ALWAYS PUSHING
Brittany has always been a place apart in France. It’s not just the culture and language that differentiate it, nor the visual iconography of the stark black and white of the Gwenn-ha-du flag against the bright primary colours of the French Tricolour. It feels different. The rural plains of northern France and much of the south are bright, fertile, airy places; Brittany is granite barely coated with acidic soil, a region of standing stones, of wind and rain blowing in from the Atlantic, of green landscape and grey sky, of implacable locals and legends.
It’s not mountain country, though it feels like it. The highest point is only 385m above sea level. But the topography is particular. Millions of years of compression, folding and extrusion have given Brittany a series of ridges of granite and slate running east to west: there is no way to tackle this other than head on. Bretons are, by stereotype, obdurate. Maybe it’s less an ingrained trait than just a realistic way of doing something as simple as getting from A to B.
Audrey Cordon-Ragot, French national champion and road captain of the Trek-Segafredo team, is Bretonne born, bred and based. She’s raced all over
