Gravel Tro Breizh

The Gravel Tro Breizh is the ride that started Erminig, the Breton bikepacking outfit named after the ermine (erminig in Breton). Bike Café traced its origins to Fred Bernard, a long-distance cyclist who had settled in Brittany and wanted to show off the region he had come to love, and the founding idea has not changed since 2018: you, your bike and the route, with no outside help and no official ranking.

The route is redrawn every year and kept secret until shortly before the start, so the constants are the start and finish at the Lac de Trémelin, on the edge of the Brocéliande forest of Arthurian legend, and the raw character of the land: heath and woodland, granite everywhere, the hillier heart of central Brittany and long stretches of rugged coastline. Paths, farm tracks and small lanes make up most of it, with rough, technical passages that reward wide tyres.

It is non-competitive by design, and the organisers make a point of giving every finisher the same respect, whether they take three days or seven. Riders who have done it talk about rutted, very agricultural tracks, bakery stops for kouign-amann, coastal paths in the dawn light, and the chance meetings on the road that turn into lasting friendships.