Laon Ridge and Aisne Valley
3 passes in 318 km, topping out at 1339 m
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Why this ride
A proper escape from Paris with roads worth waking up for. A 318 km loop that starts and ends near Paris, about 5 h 47 of riding. It goes by way of Crépy-en-Valois and Laon. It was put together for the scenery rather than the shortest line.
Roadbook
- Paris
start
It is a gift from the ruler of Egypt, about three thousand years old, and it was set up here in 1836 on the spot where the guillotine stood during the Revolution. Louis XVI was executed on this square in 1793, and so, in the Terror that followed, were over a thousand others. Now the square is a roundabout with fountains, ringed by traffic and framed by the Tuileries gardens on one side and the Madeleine church on the other. The banks of the Seine in this part of the city are UNESCO listed.
The honest advice for a rider is to treat Paris as a city to park in. The Périphérique ring road is fast, dense and unforgiving, and central Paris is a web of one-way streets, bus lanes, cobbles and tram lines. Paris also has a low-emission zone, so find out if your bike needs the Crit'Air sticker before you ride in, and look up the latest rules on parking. Motorcycle bays are common at the edges of the centre, and a garage near a metro line is the sanest option. Petrol stations are rare in the middle of the city, so fill up on the outskirts, in Levallois-Perret or Clichy, which are only a few kilometres away.
On foot, the area is easy. You can walk the Tuileries to the Louvre, cross the Pont de la Concorde to the Assemblée nationale, or head up the Rue Royale to the Madeleine and the smart shops of the Faubourg Saint-Honoré. The Champs-Élysées begins at the square's northwest corner and runs gently uphill to the Arc de Triomphe. Early morning, before the coaches arrive, gives you the best light on the stone and the fewest crowds.
If you want a break, take a coffee at a pavement cafe and watch the traffic rotate around the obelisk. Spring and autumn are the best seasons, with soft light and fewer tourists. The metro station at Concorde is a good way to move around if the bike stays in the garage.
- Crépy-en-Valois
fuel
Crépy-en-Valois was once the capital of the Valois, the old county whose name passed to a whole dynasty of French kings. Today it is a busy market town of some fifteen thousand people on the plateau north-east of Paris, a natural place to refuel before heading on to Laon and the Aisne valley.
The remains of the old castle house a museum of archery and the Valois, a reminder that archery companies were once important social institutions in this part of France, and some still exist. The old town has narrow streets, a few half-timbered and stone houses and the ruined church of Saint-Thomas, its unfinished façade standing on its own like a stage set. It is not a place that demands a long stop, but it rewards a short walk.
The countryside around Crépy is good riding country if you know where to look. To the north lies the Forest of Compiègne, to the east the Forest of Retz around Villers-Cotterêts, and between them a gently rolling landscape of wheat and beet fields, small valleys and villages built of pale stone. Villers-Cotterêts is where Alexandre Dumas was born, and it is also where King Francis I signed the ordinance of 1539 that made French, rather than Latin, the language of official documents. Morienval, a few kilometres from Crépy, has an abbey church with some of the earliest Gothic rib vaults in France, tucked away in a quiet village.
Roads here are generally quiet D-roads, smooth and well signed, with long, open straights across the plateau and more interesting stretches where they drop into valleys and wind through woods. Wind can be a factor on the exposed parts, and the long straights invite speed, but speed cameras are common in this part of France. Crépy has fuel, supermarkets and bakeries in good supply, so fill up, grab something to eat and enjoy the run north towards the Aisne.
- Laon
food
You see Laon long before you reach it. The town sits on a long, narrow ridge that rises abruptly from the flat plains of Picardy and Champagne, and the five towers of its cathedral stand on top like a crown. Approaching from any direction, the silhouette grows and grows, and it is one of the great arrivals in northern France.
The upper town, enclosed by medieval walls, is a world of its own. Laon was a royal seat under the late Carolingian kings, and the cathedral of Notre-Dame, built in the second half of the twelfth century, is one of the early masterpieces of Gothic architecture. Look up at the towers and you will see stone oxen peering out from the tops, a tribute, legend says, to the animals that hauled the building materials up the hill. The streets around the cathedral are full of old houses, small squares and views over the plains, and walking the ramparts at dusk is pure pleasure.
The climb to the upper town is fun in itself, with several roads winding up the steep slopes in a series of bends. They are short, but they give a sense of drama to the arrival. Once at the top, parking is usually easy, and there are cafés and restaurants around the cathedral and the town hall. The lower town, spread around the base of the hill, has the supermarkets and fuel stations.
South of Laon lies the Chemin des Dames, a ridge road that became one of the bloodiest sectors of the Western Front, above all during the failed French offensive of April 1917. Today it is a quiet road with memorials, cemeteries and the remains of underground quarries, and riding it is a sobering experience. Further south, the Aisne valley offers gentle, flowing roads through woods and farmland towards Soissons. Weather in this region can be changeable; even in summer, a grey day with low cloud can wrap the hill in mist, which is atmospheric, if a little damp.
- Paris finish