Lozeret Wood, MTB circuit #15 (red)

Architecture and village

Embed this item to access it offline

This rather athletic circuit crosses the state forests of Mont Lozère and Le Goulet, the two emblematic massifs of the department.

4 points of interest

Paysage - © Brigitte Mathieu
Flora
Subalpine short-grass prairie
Marker 1
Like garden or sports pitches, short-grass prairies are shaped by mankind. Grazing and controlled burns are the tools for their maintenance here. The main plants are nard and fescue, perennial grasses related to wheat. If you cut (graze) one of their stalks, five more will soon form; if you trample them, they multiply and become very dense. This kind of “torture” creates a thick plant cover that stabilises the sparse dark soil, which is derived from erosion of the ever-present granite. Here, then, are some clues for the appropriate management of this environment, which becomes weakened if neglected.
Neyrac - nathalie.thomas
History
Mule trains
You are at a crossroads; one of the tracks is the former road from Mende to Villefort, which veers off the Route des Arvènes (the Régordane) at La Maloutière (as you leave Villefort). How many mule trains – convoys of at least six laden mules – passed here over the centuries, their bells ringing! The mule drivers passing in their caravans brought life to the village and gave Cubières a look of prosperity. The village road was very commercial, aligning inns and shops.
Le Rieutord - © Nathalie Thomas
Geology
The Rieutord
This brook is the Rieutord, which flows into the Altier, a tributary of the Chassezac. Amateur geologists will notice that you are here on the boundary between a limestone pocket on the right, schist (slate) on the right and granite at the summit. The three bedrocks determine the landscape and its vegetation. The limestone is a maritime memento from the Jurassic. The schist was formed in the heat of considerable depths and pushed to the surface by earthquakes during the Quaternary Period. The granite is former magma that made its way through the schist from deeper still to become the surface of Mont Lozère.
Cubières depuis le Causse - nathalie.thomas
History
Cubières
This village, which was founded long ago, owes its name (cubereis) to the copper that the Gallo-Romans mined here. In the Middle Ages, under the protection of the local lord, villagers had to mill flour and then bake their bread in the shared bread oven, which was the property of the Seigneur du Tournel. Whenever they did so, he received a tax called the ban. This feudal right was abolished during the French Revolution, and the oven simply became the village oven.

Description

Follow the MTB n°15 waymarks

Signposts will guide you all along this route, as well as yellow painted waymarks. In the description below, the signposted place names and/or directions are given in bold italics between quotation marks :

Starting-point at Col de Finiels, but departure from La station du Mont Lozère (D2) or Cubières (D3) also possible.

Starting from “Col de Finiels”, bike downhill to “Station du Mont Lozère”, D2, via “Sous le col de Finiels”, “Plan des Gours”, “La chapelle du Mont-Lozère”.

At “Station du Mont-Lozère”, continue to “Cubières” via “La Massola”, “Col Santel”, “Le Réservoir”.

At “Cubières”, D3, bike through the village following “Village” and continue to “Pelloufet” and turn right to “Bois du Mathieu”.

At “Bois du Mathieu”, climb to “Col de Finiels” via “Louzero de Broussoux”, “Ancienne Voie Romaine”.

This MTB circuit is taken from the guidebook Mont Lozère – Pays des sources, de la montagne du Goulet aux gorges du Bramont, published by the Pôle de pleine nature du Mont Lozère.

Departure : Col de Finiels
Arrival : Col de Finiels
Towns crossed : Mont Lozère et Goulet, Cubières, Cubiérettes, and Pont de Montvert - Sud Mont Lozère

Forecast

Altimetric profile

Recommandations

No off-roading. You are strongly encouraged to wear a helmet. Do not forget your repair kit and a small tool kit. Slow down in hamlets.

Is in the midst of the park

The national park is an unrestricted natural area but subjected to regulations which must be known by all visitors.

Information desks

Tourism'house and national Parc at Florac

Place de l'ancienne gare, N106, 48400 Florac-trois-rivières

https://www.cevennes-gorges-du-tarn.com info@cevennes-parcnational.fr 04 66 45 01 14

This office is part of the National Park's associated tourist-information network, whose mission is to provide information on, and raise awareness of, the sites and events as well as the rules that must be observed in the National Park's central zone.

On site: exhibitions, video projections, events and shop Open year-round

Find out more