Cycling in France

I use a mixture of printed maps and ridewithgps (especially to show climbing) to plan routes. I still get confused about roads in France, but most of the D-roads (Départementale) are good (though some of the red ones are lively), C-roads (Communale) are smaller than the D-roads. A, N and E roads are no-go. Do take a map with you, even if you're using GPS though, in case you end up on a road that's livelier than you thought, then you can work out an alternative route.

But all in all, France is cycling heaven. Especially if you like eating when you're not cycling.

And Monday ...

The golden rule used to be stay off the routes nationales. But in recent years a lot of responsibility has been devolved to the regions and départements. I have come across D roads that were fast dual carriageways and bikes were banned (this was in Brittany).

If you can do, look at a Michelin map (or look on viamichelin.com) - these give you more information about the type of road (avoid anything marked in red or red and yellow - look for the scenic routes marked green).

Football is the french national sport. If you're on a busy narrow road, with oncoming traffic, a French driver is just as likely to pass close as a driver from anywhere else.

andymiller wrote:

If you can do, look at a Michelin map (or look on viamichelin.com) - these give you more information about the type of road (avoid anything marked in red or red and yellow - look for the scenic routes marked green).

Football is the french national sport. If you're on a busy narrow road, with oncoming traffic, a French driver is just as likely to pass close as a driver from anywhere else.

Re red roads - actually some of them can be 'orrible, some an absolute dream. In the latter category I was wondering how to avoid the D2089/1089 from Thiers to Noiretable last year, but it was a very quiet, very beautiful road. So I'd say be prepared to be flexible whatever you choose. In general, the yellow D roads seem to offer the best balance of directness/speed/ease of navigation and quietness, but it's not always possible to see from the map what a particular road is going to be like.

Re French drivers - I wouldn't say that their driving around cyclists is particularly that much better than I get here in Devon (they tend not to slow down much, but don't cut back in quickly either), but you don't get the pathological anti-cyclist nutters there that we occasionally experience here.

Mikey23 wrote:

And there tends to be less of them and on more sensible roads. Riding in France is a breeze compared with the uk

Away from the big cities riding in the UK is pretty easy: on a scale of difficulty if tying your shoelaces is a two then we're talking a 3 or maybe a 4.

I don't know why it is that some British cyclists feel the need to belittle cycling in the UK (he said from his restaurant table in the Italian Alps). If you can't appreciate what you have at home, how can you really value what other countries have to offer?

@briantrumpet - I don't disagree, and I didn't mean 'avoid at all costs' but the problem is working out when a red road is worth a punt - and that comes with experience (and even then you can get it wrong).

In every country there's a small minority of @rse *****s but most are decent and sensible. For some weird reason some British cyclists seem to like portray themselves as victims.

Did L2P a couple of months ago and found that in most areas the French motorists gave us alot more room and were more aware than in the UK. This changed once we got into the environs of Paris though, as I guess the pace of life there is just like London and everyone is in a hurry! There was one other stretch of road where lots of inconsiderate motorists came out but it was just that one road, for some reason...

In addition to Michelin, see also the IGN guides - they are often broken down into smaller chunks of the country, giving the smaller roads more prominence (ie you might have 3 or 4 different maps covering one department, rather than just the departmental map). Available at most local bookshops, supermarkets, corner shops, tourist offices etc.

To be quite honest with you, the D1 looks like the sort of road I ride on all the time on the other side of France - I'd ride on that quite happily. Have you looked at it on Google Maps? You'll be hard-pressed to find a single vehicle within 5km of where you're going.

Outside of towns, the traffic density on French roads is astonishingly low. I can often go for 30mins without coming across a car - and that's 20 miles outside Dijon. If you ride at lunchtime, you'll probably think the World's ended and you're the only person left.

BTW, It's harvest time at the moment, so watch out for tractors / combines / hay trucks and the like. At least you don't get the hazard of stray cows in Brittany - unlike the errant bovines of Burgundy.

Have a good trip.

can't go wrong cycling in france-- brittany is a great area--celtic see......they are not french they are bretons !!