Veloscenic Route - Paris to Normandy coast

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HovR

Über Member
Location
Plymouth
I'm cycling from Roscoff to Paris in the next few weeks, and will be following the route between Mont Saint-Michel and Remalard assuming all goes well! Can't find much information about the greenway surfaces online, so hopefully our road bikes can cope and we don't have to detour.
 

HovR

Über Member
Location
Plymouth
Done it! Well, parts of it between Mont Saint-Michel and Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe. The areas the route itself goes through are beautiful, and the surface varies from quiet paved roads to compact pea gravel on dedicated greenways that were suitable for our 25mm tires in the dry. That said, we tended to prefer the smaller quiet roads that wind through the villages rather than the bike-only greenways for a few reasons. The greenways tend to pass through the fields and skirt around the villages, so unless you purposely leave the trail you see slightly less. They're also pretty flat. A bit too flat really, we welcomed the small hills as an opportunity to ride out of the saddle and mix things up a bit. Also not having to navigate around the wooden barriers at every greenway-road intersection was a definit benefit of taking the road.

I'd definitely recommend the route as the countryside is beautiful, but don't limit yourself to sticking to it, especially on the greenway sections. No worries about traffic on most of the road alternatives either. There were some sections we didn't get overtaken for an hour or more at a time.
 

HovR

Über Member
Location
Plymouth
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One of the greenway sections. Pretty straight and flat, but it allowed us to avoid ~15 miles of busy road. Definitely worth taking.

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The sort of villages the road sections of the route take you through. Very French and picturesque.

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One of the more questionable sections of road surface, a forestry road closed off to cars. Still pretty good though, just watch out for the occasional pot hole. The route we took often changed scenery between small town French farming, deciduous and coniferous forests, and huge agricultural fields keeping the ride fresh and interesting.
 
The areas the route itself goes through are beautiful, and the surface varies from quiet paved roads to compact pea gravel on dedicated greenways that were suitable for our 25mm tires in the dry. That said, we tended to prefer the smaller quiet roads that wind through the villages rather than the bike-only greenways for a few reasons. The greenways tend to pass through the fields and skirt around the villages, so unless you purposely leave the trail you see slightly less. They're also pretty flat. A bit too flat really, we welcomed the small hills as an opportunity to ride out of the saddle and mix things up a bit. Also not having to navigate around the wooden barriers at every greenway-road intersection was a definit benefit of taking the road.

I'd definitely recommend the route as the countryside is beautiful, but don't limit yourself to sticking to it, especially on the greenway sections. No worries about traffic on most of the road alternatives either. There were some sections we didn't get overtaken for an hour or more at a time.

I live in Calvados now and all the above is true for the sections I've ridden.
 
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