It is a hard-working suburban landscape of tower blocks, tram lines, small houses with allotments and the grey sheen of a river that has seen a lot of traffic. La Défense's towers lift above the horizon to the south, and the Seine runs wide and sluggish, with barges and the occasional rower. It is not a place to linger, but for a morning ride it is a useful starting point, close to the motorway and the fast roads west.
The area has some surprises. Colombes is home to the old Olympic stadium Yves-du-Manoir, which hosted the 1924 Games, the ones in the film Chariots of Fire, and it was used again for hockey during the 2024 Games. Bezons, a town of nearly twenty-eight thousand, has its own tram link, the T2, which brings city people out to the riverbank, and the old Seine boating tradition of guinguettes, riverside dance halls, was strong along this stretch in the early twentieth century. A couple of Sunday cafés on the water still carry on that spirit.
Leaving this corner of Paris is easier than it sounds if you know your way. From Bezons, follow the Seine downstream, then take the roads over the bridge toward Montesson and Chatou, and you reach the forest of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and the open land of the Yvelines in half an hour. The ride's targets are the Lyons Forest in Normandy and the white chalk cliffs of the Seine valley, a long loop to the north-west that is well worth the early start. Fuel is plentiful here, at stations along the main roads and in the big supermarkets, so fill up before leaving, because the roads in the countryside beyond have fewer.
Weekday mornings are slow with commuter traffic, so aim to be out before seven, and on Sundays the streets are almost empty. The light at dawn on the Seine, when mist lies on the water and the first trams hum past, has a strange industrial beauty.