Paris · Rambouillet and Chevreuse Forest Double
A 192 km loop from Paris south-west exit
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Why this ride
Two forests, village bends and a proper escape without wasting the morning. A 192 km loop that starts and ends near Vélizy-Villacoublay, about 3 h 52 of riding. On the way it passes Chevreuse valley road, Rambouillet forest stop, Dampierre castle sight and Saint-Rémy.
Roadbook
- Paris south-west exit
start · 80 m
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.
- Chevreuse valley road
scenic · 105 m
The Chevreuse valley owes its fame partly to a duchess. Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse, was a leading figure in the plots and intrigues of seventeenth-century France, a friend and rival of cardinals and queens, who was exiled several times for her part in conspiracies against Richelieu and Mazarin. The town's name is forever linked with her, and above the roofs the ruins of the medieval castle, called the Château de la Madeleine, still stand on their rock, the remains of a fortress that guarded the valley for centuries.
The Yvette river runs through the town, a quiet stream with weirs and mill races, and the valley is lined with wooded slopes. At about a hundred metres above sea level, it is a green and sheltered trough, and the effect of being in a deep, quiet valley, only half an hour from Paris, is part of the charm. Chevreuse itself has about five thousand people, a pleasant main street, a few cafes and a market, and is an easy place to stop.
A little further east lies the abbey of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Magny-les-Hameaux, one of the great places of French religious and intellectual history. In the seventeenth century it was the centre of Jansenism, a strict Catholic movement that attracted thinkers such as Blaise Pascal and the playwright Jean Racine, and was bitterly opposed by Louis XIV, who had the abbey destroyed in 1710. The ruins and a museum on the site give a sense of the drama.
The roads of the valley are a joy, winding along the river and climbing over the plateau, with a surface that is mostly smooth and traffic that, outside peak hours, is light. This is among the favourite cycling areas of the Paris region, so expect riders at weekends, and take care on tight bends where visibility is limited. In autumn the leaves can make the road slippery, and on cold mornings frost lingers in the shade.
Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, a short way along, has more shops and a station, and fuel is available in the larger towns around. The smell of the valley, damp earth, leaf mould and woodsmoke, is a pleasure in itself.
- Rambouillet forest stop
forest · 160 m
Rambouillet forest is one of the great woods of the Île-de-France, around twenty thousand hectares of oak, hornbeam and pine that once belonged to the French crown and was kept as hunting ground. Deer and wild boar still live here, and in the quiet hours of the morning you may see them on the forest tracks. The land is gently rolling, with ponds in the hollows and sandy soil under the trees, and in spring the forest floor is carpeted with bluebells and the air smells of damp leaves. It is a favourite for walkers and horse riders, and a good place for a motorcyclist to slow down.
The town of Rambouillet, on the edge of the forest, has a château that has been a royal and presidential residence in turn. François I died there in 1547, and later Louis XVI bought the estate and built a model farm for merino sheep, which still exists as the Bergerie Nationale. Marie Antoinette was less impressed, calling the château a toad pond, but she later had a dairy built in the grounds and a charming little cottage lined with shells. Modern French presidents have used the château for official retreats, and the park, laid out in formal style with canals, is open to visitors.
The forest roads are a pleasure. Narrow, shaded and well surfaced, they run in long lines between trees and over small bridges, with only gentle bends and the occasional sandy patch on the verge. Speed limits are low and enforced, since walkers and cyclists share the space, and on warm weekends the car parks fill up. Fuel is easy in Rambouillet, a town of around twenty-seven thousand people, with several stations, supermarkets and bakeries. The market on Saturday morning is excellent and a good place to buy bread, cheese and fruit for a picnic.
Come in autumn if you can. The beech and oak turn gold and bronze, mushroom hunters appear along the tracks, and the light filters through the branches in long shafts. In summer, the shade is a relief. Park at a clearing, switch off the engine and listen. After a minute or two, the forest begins to speak, with birdsong, rustling leaves and the creak of branches.
- Dampierre castle sight
sight · 120 m
Dampierre sits in the soft green fold of the Chevreuse valley, and its château is one of the most elegant in the Île-de-France. The present building was rebuilt in the seventeenth century by Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the architect of Versailles, for the Duc de Luynes, and the family still owns it today after nearly four centuries. The pink brick and pale stone, the tall slate roofs and the long moat-like canals give it a calm, symmetrical look, and the formal gardens were designed by André Le Nôtre, who also laid out the gardens at Versailles. Inside, a salon was painted by Ingres, the nineteenth-century master of line, in a project that was left unfinished.
The village that surrounds the château is tiny, with just over a thousand people, a handsome main street and a parish church. Lévis-Saint-Nom, nearby, is a small village of similar charm. The whole area belongs to the Haute Vallée de Chevreuse regional park, created to protect the valley from the sprawl of Paris, and it shows. Meadows, woods and ponds fill the valley floor, and the hills on either side are covered in oak and beech. Horses graze in fields, and the roads between villages are lined with old stone walls and hedges.
For a motorcyclist, this is a lovely stretch of country. The valley roads are narrow and winding, with gentle bends, wooded sections and glimpses of water, and the traffic is light on weekdays. At weekends the roads fill with cyclists, walkers and families heading for the château, so keep your speed down and watch the blind corners. There are cafés and restaurants in the village, and in Chevreuse you can find a good bakery.
Check opening times if you plan to visit the château, since the interior is usually open on selected days and in the afternoon, and the grounds may have a separate ticket. Even if the doors are shut, the exterior is worth a walk along the canal, where the building reflects in the still water, and the geese are in charge.
- Saint-Rémy food stop
stop · 95 m
Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse is the sort of town you are glad to find after a morning in the forest. It lies on the river Yvette, in the heart of the valley, with a main street of bakeries, bistros and small shops, and it is big enough, with about eight thousand people, to feel lively, but small enough to keep a village rhythm. It is the last stop of the Paris RER B line, so on weekends the pavements fill with walkers and cyclists in hiking boots and Lycra, heading for the hills. The surrounding slopes are wooded and green, and the air has a pleasantly damp, earthy smell.
The valley has a serious history. A few kilometres away, in the hollow of Port-Royal-des-Champs, a community of nuns and scholars became a centre of Jansenism in the seventeenth century, a stern and intellectual current of Catholicism that clashed with the king, and the philosopher Blaise Pascal and the playwright Jean Racine both had ties to the place. Louis XIV had the abbey destroyed in 1710, and only ruins remain. Chevreuse, next door, has the ruins of a medieval castle on a hill above the town and a pleasant old centre of half-timbered houses.
As a food stop, Saint-Rémy is straightforward. The main street has a good number of cafés and restaurants with terraces, and bakeries sell sandwiches and pastries for a picnic. You will find a market here a couple of times a week, with local cheese, vegetables and bread. Fuel is available in town, with a station or two on the main road, and Chevreuse is close if you need more. Parking for bikes is easy near the centre, and the streets are calm enough to leave the machine and wander.
The roads in and out of the valley are among the best in the region for a gentle ride, winding through woods and meadows with small bridges and stone walls. They are busy on fine weekends, so an early start gives you the best of the quiet. Order something hot, sit outside if the sun is out, and watch the cyclists puff past.
- Back to Paris south-west exit
finish · 80 m
The route ends here after 192 km.