MAPs-France, Spain , Portugal

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andy_spacey

Veteran
Location
coventry
hello every one, i am Andy and at the beginning of June i am leaving Coventry and going to cycle to faro in Portugal going down the west coast of France from cherbourg across the north of Spain and into Portugal. i am going to hug the coast but can move inland if a nicer route.

I will be taking a net book with auto-route and a gps dongle, I will also have a smart phone with ovi maps on it, but I will be taking maps and compass, i will use all the methods available to me all to plan and glide me on my trip.

i would like to know what make of maps i should get. what scale and links if you have any to buy them from, i have read that people use Michelin atlas and take the pages need, this is fine. i have also read that this years ant as good some of the early ones.

This is my first tour and i am doing it solo so i want to be per paired. I am now at the planing stage, i have 95% of every thing that i need,

Thanks for any help

Andy
 
Location
Midlands
It will be a good trip - I have cycled all of it as far as Malaga

I would not worry too much about getting lost - if you keep the sea on your right :biggrin:

Phone maps will be useful as one or two of the big Spanish and Portugese cities can be a bit tricky. I carried a GPS capable netbook on my last tour but rarely if ever used it for Navigation - The Autoroute is very useful for doing quick estimates of distance to get an idea of where you might be the following night - unless you are going to book accomadation ahead I wouldnt bother too much with detailed planning.

As to maps I always use the yellow folding Michelin at around 1:200k for France and managed happily on the Orange Spanish and Portugese Michelins at 1:400k

I normally buy maps as I go along but as to buying them in the UK I personally would pop into Waterstones (or Stanfords if you can) and have a look at what maps they have and decide what you are comfortable with.
 
OP
OP
andy_spacey

andy_spacey

Veteran
Location
coventry
ok. thanks, i am planing and setting up maps on auto route as a guide for each day, with markers at every 10 miles, following the D roads as a basic route just to get me in the right direction i am planing on doing around 50 miles each day,
 

andym

Über Member
I'd also download the OpenCycleMap topo map for france. I've posted a link to the download page for this - and it should also be easily findable with Google.

OpenStreetMap is very good for street maps of towns and cities, as of course is Google Maps.

I'd recommend the Michelin yellow maps as well.I don't know how many you need to cover the west of France but I'd have thought maybe four or five.

IGN maps are also very good as you'd expect.

Top tip with the Michelin maps is to look out for the scenic routes which are marked with green.

It's relatively easy to buy maps en route (and probably cheaper) but if you can't get to Stanfords and your lical bookshops don't stock the maps, you could try these guys:

http://www.themapshop.co.uk/

although Stanfords have their own site as well. Amazon.co.uk would almost certainly have Michelin and IGN maps.
 

Mike Rose

New Member
Hi Andy, I'm thinking about a trip from cov to spain in June this year? Could I pick you brains over a pint? Mike


quote="andy_spacey, post: 1377893, member: 15324"]hello every one, i am Andy and at the beginning of June i am leaving Coventry and going to cycle to faro in Portugal going down the west coast of France from cherbourg across the north of Spain and into Portugal. i am going to hug the coast but can move inland if a nicer route.

I will be taking a net book with auto-route and a gps dongle, I will also have a smart phone with ovi maps on it, but I will be taking maps and compass, i will use all the methods available to me all to plan and glide me on my trip.

i would like to know what make of maps i should get. what scale and links if you have any to buy them from, i have read that people use Michelin atlas and take the pages need, this is fine. i have also read that this years ant as good some of the early ones.

This is my first tour and i am doing it solo so i want to be per paired. I am now at the planing stage, i have 95% of every thing that i need,

Thanks for any help

Andy[/quote]
 

Paz

New Member
I'm looking at doing the same route but starting closer to the French/Spain border. How have you gone about planning your route ? Wensites etc ?
 

srw

It's a bit more complicated than that...
In France, IGN 1:100k. They're the only ones with contours, and they're a good scale too. Bits of the north and west of France can be found in the blog linked in my signature.
 

briantrumpet

Legendary Member
Location
Devon & Die
For France I too use the 1:200,000 Michelin atlas and tear out the pages. On my trip down to the Alps I did some preplanning so dumped my routes into RidewithGPS to check the climbing for each day, so didn't worry about having contours on the maps, and each day was two or three pages of map, so didn't involve too many changes of sheet to check the route as I went. BTW, I don't think you'll find IGN maps any cheaper in France - they all seem to be sold at the standard price as printed on the back, and the paper isn't very robust - feels lovely when new but nothing like as good as Ordnance Survey for resilience in the face of repeated folding. France still has their version of the Net Book Agreement, so even in supermarkets (or at least the ones I've been to) books and maps aren't discounted.
 

IanSmitton

Regular
Location
Valencia, Spain
Might be a bit late to this thread, but regarding Spain, the green Michelin Zoom series are excellent for cycling. They have all the minor roads marked on, and also recommend scenic routes/viewpoints etc.

Example here (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Costa-Canta...id=1392670142&sr=8-1&keywords=costa+cantabria)

You can get these for all of the regions in the north of Spain (Basque/Cantabria/Asturias/Galicia).

In Spain I would recommend heading slightly inland along the entire northern coast for the best scenery. However, it is very hilly, mountainous so make sure you are prepared for some slow going. The Picos de Europa in particular are stunning.
 
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