Vélizy-Villacoublay sits on a plateau south-west of Paris, 80 metres above sea level, and from the saddle it feels like a place that exists to be left. It is a business and aeronautics town: the military airfield at Villacoublay lies on one side, aircraft makers have their offices here, and a vast shopping centre brings visitors from a wide area. Over 21,000 people live in it, which means fuel, coffee and food are immediate, and no reason to carry more than a sandwich.
What matters is the direction you go. Head south-west and the road takes you quickly to Versailles, the royal forests and the green valleys beyond. The Rambouillet forest, a great stretch of oak and beech that Louis XIV hunted in and that presidents still use as a retreat, lies half an hour away, with long, quiet roads where the corners come in tidy sequence. A little east the Chevreuse valley opens, a regional natural park since the 1980s, with the ruins of the Port-Royal abbey and the château of Breteuil among its attractions, and a comfortable web of small lanes between villages.
Getting out is the challenge. The N118 and A86 block up on weekday mornings and Friday evenings, and the bridges and junctions near Vélizy can hold you for twenty minutes if you misjudge the hour. Leave before seven or after nine and the exit is easy. The plateau is windy, and early in the day you may find the grass beside the roads crusted with frost well into spring. When the sun comes up behind the planes at Villacoublay the light on the runway is lovely.
On the way back, the Forêt de Meudon and the road past the airfield offer a quieter alternative to the main routes. The ride this place begins and ends is a double loop through Rambouillet and Chevreuse, so you are likely to see this gate twice in a day: once at dawn with a full tank, once at dusk with a tired smile.