Most of our cycling of late has been local rides or familiar, favourite routes. But there’s one route we’ve been meaning to ride for the past two years – and now we’ve finally done it. Back in 2017, we were having our annual ‘staycation’, where we stop working for a week or two and have days out, exploring places close… Read more »
For the past three years, pretty much since we got our e-bikes, we’ve been saying, ‘we must ride the towpath along the Mayenne’. Well, we’ve finally done it – and we should have done it long ago. It’s the best voie verte we’ve ever cycled. The Mayenne is a wide, lazy river. But there wasn’t much of it. This region has… Read more »
The only reason this road is less travelled is that it has just opened. And it’s not a road – it’s a voie verte. A little while ago I wrote about how we’d discovered a new greenway on our doorstep (here and here). It’s a part of the Vélo Francette and links existing sections that run from Flers south to… Read more »
The other day I wrote about how we’d spotted a new voie verte (greenway) under construction. It was clear that this was a part of the award-winning Vélo Francette cycle route that runs 617km from the Normandy beaches at Ouistreham (Caen) to La Rochelle. Although we walked only a small section of the new voie verte, I speculated that it might go as… Read more »
Travelling home from the garage the other day (don’t ask – bloody cars) we were passing through Laubrière when something caught my eye. You don’t expect to find anything significant in Laubrière; it’s just a wide spot on the road. You couldn’t even call it a village. But clearly it was once rather more important. I knew immediately what I’d… Read more »
It seems that the V43 Vélo Francette is not our little secret any longer. It has just been voted the best cycle route in Europe. Fiets et Wandelbeurs – a Belgian cycling and rambling organisation – has recognised the beauty and convenience of the route. According to Google Translate and a judicious bit of editing, the jury said something like: “The… Read more »
Had a brilliant cycle ride on Sunday – my longest yet, at 33km. The weather was crisp and cold – about 6 degrees and sunny. In the morning we walked the dogs around a local lake, cancelling our planned longer hike as I had an upset tummy and was feeling filletted. But the walk made me feel a lot better,… Read more »
We’d meant to go cycling on Christmas Day. Or Boxing Day. But the weather gods had other ideas. And so the New Year came and I was itching to try out my new GoPro (thanks, Santa). Finally, half-way into January, we headed off to ride the Vélo Francette from Domfront. We’ve ridden this route before, although I was on my… Read more »
We’re very lucky. Not only do we live close to two of France’s major cycle routes – the Vélo Francette and the Véloscénie – but those routes also spend much of their time near us on voies vertes, or greenways. Technically, a voie verte is a route from which motorised traffic is banned. It’s reserved for walkers, cyclists (including people like us… Read more »
The recently inaugurated Vélo Francette (VF) cycle route runs from Ouistreham (that’s the port at Caen to most travellers) to La Rochelle – a distance of over 600km. Our ambition on this ride was somewhat more modest. There’s a stretch of the VF that runs south from Flers to our local town of Domfront, which is where we started. It’s… Read more »
