Which maps do you buy for France

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Steve X
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Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Steve X »

We are intending cycling from Nancy in France to Hook of Holland, joining Euro Velo 19 at Verdun. Could anyone please tell me which is the best Map for the French part between Nancy and Verdun, please. I assume a Michelin, but which scale is best for cycling.
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foxyrider
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by foxyrider »

The Michelin yellow sheets would be my choice :D
Convention? what's that then?
Airnimal Chameleon touring, Orbit Pro hack, Orbit Photon audax, Focus Mares AX tour, Peugeot Carbon sportive, Owen Blower vintage race - all running Tulio's finest!
Jdsk
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Jdsk »

We used to use Michelin 1:200,000. (As above.)

The IGN alternative:
https://www.freewheelingfrance.com/plan ... rance.html

Jonathan

PS: The only paper map we carry nowadays is the Michelin whole country as my wife likes to see progress.

PPS: We use IGN 1:25,000 for walking.
Steve X
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Steve X »

Thanks all :-)
pq
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by pq »

I live in France, so I've spent quite a bit of time figuring out maps.

The Michelin 1:200,000 maps are widely available and cheap so are a good choice. To keep down the bulk of what I take on tour, I bought a road atlas based on those maps and tear out the pages I need. However those maps do not contain all the back roads which is a problem from time to time. If you want ALL the roads marked, the IGN 1:100,000 maps are better, but they are more expensive and becasue of the scale, you'll need more of them. You pays your money etc...

If you're not already familiar with french mapping, you may be surprised how inaccurate it is compared to, say OS maps in the UK. The usual error is what the surface is - I find in a 200km route on unfamiliar territory there are usually at least 2 unexpected gravel sections! Where I live there are a few roads which don't appear on any paper maps at all!
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djb
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by djb »

I personally found the 1:200,000 Michelins to work well enough for me in the past from the standpoint of enough detail vs number of maps required.

Obviously like everyone here, I still like having a paper map with me, but do consider putting one of those offline map apps on your phone where you can easily download OSM , open source maps, before your trip. (We had our Canadian phones that even though we tried getting a French "Orange" cell provider SIM card with data, an incompatibility with our NAmerican phones meant they wouldn't work on the orange system. )
About 5 years ago my wife and I crossed France using eurovelo routes from near Nantes to Basel, and it was handy a number of times to turn on the GPS on my phone, open Maps.me (the app I used on some previous trips so was familiar with) and to be able to see where we were after I made a mistake and went the wrong way.

I'm very much someone who prefers having a route in my head and following a simple paper map, but I can't deny the usefulness of these sort of apps etc that can help out when needed.

Overall the eurovelo route we followed was well enough indicated, but sometimes it would be vague and using common sense and having a paper version on hand worked well enough. I do regret not getting either the specific EV route map/booklet thing (not as easily available here in Canada) or figuring out how to put the EV GPS route into my phone---partly because I didn't get organized on time, partly figuring it would be straightforward (I've bike toured a fair amount and overall this trip was fine really) and also a certain amount of oldfogginess on my part with new to me tech (I've never done the gpx file thing and all that, and never used my phone for turn by turn directions, still haven't).

I highly recommend the EV routes, makes for a pleasant trip imo even though I have limited experience on them.
Jdsk
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Jdsk »

djb wrote: 30 Jan 2022, 2:56pmObviously like everyone here, I still like having a paper map with me...
Have another look...

; - )

Jonathan
djb
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by djb »

Jdsk wrote: 30 Jan 2022, 3:00pm
djb wrote: 30 Jan 2022, 2:56pmObviously like everyone here, I still like having a paper map with me...
Have another look...

