UKH

Off to bleau tomorrow with the family but have a dodgy shoulder so don't plan to do too much climbing. Taking the bike instead and was hoping to do some big rides round the forest. Starting to hatch a vague plan to try to 'do' all the main venues in a day.  Initially I was thinking 5 problems at each venue but the realised that would be way too much for me and wouldn't fit in with the 'not too much climbing ' approach.

So I might limit it to a token couple of problems and leave the biking as the main challenge.  However i have no idea what the distance is to cover the major venues, or even what the definitive list is!

In the absence of any real work to do today, anyone got a view on:

*How many km of cycling there is between these venues and then back to Grez?

* is this the shortest route?

*have I missed any mega venues from the list?

*how totally lost will I get in the forest?

*is it possible?

Elephant.

Dame jouane

JA martin

3 pigeons

Cui de chien

91.1

Guchiot

Diplodocus

95.2

Chats

Merciers

The one across the road from merciers.

Isatis

The venue to the right of isatis

Cuisiniere

Cuvier

Rempart

Cannon

Might have to miss out beavais. It's miles away. Ditto calvaire cos it's too hard.

A quick Google seems to suggest around 70km, or 100 if I include beavais.

Hmmmm

As well as distance I recommend picking your cycling routes carefully to try & reduce the amount of sandy trails - some  real energy sapping tracks away from the surfaced lanes

Good point. The sea of sand on the way to tete de chien springs to mind.

 *how totally lost will I get in the forest

well I have taken to walking in my old age after 50 years climbing at Bleau and thought I knew my away  in the forest around all these areas. Three times recently I have ended up literally miles from where ai thought I was going. And it is not due to senile degeneration. The  Bleau forest is what the French term paumatoire: beware!

Good advice about cycling on the areas of soft sand, particularly the sand in the valley below the Resistance Memorial, and as mentioned at the Cul de chien . It's really hard going knackering. I've cycled a lot between many of the Bleau venues, starting from Grez, although never all the ones you mention at one time, because I was more interested in doing circuits at a few rather than choosing just a few token problems at each, so was spending as much, if not more, time at the sites than on my bike.

I also agree with the comment on navigation between some of the sites. I've got pretty lost more than once, both on foot and on my bike. There seem to be a lot more fire breaks and tracks that don't relate to anything shown on the iGN! Take plenty of water.

Good luck and I hope it's not getting too hot over there yet.

Hmmmm, so, common sense prevailed. I realised that the bit I hate about biking is the faff and endless stopping. I'm crap at remembering more than two navigation steps at a time. What I enjoy is the exercise and technical interest.

So instead of plodding around trying to get to specific places I just cycled wherever the urge took me in the forest. I took general directions from the sun to head generally east and then generally south, but on a micro level I just took whichever trail looked most fun.

And it was bloody excellent.no faffing. Almost no navigation, just lovely spontaneous biking. Route de terrier was the best bit, but TBH there were loads of good bits. Lovely flowy single track mixed with fire roads and tiny stretches of tarmac.

Did have a few problems when I blundered into an unbeknownst restricted military area on the way home but managed to get through without being shot or arrested.

Did just over 50km in all.