Underbiking? Family-friendly gravel trails? Hunting for shells on the beach? A family trip to Brittany proved to be a destination which ticked everyone’s boxes as Erwin Sikkens reports. If you ever wondered what the riding is like in this region of north-west France then read on to find out!
‘If there’s one more pushing section, I’m out,’ I hear myself say. I’m forced to walk again, working my way through yet another muddy section. Before hopping back on my bike, I check if Nora is still asleep in the trailer behind me. I know how quickly she wakes up when she senses that the riding and bumping have stopped. Luckily, she remains quiet. It’s not the first time this ride we have had to get off our bikes to tackle the mud, rocks or roots in front of us. On the opposite side of the track Carly makes it through the mud and we’re back en route. Despite the occasional hold-ups, I’m enjoying myself to the max. Carly, however, doesn’t look best pleased. Our previous gravel ride here had been less technical and much more fun in her eyes. One holiday destination, two completely different gravel riding experiences, but all three of us enjoying the contrasts.
French polder
It’s September and we’ve made it over to the coast of Brittany in the west of France. We end up in a B&B near Dol-de-Bretagne, a medieval town situated between Saint-Malo and Mont Saint-Michel. Although we’d ultimately visit the latter at some point on this trip, this world-famous landmark is not what convinced us to visit this place. Our reasons for coming are twofold: the rugged coast and coastal towns on the one hand, and the impressive tidal system on the other. Everyone who has been here or seen images of Mont Saint-Michel knows - the biggest tidal difference in the world causes the sea to withdraw impressively at low tide. It attaches the Mont Saint-Michel island and many others near the coast temporarily to be part of the mainland before high tide floods separate them again for a couple of hours. Besides the unique and beautiful coast, there’s of course a lot more to explore.
The best way to do so is by bike, I always say, so naturally we brought our gravel bikes to France. I’m on my Cannondale Topstone Carbon gravel bike with 1x12 GRX shifting and wheels, while Carly has her Canyon Grizl with a 1x11 GRX setup. One-year-old Nora is in the Tout Terrain Singletrailer with suspension, which we’ve decided is the best gravel and rough ground trailer in existence.
After our trip here and a good night's sleep, we head straight out for our first full day, planning to ride down to the coast before following a gravel track through a polder (Editor’s note: For those not from the Netherlands, a polder is a low-lying tract of land enclosed by dykes) towards Mont Saint-Michel. We immediately hit a small hill near Dol-de-Bretagne and get a good view of the area; a great way to start. From here on, we follow a winding road to the coast before reaching the gravel. But when I say gravel, I mean grass. The selected grass track takes us past the coast towards the east, where soon enough we see the famous Mont Saint-Michel landmark on the horizon. It’s as flat as the Netherlands near this particular part of the coast, making the medieval village on the rock stand out from afar. After a bumpy couple of kilometres, we leave the grassy track behind and hit the hardpacked gravel track that we’d seen highlighted on komoot. The track is fun and fast. I see a big smile on Carly’s face, whereas Nora is already sound asleep. After a couple of kilometres on the track, I’m a bit bored – sure, it’s winding and green, but there’s too little variation for too long. The polder-like landscape reminds me too much of home and I start to wonder, why have we come all this way to see stuff I can experience at home?
(Un)expected surprise
This all changes after a short muddy section through some farmers’ fields, when another view of Mont Saint-Michel opens up. This time, it’s much closer and we can see just how jaw-droppingly beautiful it is. It’s like seeing the Eifel Tower for the first time in real life after having seen it a thousand times before online. You know exactly what it looks like, but in real life, it’s that much more impressive. We stop to admire it briefly, before rolling towards the bridge leading to the landmark. Here, we stop again to eat our sandwiches from a local bakery with Mont Saint-Michel in the background. Our attention is consumed by the view, while little Nora is more concerned about all the small rocks and her little pink boots. We all enjoy it in our own way. Any feelings of doubt I was harbouring about coming here now disappeared; I love the place already. We continue our ride via bike paths and quiet roads. However beautiful, I feel there’s a shortage of gravel. Back home I try to maximise the number of off-road kilometres and love the occasional rough stuff, but here we’d been riding non-stop on paved roads and tracks. Fortunately, that was all about to change. From the Balcon de le Baie, the balcony of the bay – a hilly section overlooking the polder we saw on our way in – the climbing begins and we’re led onto one rolling gravel section after another. My smile gets bigger with every corner we advance - France was delivering exactly what I came for, with all the variation and views to make the trip worthwhile.
