Les Graviers Roses

Les Graviers Roses is the gravel gathering of the Vélo Club Thouarsais in the north of the Deux-Sèvres. It was started in 2023 by club president Hervé Chauvin, a road rider who found himself more at home with gravel's values, with Jérôme Boury tracing the routes on tracks he knows well and a local company backing the idea of showing off the area through outdoor events. In a few editions it has grown from a first test of the tracks around Mauzé-Thouarsais into a regional reference, and in 2026 it hosted the French national gravel championships.

The home ground is the Thouarsais plain: long, straight, well-kept tracks, often with a strip of grass down the middle, that make for fast, open riding. The rides are drawn to show off the area's heritage, passing the châteaux of Oiron, Thouars and La Roche-Faton and the abbey church of Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes, while the longest route crosses the whole department, from the plains through the bocage and the granite country of the Gâtine to the Marais poitevin, before returning to the château in Thouars.

Pink runs through everything, from the smoke at the start to the arrows at every junction, and more than a hundred volunteers watch over the crossings. The weekend has a festival feel, with camping on site, a concert, a bar, a pasta party and a bike café in the village, and around a thousand people taking part across gravel, mountain-bike and walking outings. The racers get their fast day out, but the organisers put just as much care into the rides, and the food stops have earned a reputation for generosity.