Georges-Valbon: Gravier du Ville
Paris, France · May 19, 2023
A short, friendly loop through the largest park in the Paris area, more than 400 hectares of woodlands, lakes, and waterfalls in the city's north. The riding here is mellow, mixed-surface fun rather than hard grinding, with maintained paths and pockets of singletrack weaving through it all. Reach it by the new cycling highway out of La Villette and treat the route as a suggestion to explore.
This is the gentlest ride in the guide and a fine choice for a gray day, a shorter outing, or a mellow spin with a friend. Georges-Valbon is the largest park in the Paris area, with more than 400 hectares of woodlands, lakes, and waterfalls tucked into the northern edge of the city, and there is enough singletrack threaded through it to keep a gravel rider grinning without ever feeling out of their depth.
Getting there is the only part that needs care. The most direct routing apps will happily send you through some of northern Paris's rougher neighborhoods, so skip that and take the new cycling highway that shoots north from La Villette instead. It is fast, separated, and drops you near the park gates without any urban stress, a far calmer start than wrestling with traffic across the northern suburbs.
Inside the gates, treat the line on your screen as inspiration rather than gospel. This is a maintained park rather than a wild forest, so the surfaces are controlled and the riding is best described as mixed-surface fun, the sort of thing the locals might call gravier du ville, or urban gravel. Point the bike down whatever track looks good, link the woodland paths to the lakeshore, and let an hour or two disappear. With sheep grazing in the meadows and the cranes of the city rising behind the trees, it is a curious blend of countryside and capital that rewards wandering far more than chasing a fixed line. This route is one of the picks from Barry Lachapelle's Paris gravel guide.
It is not the place to come for hard grinding, so leave the aggressive tires at home, since any gravel setup on 35 to 40 mm rubber will do nicely. The park rides well year-round, and being short and close to the city it makes an easy half-day even in marginal weather, a low-commitment option when a bigger forest ride is off the table. When the legs run low there is a cantina in the park that sells a decent baguette sandwich to head off a bonk, and everything tastes better when you are on the verge of one. Best of all, the whole loop runs door to door from central Paris by bike.
