Les Sentiers de grande randonnée préparent des pistes cyclables à travers toute la France — L’Officiel du cycle, 6 July 1957

“Les sentiers de grande randonnée préparent des pistes cyclables à travers toute la France”, L’Officiel du cycle, 6 July 1957, pages 5 and 23: how the Comité national des Sentiers de grande randonnée and volunteer clubs mark long-distance paths, some of them wide enough for cyclists. The headings are transcribed as printed; the text is summarized in Ebykr’s words, and the page images carry it in full.

— Page 1 —
Une initiative heureuse

Les sentiers de grande randonnée préparent des pistes cyclables à travers toute la France

(Voir suite page 23.)

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. The Comité national des Sentiers de grande randonnée is having volunteers mark out paths across France’s tourist country, waymarked to draw the tourist and the cyclo-pédestre walker-cyclist toward interesting regions; the article says the first footsteps mark a path, later ones will make it a track, and a network of paths is taking shape that could become usable by motorcycles (motocyclables). A sentier de grande randonnée is defined as a through route clear of the existing paths, running over long distances so that a whole region can be explored or interesting districts linked; unlike short walking paths that bring the excursionist back to the start, these long routes need a uniform, clear and easily followed waymarking so that they are not confused with local paths nearby. Open-air associations (rambling, camping) and youth movements wishing to help equip France with paths as volunteers submit their projects for the approval of the Comité national, proposing a person responsible for the work; this person, as directeur du Sentier, has a draft route drawn on a map at 1/200.000e (continued on page 23). The page repeats, nearly word for word, its definition of the long through routes in two successive paragraphs.]

[No illustration.]

— 5 —

— Page 2 —
Pistes cyclables

(Suite de la page 5.)

[Ebykr summary; the article’s text is not reproduced. (Continued from page 5.) The draft route covers the whole itinerary of the path; a project is then drawn on a map at 1/50.000e, with any larger-scale documents needed for clarity. The groups that take on the prospecting, building and upkeep of a path or a stretch of one commit themselves morally to finish the work and to look after the path afterward; they are fully autonomous but must follow the technical standards set by the Comité national. Their part is credited on the signboards at the start and end of the path, though not on the waymarking arrows along it, and the guides and publications about the path will also name the club or clubs that created it. The club responsible for a path receives all the moral and material help the Comité national can give: in principle the club supplies all the labor through its members’ periodic voluntary work, and in return the Comité national pays for the waymarking out of the funds it has raised as subsidies. The article closes on the value of these paths for the cyclist who goes camping: some are too narrow for cyclo-pédestre use, but others, 1 m to 1 m 50 wide, are quite passable for cyclists going in single file.]

[No illustration.]