Freight forwarding Clermont-Ferrand – Auvergne to Czech Republic

Four products, four ways to load

Clermont-Ferrand, the capital of the Auvergne, has been tied to rubber and tyre making for well over a century. Within an hour's drive you also find aluminium plate rolled for the aerospace industry near Issoire, the knife and cutlery workshops of Thiers, mineral water bottled from volcanic springs, and protected cheeses such as Saint-Nectaire, Cantal, Bleu d'Auvergne and Fourme d'Ambert. For a Czech buyer each of these is a different transport job:

• Tyres and rubber goods are bulky but light. Loose-stacked tyres fill a trailer better than palletised ones, but loading is manual and slow, so agree the time window on both ends. A high-volume trailer is often the best choice.
• Aluminium plate and sheet is the opposite: the trailer reaches its weight limit long before it is full. Dimensions, piece weight, surface protection and side or crane loading must be clear in advance.
• Cutlery and tools are compact and valuable, ideal for pallet groupage or an express van.
• Cheese and other food needs a reefer with temperature records; mention whether ripening cheese must be kept away from other odours.

Mineral water behaves like aluminium: heavy and low-value per pallet, so every tonne of payload counts. Grain and seed from the Limagne plain usually travel in bags on pallets or as bulk in suitable trailers, depending on what the receiver can unload.

Off the main corridor

Clermont is a genuine motorway hub where the A71 from Paris, the A89 between Bordeaux and Lyon and the A75 south across the Massif Central meet. It is not, however, on the main transit axis between France and Central Europe, so fewer empty trucks pass through than in Lyon. Booking a few days ahead helps, and combining an import with a Czech export load works even better: a truck that delivers Czech components to the Auvergne can be reloaded with tyres or aluminium for the return.

Czech goods heading to the region are mostly automotive and rubber-industry components, steel and metal semi-finished products, chemical raw materials, glass, packaging and machinery.

Route and transit time

Trucks usually take the A89 to Lyon, continue north via Bourg-en-Bresse and Besançon to Mulhouse, cross the Rhine onto the German A5 and run via Karlsruhe, Heilbronn and Nuremberg to the Waidhaus/Rozvadov crossing. An alternative leads via Moulins and Mâcon. The distance is roughly 1,250 km to Prague and about 1,450 km to Brno, so a full truck usually needs 2–3 working days at 600–700 km per driver per day. Groupage takes 4–6 working days.

French weekend bans for trucks over 7.5 t run from Saturday 22:00 to Sunday 22:00 plus holidays; Germany bans trucks on Sundays, holidays and summer Saturdays. Puy-de-Dôme is a mountain department, so in designated municipalities winter tyres or chains are compulsory from 1 November to 31 March, which matters mostly for collections at upland dairies and bottling plants. Tolls are included in the freight quote.

Loading tips for the Auvergne

• For tyres, give us piece count and sizes rather than just pallet numbers.
• For aluminium, send plate or bundle dimensions, piece weight and loading method.
• For cheese, state the temperature range.
• Rural suppliers often have no dock, so plan for a tail lift or side loading.

No customs duty applies between France and the Czech Republic; a CMR note with invoice or delivery note is enough, plus temperature records for chilled goods. More on French lanes is on our France transport page.