Going in reverse, onto stage 2 ( 2nd last) a few issues with the downloaded route. Garmin shows route in red but a few parts of the route show up as clear between 2 lines on the Garmin . Trouble is when this happens turn distance is zero. The route I have may be wrong in parts as the issues are at blocked off and severely overgrown tight lanes/tracks. At least the hard section is over much better flowing tracks now . The Basque section has parts of the velo 3 ,Grande traverse of the Pyrenees VTT and the Tour of the Basque BTT with tough hike a bike sections.
Will see how things go as my other half said if the next section was bad it's going to be a change of cycling plan.

8 days on route, lots of rain on days 5,6 and7 so mud on tracks ,drying out now.
Not seen a bikepacker or mountainbiker on the route . Starting to see bike tracks (wide tyres) we are not far from Toulouse now.
Still seeing pilgrims heading SW to Compostela as we go NE. Campsites are few and far between but as the weather is mixed the hotels are good ( no problems when we show up with our muddy gear and bikes.) but that's France for you.
Glad the tough Southern hike a bike sections are over, hills are lower and more rounded now. Wonder what the Massif Centrale will be like if it's wet.

Think we are in gravel bike country now, survived all the hike a bike sections. Less as we travel north( descending them as we are going north) the south was tough only round Toulouse was good, as the trails were drying out .
Good sections after you reach the high points but lots of pushing up. This route is a mountain bike tyre one up to the Lot valley.

Long distance so bound too be variety .
Keep going and enjoy

Done feel any regrets about chucking the Divide at Tonnerre. Met 2 Dutch bikepackers at camping last night, 3 week tour in the Alps starting in Colmar. Weather was rubbish and decided lets take a train to Italy then back to France by train for gravel routes in the Champagne region . Said we gave it a go but decided to do roads instead of some French Divide on the way back home as it was a mudfest.Tjey are going to do roads and catch the Gravel Championships near Brussels.

That's us out of France,the weather was changeable and getting cooler. One plus is you don't get any of the stay off my land signs . The revolution did not put the landowning gentry and the fudal rules. It's saved all the old paths and tracks for the people to use for leisure today.

I received an email yesterday from the French Divide organisers - apparently next year's edition will be the last.

Are you going to do it next year?. I think that some of the gravel sections were planned from a map. Had a look on the heat map at some overgrown bits and can't see anyone on them. Think it needs a review as some of the tracks are washed out .
It's in a different league compared to other European XC/gravel/bike packing routesits an empty route and never seen anyone on the actual route alart from 10 or 12 mountain bikers doing a 5day trip using gites or camping chalets .
In Belgium now and see quite a few bikepackers now.

Unsure. We set off on the 3rd edition in 2018 but it got really, really hot (like 40C hot) and ended up scratching around Verdun.

I was chatting to one of the organisers at the first checkpoint. He noted that it "wasn't really a gravel bike ride". Certainly some of the descents were pretty full on but I suppose that for much of the route a gravel bike would be OK. Looking at the FD website the route from last year seems significantly different, at least in the northern section, it's well to the west of the route we did which crossed and recrossed the French/Belgium border.