Recommandations Française - routes avoiding traffic.

I've not ridden my bike for years, a long succession of being punted off by cars will make you twice shy I suppose, but find myself yearning to get away for a low stress bike tour. I'm hideously unfit now so want it flat(ish) and days of 50 miles or less.

Has anyone any experience or suggestions for routes of any length that spend little time around traffic, ideally accessible from one of the Channel ports? Canals or EuroVelo, camping or B&Bs, I'm keen to hear of your good experiences.

I'll kick off; some time ago I spent a long weekend going down the Canal d'Ille et Rance from St Malo and remember it being very pleasant with nice gravel tow paths, stereotypical Breton towns and villages all selling Kouign-amman and punchy cidre, and lots of campsites dotted along the canal to just roll up to and pitch for the night. I'd happily do it again, but variety is the spice of life and all that.

I did a nice mini-tour around Nord-Pas de Calais and Belgium a couple of years ago that involved cycling down the Calais to St Omer canal and bimbling around almost traffic-free back roads. I threw in a couple of hills for variety but you can avoid them. Great beer and food at the Estaminets dotted about all over the place too. Can try and dig out the route if you like.

If you want flat & no traffic have you considered the Netherlands?

The Avenue Verte from Dieppe might be a good starting point. The route goes all the way into Paris, but only the first section is traffic free

https://cycle.travel/route/avenue_verte_france/guide

You could join up veloroute du lin and EuroVelo 4. That would get you from Dieppe down to Caen and beyond. I did this a few years ago, has nice campsites, good swims and an abundance of boulangeries

I've got a train over to NL to ride RaTN. You could also get a ferry from Harwich to Hague I think and ride Dutch bike paths.

Personally, I prefer Spain. The roads aren't traffic free but when you're out of towns the roads are emptier and the drivers better/nicer than pretty much anywhere else I've been.

That's for road stuff but there's going to be plenty of gravel routes that are primarily gravel. I know there's a Eurovelo route that shares trails with the Pirinexus a signed gravel route https://www.viesverdes.cat/en/pirinexus/

If you can get to southern Spain there's Euro Divide which uses some known walking and riding trails, stuff like Transandalus, Al-Andalus and https://bikepacking.com/routes/bikepacking-transnevada-southern-spain/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ82SHiAQFw

Also routes up here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86fYuTEfe8Y

We've ridden down here too and it's very low in traffic being one of the most sparsely populated areas of Europe: https://montanasvacias.com/mas/ though I'm not sure how to get there with a ferry trip, trains maybe.

Ah, I've just noticed the Francaise thing. What about chunking bits of French Divide route off?

Or ask @frank9755 about his French trips

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/43438647

flat(ish) and days of 50 miles or less

The Netherlands.

15 years ago I did a lovely and very easy loop starting from Hook of Holland. We stopped overnight in Leiden, Haarlem, Weesp (a small town just east of Amsterdam), Zeist (just west of Utrecht) and Gouda.

Very flat, virtually no traffic, pleasant countryside, loads of canals, pretty towns to stop off in, hotels not too expensive.

There is good riding from most of the French channel ports too, but things are a bit more spread out so not as many options on where to stay. A couple of months after the NEtherlands trip I did a similar easy tour of the very tip of Finesterre, starting and ending from Roscoff. I'd recommend that too.

Round Dieppe is nice but the coast is a bit more hilly and there's nothing that interesting close inland where it's flatter (although I could be doing it a disservice), Calais a bit flat and not that pretty. Don't know the other port hinterlands too well. Dunkirk can work as the end of a loop starting in Hook of Holland and going south through Belgium (I've done that one as well, with a detour to Westvleteren monastry!).

Northern Ireland is worth a thought. Overnight ferry to Belfast and you are quickly onto pretty quiet roads, and you can do a loop round Ulster, or a bit of it, depending on time.

If I had never been to the Netherlands I would recommend you go to France, but as I have, I think the Netherlands would be close to the perfect option for what you describe.

France is a great country to cycle, at least in my experience - my experiences when I've been to NL are that it can be both incredibly windy (due to being so flat) and also quite wet! Ok, well, it rains in France too but generally the wind is not so much of an issue...

A really good thing to look for in France is the 'voies vertes' ("green ways") which are generally old converted railway lines, sometimes running alongside canals, etc. There's a good map here which I think has them all at http://www.voiesvertes.com - clicking on an individual voie verte will give you more detail. There's also more info at https://www.francevelotourisme.com/conseils/preparer-voyage-velo/voie-verte

Having said that, the small roads in France are generally pretty good for cyclists: people are very friendly and drivers give you a wide berth etc. If you ever have problems, never hesitate to ask for help either! Knock on someone's door or just ask as you're passing in the street: I've had loads of great conversations with people, got water, tools, even champagne and a place to stay when stopping to ask for help!

There are also lots of other great routes (not voies vertes) that run alongside rivers / canals etc. For example, I road the Saone and Rhone one year from Chalon all the way to Avignon (and then on towards Montpelier, Sete etc). The bit from (about 40km after) Lyon to Avignon was incredible - one day I did 200+km with a fully loaded bike simply because the paths (and occasional bit on roads) were so good: tarmac, well sign-posted, gradually going down (I think the descent was something like 0.5-1 metre per km for 100+ km) and I happened to have the wind behind me that day.

This is also a great planning guide as well..

https://en.francevelotourisme.com/

I've been out in the Charente for a short while now about 40km of @hippy 's most southern point on his map above. Roads are fairly empty and I would describe as flat to rolling. temperatures are good from April through to mid july whereafter it gets quite hot. September and October are lovely months

The Avenue Verte from Dieppe might be a good starting point. The route goes all the way into Paris, but only the first section is traffic free

It is, and the rest is VERY quiet until Paris, surprisingly little camping along the way though.

