To some, Angers is the forgotten city of France’s Loire Valley. Unfairly overshadowed by its chateau-abundant sisters Tours and Saumur, as well as Joan of Arc’s Orléans and cosmopolitan Nantes, Angers is trying to forge an identity for itself as the Loire’s cycling capital. The ace up its sleeve: the gravel festival called Nature is Bike.
Bidding to be cycling’s equivalent to Glastonbury, there are seven rides on the festival’s weekend-long programme. It caters for all abilities, from the casual 40km Guinguette to a competitive 200km race and a two-day bikepacking expedition. To add to the pageantry, there’s a festival village equipped with live entertainment, music and a bike exhibition at the race HQ based on the edge of a lake not far from central Angers.
To round out the cycling jamboree, the event’s most popular sportive takes place on the final day: the Gravel 100. This festival headliner sees 600 riders take to testing off-road tracks through provincial villages and vineyards, and Cyclist is with them on the start line.
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Getting sausaged
It’s a grey Sunday morning in June on the outskirts of Angers. As I look around, I notice a real mix of ages, riders and styles on the start line. Some are kitted out head to toe in gravel gear, while a handful of optimists have donned Hawaiian shirts in this overcast weather. Together, we wait in anticipation for the MC to get us underway. There’s no ribbon-cutting here, just a countdown over a grainy microphone.
‘Trois, deux, un – c’est parti!,’ he shouts, triggering a harmony of clicking pedals that rings around the festival village. Volunteers line the route, ushering us towards the edge of Lac de Maine where the festival sets up camp. Think of it as Angers’s own Worthy Farm.
It’s not long until we’re directed away from the comfort of the tarmac, funnelled onto tracks along mud-caked trenches and farmers’ fields. With each rugged turn, the pack becomes more strung out, or saucissé (sausaged) as the French would say.
The suburbs gradually thin out, then after around 20km we reach the town of Savennières. I’ve been told this is one of the few winemaking villages north of the Loire river. For the geology fans out there, Savennières sits on the geological border between north and south France at the point where the bedrock transitions away from the Armorican Massif, which stretches out to the English Channel. Apparently it’s the secret to the high-quality dry white wine produced here.
We slip between houses with wooden shutters coated in ivy, and a woman wielding a baguette shouts ‘bon courage’ as we pass. Exiting Savennières, we pass over the region’s artery, the Loire, via an iron mesh of a bridge called the Pont de Béhuard. On the other side, we’re directed southwards, channelled along riverside towpaths towards the rolling countryside ahead. Just as the course starts to become punchier in profile, we approach Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné, a bitesize village of only a thousand residents, which is decked out in bicycle paraphernalia in preparation for the arrival of hundreds of hungry cyclists.
‘C’est le ravito là,’ a rider calls out. For anyone doing sportives in France, ravito is a useful word to know, as it is short for ravitaillement, meaning refuelling. A brass band plays on the village green as riders tuck into baguettes filled with pork pâté and olive tapenade. Volunteers hastily fill paper cups with sugary soft drinks in an attempt to match the flow of riders pouring into the village. Next to a hamper of fruit compotes and madeleine cakes, a rainbow of sweets gets poured into buckets on the table. Riders are quick to buzz around them, eager for a calorific fix.
Not long after the soft drink bubbles have settled in my stomach, the grey clouds above release an unwelcome drizzle. This change in weather comes as we reach the wine-abundant Layon Valley. The vines aren’t quite ready to be picked by this point in June. Even so, I’m told the locals are pessimistic about this year’s vintage when it comes to harvest season in the autumn, thanks to the poor weather.
Type two fun
Victim to the rugged route, an untimely mechanical leaves me in a chasse-patate between two groups near Beaulieu-sur-Layon. Slithering between vineyards while trying to read my rain-spattered bike computer, I eventually catch up with a couple of riders from nearby Nantes who seem more accustomed to the route than myself, so I tuck in behind them. They apologise for the weather, saying this is uncommon for June. I assure them that it’s perfectly normal for June in Britain.
Eventually, we roll into Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné for a second visit to the now-sodden picnic table, and I tuck into a soggy selection of crudités while trying to shelter from the rain under a gazebo. My ride companions are slightly keener than me to get going again, so by the time I get back underway, I’m left to tackle the muddy slopes and rocky ravines around Rochefort-sur-Loire on my lonesome.
The river comes back into focus as I pass through Sainte-Gemmes-sur-Loire, the last port of call before the Loire meets the Maine river that passes through the centre of Angers. The off-road towpath has transformed into something swamp-like and I’d need the bike-handling skills of Mathieu van der Poel to get through this without at least a dash of panic.
Negotiating the untested mud, I desperately try to correct my line on a particularly slimy corner before sliding towards the water’s edge and being bucked from my saddle like a helpless rodeo. As I lift my head, I spot that my knees are now submerged in a puddle of thick stodgy earth. I extricate myself from the mud, hose myself down with a bidon and get back under way again. At least now I am back on the outskirts of Angers and it isn’t long before the road spits me out into the city centre.
Angers management
In Angers, from the Place de l’Académie we swing past the massive medieval walls of the Château d’Angers and onto Boulevard Roi René, named after René d’Anjou who reigned over this region during the 15th century. Once we cross the fast-flowing Maine river, all that remains is a couple of kilometres of bike lanes and tram tracks before we make it back to the race’s HQ at Lac de Maine.
The thumping bass of the finish line entertainment returns as I roll through one final lap of honour around the festival village. Arriving on the home straight, the lights from the finish line gantry glisten on the wet roads while the applause of supporters and race organisers is muffled by a mismatched canopy of umbrellas along the roadside.
Once I cross the line I’m handed a drink and a hearty offering of lukewarm sausage and pasta. I’m damp, tired and muddied, but console myself that this is really no different to any festival in Britain, plus I have been able to experience a beautiful region of France that is often overlooked in favour of the usual cycling hotspots of the Alps and Pyrenees.
Is nature bike? It’s a philosophical question that I’m not sure I’m able to answer in my current state, but I’m happy to have been able to explore one using the other.
The details
What Nature is Bike, Gravel 100
Where Angers, France
Next one TBC
Distance 104km
How much €37 per rider
More info natureisbike.com