; - )

Jonathan
I know, i know, neglected to add, "in this thread"
Now excuse me while I get ready to go to work, have to saddle up the horse. ;-)
Actually riding to work shortly, a chilly -18c so need to bundle up.
Steve X
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Steve X »

The reason I want a Paper Map is for Orientation, following a Euro Velo or a Sat Nav, you get there but never really know where you are, so could be passing some really interesting things just a few KM off route

Also I just love Maps <Homer Simpson type Drool> :D
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Traction_man
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Traction_man »

Steve X wrote: 30 Jan 2022, 7:15pm The reason I want a Paper Map is for Orientation, following a Euro Velo or a Sat Nav, you get there but never really know where you are, so could be passing some really interesting things just a few KM off route

Also I just love Maps <Homer Simpson type Drool> :D
+1

the 'IGN Top 100' series at 1:100,000 scale is close of course to our old Bartholomew's half-inch maps (actually 1:126,720) once favoured by many touring cyclists--my dad had a whole stack of them from the early-1950s from his younger touring days and I still have them :-)

The Bartholomew's half-inch maps are all available for free online now, https://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_half_great_britain.html and later (in the 1970s) were published at 1:100,000 as the 'National Map Series', though no longer produced.

The IGN Top 100 series can be bought for a good price (£7.19 UK post free) from Dash4it--eg https://dash4it.co.uk/homepage-navigati ... mper..html

all the best,

Keith
SA_SA_SA
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by SA_SA_SA »

Traction_man wrote: The Bartholomew's half-inch maps are all available for free online now, https://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_half_great_britain.html and later (in the 1970s) were published at 1:100,000 as the 'National Map Series', though no longer produced.
...
The site doesnt seem to have any maps of Northern Ireland, only of the Uk mainland (GB). Am I missing something?
------------You may not use this post in Cycle or other magazine ------ 8)
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Traction_man
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Traction_man »

SA_SA_SA wrote: 31 Jan 2022, 3:31pm
Traction_man wrote: The Bartholomew's half-inch maps are all available for free online now, https://maps.nls.uk/series/bart_half_great_britain.html and later (in the 1970s) were published at 1:100,000 as the 'National Map Series', though no longer produced.
...
The site doesnt seem to have any maps of Northern Ireland, only of the Uk mainland (GB). Am I missing something?
NLS online map coverage so far has focused on GB, plus parts of France and Belgium.

Ireland--north and south--has some online digital historic OS maps (ie OSi and OSNI/LPS) via

https://apps.spatialni.gov.uk/PRONIApplication/

https://webapps.geohive.ie/mapviewer/index.html

these are each slightly different to NLS but useful all the same.

cheers,

Keith
djb
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by djb »

Looked at this topic again with breakfast and as I had no idea of the distance from Nancy to Verdun (thought verdun was way up north) looked it up and unless I'm mistaken, it's only 100kms away.

For such a short distance, a smaller scale map would certainly be better. What about also just printing up sections yourself, if not easy to find a 100,000 map of the area?
hamster
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by hamster »

I've done that in the past, using the Michelin route mapping site and taking screenshots - handy for a short trip.

Generally I use IGN 1:100000 maps (as said above) which have enough detail and bike route marking. Stanfords are good as a UK source.
Angstrom
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Re: Which maps do you buy for France

Post by Angstrom »

For printing IGN Top 100 (1/100.000 scale, "Green series" mentioned above as well as TOP 25 1/25.000 th) on A4 paper, the best site is without any doubt JGN Superhero (very original name isn't it?) here .
It is easy to copy the url of a GPX track stored somewhere (i.e cycle.travel) and paste it in the box accessed by cliking on a square icon "import track" located in the upper right part of the screen.

Then it is pretty straight forward to choose scale and margins to have this track placed as you wish on the map then print as many A4 pages as required.
Although I love having the original full and folded maps (I own about 20 or more of them, covering a decent part of France), my wife gets a bit fed up with all these maps in the overspilling drawer which is their home (good ol' WAF; not only in Hi Fi gear; maps too :( ).
Because of this I have started to print sheets with the same maps as those I used to purchase through JGN Super Hero. I believe this would be simpliest and cheapest for your need.
It is legal, by the way (IGN grants individuals the right to print on pages up to A4 size), if anyone cares.

PS: it doesn't work only with IGN maps . One can choose other maps too.
"A cycle tourist doesn't have a track record. Just memories". Jean Taboureau
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