Guide books for La Velodyssee in France

[Mark Sharman]

I'm cycling from Bordeaux to Roscoff in May, following the Velodyssee route. I've discovered that I can get specific guide books to the route in French from a French supplier (Cartovelo), but wonder if there are other guides available in the UK (and therefore possibly in English)? If not I may try to manage without a guide book, but wonder if this is inadvisable. Has anyone ridden this route without a guide book? Cheers.

[francovendee]

We've ridden parts of the route and found the sign posting very good so it's quite possible to do the route without a guide book.

[BeeKeeper]

We did it without a book and an account can be found here: http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/France2013 and the official website for the route is: http://www.velodyssey.com/ which you need to register on in order to download the GPX tracks. But be careful of these as they are written for going north to south so in some cities you may find one way systems prevent you following the track. Biarritz was the worst offender but this won't trouble you.

[MrsHJ]

For the top section there is also a voies vertes book in French and also, in English, a guide to the nantes brest canal. Try stanfords for more sections. They do the Velodysee book too although I couldn't see it in their online directory but a smooch round their Covent garden shop usually turns up all sorts of cycling goodies maps and books wise.

They also have a shop in bristol, I don't know if there are any others.

[DaveP]

I've looked for an English translation of the Cartovelo book - I don't think it has been. I'm going to manage without.
I do have a gps though...
if you don't, or don't want to, you can still do a lot of preparation on your computer. You can indeed download .gpx files from the Velodyssee site after registering. These however are short sections, about 19 in all. There are also .gpx files for bigger segments available without registration. I have yet to find out if there are detail differences between the two sets. If you don't have a gps the bigger ones might be more convenient for you.
Download the bits you need. This site: http://gpx2kml.com/ will convert them into a form that can be used by Google Earth, and then you can see where you are going, make notes about any vague bits, use Streetview to check for one way systems etc. etc
Nearl as good as having already been there...

[BeeKeeper]

From memory, going from Bordeaux to Roscoff there are only two places where map reading was a bit difficult. At the île de Noirmoutier the official route uses a tidal road which is only open a few hours each day. If this is impassable, as it was for us, there is no obvious alternative unless you want to cycle on busy roads. The other was the slightly tricky point at which you leave the canal at Carhaix Plouguer, which was not well signposted and only the GPS told us we had missed the turn off. However, you can't really get lost, it is France after all and there is always a road you can use.

The only advantage of a guidebook I can see would be if it gave you some historical information about what you are seeing on the route. If you look at the website you can see enough of the route to mark it on a map and then use that. A GPS is handy, but not essential.