The official route
The Tour de Manche is a 1200km cycling adventure which links the coasts of Brittany, Normandy and the Jurassic coasts of Dorset and Devon. We live a few metres from the route as it goes through Dorset, so we thought it would be a good plan to ride from home to home over a couple of weeks.
The Tour de Manche passes close to home.
The English section of the Tour de Manche goes from Poole to Plymouth. The route follows quiet roads and lanes.
Arriving at Plymouth for the overnight ferry to Roscoff
West of Weymouth the English section of the Tour de Manche follows a route suitable for more experienced cyclists, with some challenging hills.
The Tour de Manche in France has 2 distinct sections. From Roscoff the route follows the coast to the crossing of the Rance to St Malo and is very scenic but constantly undulating with some steep ramps.
Scenic coastal roads in Brittany
From St Malo to Cherbourg the route is less challenging with long sections of Voie Verts which are gravel tracks along disused railway lines.
Flat straight gravel tracks in Normandy
On the face of it this sounds quite attractive, but it is actually quite slow and tiring pedalling along the rough gravel and, when enclosed in a cutting for long stretches, much less interesting than the hilly, open, scenic roads along the coast of Brittany. The Cherbourg to St Malo section is a stand alone route called Petit Tour de Manche and is more suitable for families – with just the occasional hilly bit to catch the unwary.
The route is signed throughout. We didn’t follow the prescribed route religiously and occasionally went off route to visit places of interest. We carried maps and had the bones of the route on the GPS.
Just off the ferry we were pleased to find the tour de Manche on the sign posts.
We used Brittany Ferries for the channel crossings. We went overnight from Plymouth to Roscoff on the Pont Avent.
Bicycles secured for the overnight crossing from Plymouth to Roscoff
After cycling through Brittany and Normandy we came back from Cherbourg to Poole on Barfleur.
Returning to Poole on Barfleur
Old Bat On A Bike. 
Rainy day jobs! Is there more of post to come?? Will run later when current 10% chance of rain changes, and it stops being very heavy drizzle.. Many boxes have been unpacked, pictures hung, pre run kit kat eaten. Very much enjoying a day a second day at home!!
Sent from my iPad
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