CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
The recorded total and the leg detail need reconciliation. Inspect the leg notes before using this record for timing or navigation. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
A one-way ride of 472 km, Versailles to Voisins-le-Bretonneux - roughly 7 h 45 in the saddle. On the way it passes Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends, Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay, Rambouillet forest loop and in Voisins-le-Bretonneux. near Tournan-en-Brie is the high point. Back roads rather than main roads, where the map allows.
Versailles is a place that rewards a rider who turns up early. The great château that Louis XIV built, and where French kings lived until 1789, sits at the end of three wide avenues whose scale was designed to impress, and the gilded gates and cobbled courtyard are unforgettable at dawn, before the coaches arrive. At 132 metres above sea level the town lies on a plateau west of Paris, and it makes an elegant starting point for a ride into the countryside.
Read the complete Versailles exit gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Versailles exit is where the day begins. Next is Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends.
Dampierre-en-Yvelines is dominated by a house that thinks it is bigger than the village, and it is right. The Château de Dampierre, built in the seventeenth century by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, for the Duke of Chevreuse, is a grand brick-and-stone palace set in a formal park with a long canal. It has belonged to the Luynes family ever since, and inside, one gallery contains murals painted by the great neoclassical artist Ingres, a rare example of his work on a domestic scale. The château is open for visits at certain times of year, and is worth a stop.
Read the complete Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends comes up 38 km in. Next is Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay.
The Vaux de Cernay is a quiet, rocky, wooded valley in the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse, and the abbey in its hollow is one of the prettiest ruins within an hour of Paris. A group of monks founded it in 1118, and in 1147 it joined the Cistercian order, the austere reformers who preferred remote valleys, running water and hard work. For centuries the abbey prospered, owning mills, fish ponds and forests, until the Revolution scattered the monks and the buildings fell into decay. Gothic arches, a ruined church and sections of cloister now stand among the trees, and ivy has crept over much of the stonework.
Read the complete Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
77 km in you reach Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay. Next is Rambouillet forest loop.
Rambouillet is the town where a king died and a president spends his summers. François I, the Renaissance monarch who brought Leonardo da Vinci to France, died in the château of Rambouillet in 1547, and the building, a mix of medieval towers and later wings, has been a royal and then presidential residence ever since. It is surrounded by a large park, partly formal and partly wild, and by one of the largest forests in the Paris region, over twenty thousand hectares of oak, beech and pine.
Read the complete Rambouillet forest loop write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Rambouillet forest loop, early in the day at 165 m. Next is Back to Versailles.
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Versailles exit gate write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Finish at Back to Versailles. That is the ride. Next is Vallée de l’Eure Easy Scenic.
Voisins-le-Bretonneux is part of Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, one of the new towns built around Paris from the 1970s onwards, and on first sight it is all office parks, roundabouts and housing estates. But it sits right on the edge of something much older and lovelier: the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse, a regional natural park of wooded valleys, streams, villages and châteaux just south of Versailles.
Read the complete Fuel stop in Voisins-le-Bretonneux write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Vallée de l’Eure Easy Scenic is the fuel stop for this leg. Next is Food stop near Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines.
Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines lies on the southern edge of the forest of Rambouillet, one of the largest forests in the Paris region, where the woods begin to give way to the wide, open fields of the Beauce. The village has an old church, a few streets of stone houses and the gentle air of a place where Parisians come for the weekend.
Read the complete Food stop near Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
A break here. Next is Scenic stretch near Nandy.
Nandy is a small town on the edge of the forest of Sénart, south-east of Paris, on the high ground above the Seine between Corbeil-Essonnes and Melun. From the edge of the plateau, you can look down on the river as it winds through its wide valley, with barges moving slowly along it and the wooded slopes rising on the far side.
Read the complete Scenic stretch near Nandy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Scenic stretch near Nandy, about halfway. Next is High point near Tournan-en-Brie.
Brie is a cheese before it is a place for most people, but the plateau east of Paris that gave the cheese its name is a real landscape: wide, flat and fertile, with huge fields of wheat and sugar beet, scattered farms with walled courtyards and patches of forest. Tournan-en-Brie is a small town on this plateau, with an old church and a railway station that links it to the capital, and it makes a practical stop on the edge of the countryside.
Read the complete High point near Tournan-en-Brie write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The high point of this section. Next is Paris / Île-de-France escapes return.
North of Senlis the Oise runs in a broad, flat-bottomed valley between two great forests, Halatte to the south and Compiègne to the north-east. This stop lies in that valley between Verberie and Pontpoint, a few kilometres upstream of Pont-Sainte-Maxence, where barges still push along the river and gravel pits have turned old meadows into chains of lakes.
Read the complete Near Pont-Sainte-Maxence, on the way back write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Paris / Île-de-France escapes return comes up 344 km in. Next is Photo stop in Blaincourt-lès-Précy.
The Oise valley north of Paris is a quiet, green corridor, and Blaincourt-lès-Précy is one of its villages, a cluster of houses and farms on the edge of the river plain. It is a place where the Paris region fades into the countryside of Picardy, with fields, woods and old stone villages, and it makes a peaceful stop on a ride through the valley.
Read the complete Photo stop in Blaincourt-lès-Précy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
383 km in you reach Photo stop in Blaincourt-lès-Précy. Next is Vallée de l’Eure Easy Scenic checkpoint 8.
Le Raincy is a small, leafy town on the eastern edge of Paris, a place of large villas, quiet streets and old trees, surrounded by much busier neighbours like Bondy and Montfermeil. It was once part of a vast estate belonging to the Orléans family, and when the land was divided in the nineteenth century, it was laid out as a residential park for the well-to-do. That gives it a calm, slightly old-fashioned feel that contrasts with the motorways a few kilometres away.
Read the complete Le Raincy write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
The route ends here after 459 km. Next is Back to Vallée de.
Planned in the 1960s and built over the following decades, it is a district of roundabouts, cycle paths, office parks and lakes, sitting on the plateau west of the Chevreuse valley, and the people who live here are mostly commuters to Paris and La Défense.
Read the complete Vallée de write-up.
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Back to Vallée de closes the day.
Versailles exit gate → Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends is 20 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Dampierre-en-Yvelines bends → Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay is 6 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay → Rambouillet forest loop is 13 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Rambouillet forest loop → Back to Versailles is 38 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Back to Versailles → Fuel stop in Voisins-le-Bretonneux is 11 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Fuel stop in Voisins-le-Bretonneux → Food stop near Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines is 36 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Food stop near Saint-Arnoult-en-Yvelines → Scenic stretch near Nandy is 66 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Scenic stretch near Nandy → High point near Tournan-en-Brie is 33 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
High point near Tournan-en-Brie → Near Pont-Sainte-Maxence, on the way back is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
Photo stop in Blaincourt-lès-Précy → Le Raincy is 54 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.