La Régalante is a 298km long-distance véloroute that takes you from Mont St Michel to Nantes.
Distance: 298km
Difficulty: Moderate. Like any long-distance route, there is a little climbing on the shared road sections that are not designated as voie vertes. Mostly they are small hills, though, of less than 100m climbing at a time (more often than not 20-50m).
La Régalante is a handy signposted cross-regional bike route that takes you from the ever-popular Mont St Michel on the border of Normandy and Brittany on France's northern coast to Nantes, in the Pays de la Loire region 298km to the south-west.
La Régalante crosses with several other long-distance routes. At Mont St Michel in Normandy, it meets the Veloscenie Paris to Mont St Michel route, as well as the EuroVelo 4 La Velomaritime route that crosses the top of France.
In Nantes, La Régalante crosses with the Euro Velo 6 Loire Valley bike route, as well as the Euro Velo 1 La Velodyssee Atlantic Coast route in Nantes. In fact, from La Chapelle-sur-Erdre, you follow the La Velodyssee signage to the Nantes city centre.
Allow time to explore Mont St Michel before you start riding but, remember, it is one of France's top tourist attractions. It gets CRAZY BUSY. Go very early in the morning or late at night to avoid the crowds.
Photo by Freewheeling France.
Type of surface: This is a véloroute, which means it's not all segregated cycle paths. Roughly half of the route is on traffic-free voie vertes and greenway routes, with the balance on quiet backroads and shared spaces.
Getting there and away: There are train stations all along the route, including at Pontorson (the station used for Mont ST Michel), d'Avranches, Vitré, Martigné-Ferchaud, Châteaubriant, Nort-sur-Erdre and in Nantes, which is a major regional hub for TGV services to Paris and elsewhere.
See this page for trains in and around Normandy.
See this page for trains in and around Brittany.
See this page for trains in and around Nantes.
See here for our general France bike-train information.
Download La Régalante - Mont St Michel to Nantes as a GPX file.
Inside the alluring religious precinct of Mont St Michel. Photo by Freewheeling France
Here is a tourist map.
Click here for a larger/better PDF version to download.
