The blue IGN 1:100,000 are perfect for cycling. Detailed enough that you will find the quiet D roads, and you will not have to carry too many of them. I have used plenty of them and only once struggled to understand map vs. reality, and that was mostly because it was quiet complicated and my brain isn't

andymiller

trickeyja wrote:

andymiller wrote:

<pedant mode>
IGN maps come in either 1:25k or 1:100k. SFAIK there's no 50K.
</pedant mode>

Here are the 1:50000 IGN maps:
http://loisirs.ign.fr/documentArticle.do?idDoc=5294258

I stand corrected. :oops: