French Route Maps

[G-Zero]

Hello All,

Last year I was camping in France with my bike on board and a staff member on our site loaned me a local map, showing a load of cycle routes. I'm back over there later this summer and would like to purchase a couple of maps of my own before heading across.

I am driving to the sites, then looking to cycle out from them, rather than looking for maps to get me to the sites on the bike.

From memory, the map was IGN or something similar and covered a fairly small area in the Vendee Region around Lac du Jaunay and St. Gilles Croix de Vie.

Any recommendations on what and where to buy welcome,


Thanks.

 

[Jimmy Doug]

I usually use road atlasses - but that's me. IGN are generally considered the best and you can find them anywhere. If you're looking for specific bike riding maps, you'll find them in all the big bike shops. Décathlon usually has a large stock of local maps. If go anywhere near Paris, then the shop to go to is probably Au vieux campeur. They sell loads of stuff - including maps. You can order from them online.

 

[andym]

IGN have a website with an English version. Delivery was quick and postage wasn't exorbitant. Or there's Amazon (i've ordered through amazon.fr but you may well be able to find stuff on amazon.co.uk).

Unfortunately I can't remember which maps (ie 25k, 50k or 100k) have cycle touring routes on them.

And www.cartovelo.com is always worth a look.

 

[philipbh]

Last year I used Elstead Maps (they are based in Honiton, Devon)

First class service

Links to maps here

1:25000 (2.5 Inches = 1 mile)

http://www.elstead.co.uk/acatalog/IGN_Top_25_Maps_Index.html

1:100000 (1 inch 1.5 miles)

http://www.elstead.co.uk/acatalog/IGN_Top_100_Maps_Index.html

 

[G-Zero]

Thanks for the replies gents.

I'm now in contact with Stephen at Elstead's trying to tie down exactly which maps I need to cover the area I'm visiting. My memory served well in that the IGN cycle maps were blue, however they have gone back to green this year !!

Cheers.