On Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:37:19 +0100, Brendan Halpin
wrote:

On Fri, Jul 03 2009, Colin Reed wrote:

Does anyone have any recommendations for fairly detailed cyclist
friendly maps in France? I'm going to be staying a couple of weeks
near Tours in the Loire Valley and want to be able to plan fairly
quiet routes to various chateaux and vineyards.

I find the ordinary 1:100,000 IGN regional maps not bad -- they're
detailed and accurate enough but a bit too small scale. I'd prefer 1:50k
but they don't seem to do them. The 1:25k maps are correspondingly more
detailed but cover quite small areas.

As a rule of thumb, the smaller yellow roads (smaller departmentals) and
white roads make fine cycling.

Cycling across the Pyrenees a few years ago I bought the 2 Michelin
1:200,000 maps covering the French side of the mountains and the 11
1:50,000 maps. I found the 1:200,000 far more useful - but I was on
road about 99.9% of the time, not cycle tracks.

1:50,000 maps are a rarity in France; the Pyrenees series is an
exception.