Velo Seine is also traffic free for parts and avoids lots of traffic when it's not, and is also very nice, can be a bit meandering though.

As others have said though, Netherlands is where it's at for flat traffic free.

Although the St Malo to Caen following Euro Velo 4 is one of my favourite short tours. It's quiet, loads of campsites, lots of history (mont st Michel, d day beaches etc), nice scenery, always a Boulanger's close by, easy to follow and pretty flat.

Careful, I think you mean boulangerie always close by, not Boulanger - which is in fact a French white goods shop! (Although it's also true a boulanger is a baker.)

Cycle.travel is the perfect point to point route planner btw. Anyone that says Komoot is a nodder

Noted, thank you!

Komoot paid plan is great in Europe. I recently used it for discovering a few EuroVelo routes, all off road. And for hiking some GR routes in south France too, and hiking a trail last week in northern Spain. The pictures people mark on the route are really useful for planning. If you’re just cycling or in the UK there might be other options.

In France, there are so many euro velo routes which all tend to be off road - I rode one last year straight from the Newhaven/Dieppe ferry for a few days which was an old railway line through old villages for a significant portion.

paid plan

...

I'm glad to pay for it - it's a reliable service I use regularly. What's the alternative to the features I described?

Honestly, I've never used it properly because I always found the website frustrating.

Here are the pre-made cycle.travel routes - https://cycle.travel/browse - helpfully it tells you exactly how much is busy road, unpaved, etc. When making your own route you can select your preferred surface(s)

So glad I asked the question, thankful for all the great advice here. It's really got me stoked to go do some riding, it's been pretty shit being scared off from doing something I love because of 2 tonne battering rams piloted by arseholes.

Given the amount of Netherlands suggestions I'm going to have to really think about it! To the people that have ridden around NL, how did you get there? Is the train the best option? I've not got much cash to splash, so what's the camping situation like over there?

My main reasons for asking about France were because I know it well, can just about cobble together a conversation in the language, like the food, and live only a 20 minute ride away from Portsmouth Ferry Terminal on NCN224. Most of the ferries go to France but there is one that goes to Bilbao, so @hippy 's suggestion of the Trans Euskal are definitely one to remember for when I regain my fitness (looks hilly af).

Thanks @frank9755, your easy loop from the Hook of Holland sounds really ideal, think I'm going to look deeper into that

Great shouts from @d0cA voies vertes, @Aroogah francevelotourisme.com, and @elswick for cycle.travel too. I'm used to just following a paper map and signposts but I'm feeling a GPS of some kind might reduce the stress even further. Does a smartphone suffice or have people got suggestions?

I think @RonnieOatmilk & @T_Unit have hit the nail on the head with EuroVelo4. The St Malo > Caen suggestion might win here for me on this occasion. I know Brittany and Normandy well already, can get ferries to and from both destinations from Portsmouth, and riding NE means the prevailing SW winds should help me along.

If you do, the detour to Cancale is well worth it for a sea dip.

If you need routes let me know, as still have them saved with a few interesting detours etc.

Edit, if you're 20 mins out on 224, must be Fareham area?

how did you get there?

Ferry from Harwich to hook of Holland.
Right off the ferry you are into the network of Dutch cyclepaths.

I took the Harwich-Hook of Holland ferry with a friend once, it was great. Overnight and sets you up for a good days touring afterwards. Off the ferry, we stopped at the first T junction and contemplated the map (well, our sense of direction) for a while, knowing that we were meant to turn left and cycle up the coast. Someone passing asked if we needed help and we said, "No thanks - we're going this way to Amsterdam" and they replied "Oh, you're taking the hilly route I see". Didn't know there were hills in the Netherlands - we quickly found out! 40m may not be that much altitude, but when you're repeating over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again, it definitely adds up.

Which route was this?

My trips through France, I've always turned off my phone and only kept it for a real emergency backup - never happened though, and never really needed to use it. I think the few times I turned it on again were just to take photos. Aside from that, I relied on signs, maps that I picked up from tourist offices (there's usually something shitty that suffices, or you can pay a few euros for a proper cycle map), a general sense of direction and adventure (take the road less traveled, it's always more interesting!), and the good will of strangers. In France, there's good communal will to help strangers, especially when you're doing something exciting/adventurous like going long distances by bike. People are almost without exception friendly and helpful, plus you get lots of bonuses just by the interactions with strangers who are always interested to hear your stories - where you've come from, where you're going, etc.

As a backup though, I'd suggest downloading something like the Organic Maps app and the associated openstreetmaps for the region where you'll be: then you have a good backup that's not reliant on having an internet connection. Smartphone will be fine, unless you want some more detailed info while you're riding (e.g. speed etc) in which some kind of cycle computer (garmin or whatever) will be of benefit. But really, don't stress it, get away from the electronic everyday life and enjoy :)

Coast route? It was 15+ years ago that I did it so can't really remember much more than that - but it was basically up and down the dunes adjacent to the beach all the way up north, then we turned right at some point and headed across to A'dam. Looking at https://openstreetmap.org now it looks like there's a red line going up that coast so I guess it was that, but don't really remember all the details of how we got there from the ferry. Wasn't too complicated is what I remember though. And it was fun, just a bit of a surprise to be doing so much up and down on the first day in a country we thought was dead flat! Shows what rubbish preconceptions are, eh?