The Loire Cycle Route

This guide describes a 1052km cycle route that starts at source of the Loire in the Massif Central mountains of central France and finishes at the Atlantic opposite St Nazaire. It descends past extinct volcanoes, crater lakes and deep gorges before joining EuroVélo route 6 and the fully waymarked Loire à Vélo, France's most popular cycle trail. Following the river downstream in 26 stages, the route is generally downhill or level often on dedicated traffic-free cycle tracks.
Packed with a wealth of useful information - from practical planning advice to fascinating insights about the river and its surroundings - the guidebook features detailed route descriptions and informative mapping. Details of facilities and places to stay, and a French glossary are included.
The route goes through the heart of France as the Loire becomes the royal river, bounded by extravagant châteaux, fields of Charollais cattle and vineyards. It passes through historic cities like Orléans and Tours, continuing past Angers and France's fourth largest city Nantes.

May 2018

Stage 8 - A new traffic-free voie verte route for stage 8 between Roanne and Digoin is nearing completion. This uses canal towpaths and an old railway track-bed for most of the stage. The section from Iguerande to Vindecy Gare had already been constructed when the guide was published in 2016 and forms part of the route. Since then work has started on the rest of the stage. From Roanne to Briennon a voie verte is being developed along the towpath of the Canal de Roanne á Digoin starting from the canal basin in Roanne. A road bridge is used to cross the Loire from Briennon to Pouilly-sous-Charlieu Just N of Pouilly-sous-Charlieu, a new voie verte along the old railway is joined and followed to Iguerande where it joins the book route. This is 3.5km longer than the route in the guide but is mostly traffic free. North from Vindecy Gare the voie verte route now continues to St Yan. Turn L in centre of St Yan (D982) and follow this to reach beginning of Digoin. Turn L at second roundabout (Bvd de Macon) to reach cycle route V51 along towpath of Canal du Centre in Digoin. This is only 1km longer than the book route.Work started in autumn 2017 and is due to be completed by the middle of 2018. When complete the route between Roanne and St Yan, which will become part of véloroute V71, will be 4.5km longer than the current stage 8.

This book contains all you need to know, as well as a sense of the spirit of the river and life along it to inspire you.

Seven Day Cyclist

It’s the usual high-quality stuff that you’d expect from Cicerone with detailed maps, altitude profiles, tourist
information etc… and, from the English-speaking perspective, probably the definitive description of the route.
Leafing through the book, it does make me wonder why I am sitting at my computer here at home with the
prospect of returning to work tomorrow morning rather than out there doing Mike’s job… Mmm…

Andrew Sykes, Cycling Europe