The Franche-Comtenentale (Video)

After rewatching a documentary on the Transcontinental Race, Yann Moszynski and Matthieu Tober, founders of the French cycling community Les Rookies, had the great idea to do something similar, but across the French region of Franche-Comté, rather than the length of Europe. Les Rookies pride themselves in less performance-based cycling, which eventually inspired the name and lighthearted goal for their ride. Watch the full 10-minute video below, be sure to turn on the subtitles if you’re not a Francophone, and scroll down for some photos from their trip and an embedded map of the route they followed.

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“Athletes ride the Transcontinental. Les Rookies shall ride the Franche-Conténantale.”

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Words by Matthieu Berthault

The plan was to start from Epinal, at Khely’s workshop, the artisan who hand-made our bikes, for final adjustments and a few hours of riding with him on our first day. We were planning to finish in Annecy, spend the weekend with our good friend Yann Gobert, and enjoy a well-deserved swim in the pristine waters of Lake Annecy.

What happened in between? A heatwave, hike-a-bike, wild camping, savage gravel tracks, and breathtaking French landscapes. We planned the route on Komoot, setting up the journey in “MTB mode,” allowing us to dive deep into gorgeous forests and explore (very) exciting (and sometimes challenging) singletrack. Thankfully, our bums remained comfortably seated on our 700 x 45mm tubeless Hutchinson Touareg tires.

And on top of these exciting challenges, we carried four kilograms of photography and video equipment to make sure we could capture our smiles, tears, excitement, regrets, blood, and sweat in 6K resolution—to make it easy on the eyes… but not the calves.

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See more from Yann and Matthieu at LesRookies.com and on Instagram (@lesrookies).

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