Bike rides - Les Olympistes

with Enlarge Your Paris

Saturday, July 13, 2024

As part of its À Vélo exhibition, and in partnership with the nature and culture media of Greater Paris, Enlarge Your Paris, the Pavillon de l'Arsenal invites visitors to discover the "Olympistes", an exceptional mobility scheme set up in the run-up to the Olympic Games in 2024. Curious cyclists will be able to discover these urban developments designed as much as connections between the Olympic venues as legacies of the Olympic Games to improve links between the communes of Greater Paris by promoting soft mobility.

Saint-Quentin en Yvelines, Saturday July 13
Distance: 64km | Difference in altitude: 580m. Start / Finish: Place de Catalogne (in front of Notre-Dame du Travail church). 9.30am - 4pm (Gravel / Confirmed cyclists). Return by train from Saint-Quentin (km 35) or Versailles-Chantiers (km 45) stations.

No bike loan. Please bring your own equipment.
Free, compulsory registration here (number of places limited)  

A route of great beauty, but more demanding. First you follow the TGV Atlantique's green corridor from Montparnasse to Verrières-le-Buisson, then up the upper Bièvre valley, whose unspoilt landscapes, so close to Paris, are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Most of the route is on unsurfaced tracks, sometimes simply dirt roads. After Buc, you discover a succession of splendid ponds, created in the 1960s, then enter the new town of Saint-Quentin en Yvelines through the beautiful Sources de la Bièvre park. Finally, we reach the Velodrome National, overlooking the immense Etang de Saint-Quentin, reservoir for the great waters of Versailles. After a well-deserved picnic, we head for Versailles via the Satory woods, then cross the Meudon forest before reaching Vanves and Montparnasse. 


PAST
The Olympic Marne to Vaires-Torcy, Saturday June 22
Distance: 56km | Elevation gain: 280m. Start / Finish: Place de la Bastille. 10am - 3pm
No bike loan. Please bring your own equipment.

An easy ride along the tranquil banks of the Marne to the nautical stadium at Lac de Vaires, where the rowing and canoeing events will take place. The outward journey takes in Lac Daumesnil and Charenton-le-Pont, before joining the south bank of the Marne at Joinville. On the return journey, you cross the Parc de la Haute-Île and follow the north bank of the Marne to Nogent, where you can see the Pavillon Baltard, a vestige of the Halles de Paris. We cross the Bois de Vincennes from Lac de Gravelle to Saint-Mandé, along the little Alphandian rivers, before entering Paris via the coulée verte René Dumont. 


Informations

"The Olympists"
The unprecedented scale of the Olympic Games represents a major transport challenge: 41 Olympic and 20 Paralympic venues in Paris and the Greater Paris area. 29 days of competition in total; 500,000 extra people per day on public transport (in addition to the 4 9 million daily users). To meet these challenges, Paris 2024 has chosen to give priority to public transport, and in particular to active modes of transport: walking and cycling. In the Île-de-France region, 100% of spectators are expected to travel by public transport, on foot or by bike. And in order to make the Paris 2024 Games the first all-cycling Games, existing cycling infrastructure has been extended, temporary parking spaces are planned, and self-service bike fleets have been increased.
With the exception of the Villepinte site, all the venues in the Paris region will be linked by continuous, safe cycle routes. This will be achieved thanks to the development of an Olympic cycling network of some 400 km, of which over 100 km were created for the Games and will remain as a legacy (some 30 km have been developed on a temporary basis). In total, Île-de-France's safe cycling network will reach 4,670 kilometers after the Olympic summer. To discover these "Olympians", the Ministry of Transport, Ile-de-France mobilité and Enlarge Your Paris, together with ODOS, are offering safe cycling tours to the Olympic venues, La Défense, Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, the banks of the Marne, the Stade de France and the banks of the Seine... from Parisian Olympic venues.
Bike rides organized with Enlarge Your Paris