Cycling in Brittany, France

barneyfrost

Hi there,

Me and a friend are looking to do a 7 day cycling trip around the Brittany region in northern France. We are planning on camping each night, so was looking for some help on getting started...what do we need to do this?

I've got a felt f95 which i'm guessing would need some modifications in order to hold a pannier?

Help on things like panniers, what to take, any good routes around Brittany and any places to visit or just general tips to think about

Thanks for any help!

bernithebiker

We are based in Finistere and there is some excellent cycling around here.

Feel free to camp in our garden, we have 38 acres! (See link below)

mercia_man

From what I can gather, your bike doesn't have braze-ons to fit a rear rack so carrying panniers would be tricky. It is possible to fit a rack by using P clips around the seat stays and then you could use panniers. Ortlieb and Carradice do excellent panniers. A simpler way of carrying luggage would be to use a saddlebag such as Carradice Camper Long Flap which can be fixed to your saddle by a Bagman support. You could combine this with a bar bag and that would give you enough luggage capacity for light camping, particularly if you eat out rather than do your own cooking.

You have to accept that a Felt F95 is a road bike, not a tourer, and does not have the geometry for good handling heavily loaded, while the chainstays are probably too short to fit big panniers on a rack without fouling your feet or being very far back. Your wheels would almost certainly be a bit weak for loaded touring.

So my recommendation is to travel light with saddlebag and bar bag combination.

Brittany is an excellent location. It's where my wife and I went for our first cycle tour - on mountain bikes in the 1980s. There are plenty of campsites. Michelin does a good guide for sites and also good green guides of tourist features. Municipal sites are normally the best value and generally have excellent facilities. Private sites can also be very good but watch out for high prices on private sites near the coast. The Brittany coast is beautiful. In some ways it's similar to Cornwall - rugged, rocky and windswept in the far north west and west, with wooded sheltered river estuaries in the south. The interior is nice as well, with lakes, woods and low hills.

Try the local cider, crepes (pancakes) and fantastic seafood. Eating out is a pleasure and not too expensive compared to UK.

Mikey23

If you are not out of season you can simply call in at the local information office which most towns have and in most, English is spoken. They will fix you up with accomodation, campsite, b&b, hotels etc. that's all the info you need! Brittany is a brilliant place to tour in. Roads are quiet and well maintained and the people are friendly and bike savvy.

Don't know where you are coming from but if you do Plymouth to roscoff it's and easy cycle down to morlaix which is a very good place to start

Mikey23

I was going to suggest Bernie the biker but I see he's already on the case!

craker

I did this with a mate a while back - rigid mtbs, tent, sleeping bags and no real plan. Brittany in summer is tourist heavy, loads of campsites, restaurants, beaches, steep sided valleys to traverse.

Have a think what you want to get out of the riding (we were doing 30-40 miles a day which would take up a small portion of your day). Make sure you go out riding with a fully laden bike first to see how all the gear fits on. Logistically its really straightforward, I'd love to do it again.

andymiller

barneyfrost wrote:

We are planning on camping each night, so was looking for some help on getting started...what do we need to do this?

Eurocampings.co.uk lists 2700 campsites in France with information on opening times and prices. they also have user reviews which give you a good idea of how good a campsite is (8 or more is very good, 7 is average to good, and 6 is a bit rubbish).

Most campsites these days have a website - almost always with an english version (or you could use google Translate for those that don't). Google Mapsis an extremely useful tool for searching for sites in a particular area - the results are shown on a map.

gastrovelo

Its great fun and i wish i had the time to join you lucky chaps, if you fancy going further south, at least pop in and say hello,

bernithebiker

Like the name, but you do know that 'Gastrovelo' means stomach bug cycling in French don't you?!

jimmythecuckoo

We stayed near St Malo at Dol de Bretagne.

Brilliant cycling country and a couple of last years Tour de France stage finishes in east riding distance for you to dream of being a pro