After finishing our ride, we agreed that it was a bit too boring at times for the likes of me, but Carly enjoyed the ride a lot. Some bits and pieces were a bit too much like home, but at the end of the day I loved the ride anyway. We were here in Brittany and hadn’t seen the best of it yet. Over the coming days, we leave our bikes behind and go in some nice hikes through Brittany towns and along coastal hiking paths. We get to know the area and notice that the coast to the west is much more rocky and rugged than the coast we had seen during our bike ride on the first day. The impressive cliff shores and dirt roads near the town of Cancale make such a good impression that we decide to return there with our bikes for the next ride. I discover the local MTB route and create my own route based on it via komoot. The next day it’s go time and we transport our bikes with the car to beautiful Cancale, where we’ll start the ride.
High tide. Low tide.
It’s early in the day when we start. From the parking lot, we have a great view over the Cancale harbour and the ocean behind it. It’s high tide and there is no hint of what will happen here in a few hours. We turn away from the view and soon hit the first flowing gravel tracks. This is what I had come for and my smile shows it. As we weave left and right through the landscape, hitting trail after trail, the bumping of the bike gently shakes Nora to sleep. The first bit of the ride is predominately MTB tracks along the coast. Despite the MTB character, most of it is well ridable on our gravel bikes, albeit a bit bumpy at times. Lovely ocean views are interrupted by rooty trails, before more perfect singletrack allows us to gorge on the views again. We make occasional stops to soak it all in. As we turn away from the coast to make our circular loop, the route changes character. Most tracks are now double-track dirt roads through farmers’ fields and although the views are constantly beautiful, rain and heavy farm vehicles have turned many of the roads we ride into local mud baths. With every passing kilometre we get dirtier and have to clip out occasionally to do quick hikes past the worst of it.
Whether it’s the mud or simply the higher technical degree, I don’t know, but our moods are definitely reversed. Whereas I’m now the one with the big smile, it’s Carly who looks a bit out of place. This is not her cup of tea, but luckily a reward is waiting. When we finally hit the coast again, many hours have flown by and we get our first glimpse of the ocean at low tide. The first view makes us stop in our tracks and gaze upon an amazing feat of nature. The ocean looks to have withdrawn itself almost completely. Where hours before there had been water, now there is only clay and farmers in their tractors harvesting oysters and mussels. As Nora wakes up from her nap, we make our way to the gigantic beach and unload our daughter from her trailer. There we walk and sit for over an hour, enjoying the view, eating a sandwich and some snacks, and looking for crabs and shells. Little Nora is loving it, which means we are too. Once again, we’ve found ourselves in a lovely place, where I don’t think we’d ever be without our gravel bikes. The final couple of kilometres back into town hug the coastline and are nothing less than rewarding. We must have looked like one big, happy gravel family riding into town.
Gravel for the win
When we’re back from our ride we reflect on these two rides on the Brittany coast. Although geographically close together, they couldn’t have been more different. Both had parts at the coast and more inland. Both had all types of terrain. But their characters differed enormously. As more of a fan of the gentile type of gravel riding, Carly is happiest with hardpacked gravel tracks and the occasional paved road, whereas I am more at home in that grey area between gravel and MTB. Underbiking, you could call it. But luckily, we both enjoyed both rides in our own ways and agreed that it was great bringing the bikes in the first place. We got to see Brittany in a way that we never would have done without bikes and, once again, our gravel bikes turned out to be the perfect tool for the job. No matter what Brittany threw at us, we were ready. And Nora? We could take her back there any day of the week. She loved it all.
If you'd like to follow in Erwin, Carly & Norah's tyre prints, you can find their route here: