French end to end?

[lune ranger]

Is there a published French LEJOG equivalent - off road? I may have the chance for a medium term trip next year. One idea would be taking the train to Turin doing TNR then off reading back through France and heading for a ferry port for a boat to Portsmouth or Plymouth.

[Dave Barter]

I’ve done an on road version from Nice to Cherbourg. Cycling in France on roads is worlds apart from the UK. Think the French Divide route is the nearest I’ve seen to off-road, bit of a diversion from Nice

https://www.outdooractive.com/mobile/fr ... /46218250/

[jameso]

Is there a published French LEJOG equivalent - off road? I may have the chance for a medium term trip next year. One idea would be taking the train to Turin doing TNR then off reading back through France and heading for a ferry port for a boat to Portsmouth or Plymouth.

That's what I did after the TNR in 2019, was a great trip. On road though. I didn't go all the way to Nice that year, I rode west from the Col Braus bivi spot on the last night and into Provence, then up through the Luberon, Drome, Vercors, Chartreuse and the Morvan. Then the Parc du Perche direction to Caen and a ferry to Portsmouth, train home from there. That was mostly on tarmac apart from the gravel Ventoux climb, the Luberon ridge and a few sections across forests and farmland. I've always been ~90% on roads when touring across France.

All off-road would be a monster ride. Looks to be some good stuff in the massif central and Vercors, a friend of mine rode across that part of France a while back. Said the Grand Traverse Massif Central route itself was a bit chunky and inconsistent in the quality of riding. Wikiloc might be a good place to look up LD trails.
The trails in the Luberon and Provence area are generally chunky limestone, not many easy miles there ime. The Morvan looked good from what little I saw of the tracks there, woodland trails that were very similar to the southern UK in feel.
Worth looking up the French Divide and Andy Cox / doubletrackfanatic's routes as he's ridden a lot of off-road tracks across France.

[woodsmith]

The French Divide ?

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/28285641

https://www.frenchdivide.com/en/a-propos/parcours/

[lune ranger]

Yeah, all off-road would probably be too big an undertaking for the time I’d have available.
The divide route sounds great but it’s going on the wrong diagonal across France.
Any trip is just in the dreaming phase anyway and I may do something totally different anyway.

[Mariner]

Have a look at the Euro Velo website.
https://en.eurovelo.com/

Via Francigena looks a likely candidate other than that search VTT France and try and join some routes up.
Also look at canal and river routes. If you were starting say Marseille you could go north into Switzerland then pick up the Rhine route up to the north coast or turn left at some point back into France and the channel coast.

[Richpips]

Look up the French "Diagonals"

[lune ranger]

Nice one Rich. Menton-Brest looks almost perfect