THE VIDEO: This is a bicycle riders-eye-view of a ride from Joinville-le-Pont to Paris via the Bois de Vincennes. You may notice that Paris seems especially quiet, that’s because it was filmed in late August 2024 during the ‘Olympic Winter’ which the city experienced. The city is usually quiet in August as locals head out on their vacations. Still, the Olympics had a profoundly negative effect on tourism that turned the city into something of a ghost town throughout much of the summer and the weeks leading up to the games.
THE ROUTE: The 13km (8 mi) ride starts to the east of Paris near Boulangerie Simon on Rue Diderot in Champigny-sur-Marne. From that point, we enter the town of Joinville-le-Pont and ride beside the Marne River before crossing the river and heading to the Bois de Vincennes. We exit the woods and briefly ride in the Saint-Mandé neighborhood before entering Paris by riding under the Boulevard Périphérique (Paris ring road). From here we pick up the Coulée verte, a park built on the path of the former Vincennes railway line. As we emerge from the tunnel on the Allée Vivaldi we’ll ride toward Place de la Bastille along Rue de Charenton. At the Place de la Bastille we’ll negotiate the difficult bike lane around the Colonne de Juillet (the large column) then head into Le Marais district along first Rue Saint-Antoine then Rue de Rivoli. We’ll eventually turn left onto Rue du Pont Louis-Philippe, toward our final destination; Le Peloton Café.