Cormeilles to Verneuil-sur-Seine
I forget whether it had rained in the night or if there was just a heavy dew, but everything was damp outside as I emerged. I’d taken my laundry in the night before, so it was no more than a slightly wet saddle to contend with and there was breakfast first during which it’d probably dry – especially as it stood in the sun somewhat as I wheeled back around to the garden where the entrance to the main house and breakfast room were. A man I took to be the owner, somewhat older than me, offered juice, coffee, a selection of pastries, and some cheese to go with the fresh hunks of baguette. Simple, standard fare but perfect to start me off for first couple of hours riding of the day. His English was patchy but better than my French – and between those we managed some pleasantries and a description of my destination for the day: Paris, or at least the suburbs just this side of the city itself. He bade me “bon courage” as I slurped down the last of my coffee and kitted up to roll out. I really hoped the new sunscreen worked and give my face a chance to heal slowly.
Cormeilles – 07:49
Overnight, I’d studied two things: the weather (even more heat than yesterday); and the route (no real climbs, but 4 lumps to get over). Fortunately, the first of those was still some hours away. I rolled along still damp roads back up to town and out into open countryside. There was a light mist, but nothing troubling from a “being seen” point of view, and it was cool – so much so, I had a couple of layers on including a rain jacket. I was barely beyond the town sign before the other part kicked in, the first of the ramps of the day. In a way, I was thankful for it coming so soon. It warmed me up nicely and got the legs going, and not being especially steep or long, it didn’t put any strain into the knees either. Considering how little actual training I’d done, I was surprised how well my engine was working. My head, on the other hand, after a day of being cooked in the sun still wasn’t quite there. I was really hoping for some shade today to regroup a little on that front.
Once over the top of the hill, the riding became sublime – gliding with almost effortless speed across a mix of rural roads and lanes, all almost devoid of traffic. In what seemed like no time at all the first hour had passed and I was dropping down a delicious fast descent into the town of Pont-Authou. As it turned out though, this was just the amuse bouche. What my route study of last evening had not reminded of began just after I crossed the small river and headed down to the edge of what seemed like a small town park. I did not need the GPS beeping at me to tell me to turn right where the cycle path crossed the road – a vague memory of this section of route planning came back to me. A long section of “voie vertes” (car free, greenway, lay ahead). What I didn’t fully recall was just how long. In fact as I cruised along the mostly superb tarmac path, occasionally bouncing across tree roots which had broken it’s surface, I kept expecting it to end since the 2nd of those ramps must surely start soon.
It didn’t end though – it just kept going and going. Kilometre after kilometre of trail, dappled luscious green under an almost ever present canopy of trees. As well as peaceful, easy, riding, I’d also got my shade – at least for now. Except at times, I noticed it wasn’t quite as easy as the path seemed like it should be. Gradually, the reason dawned on me. This was the route of an old railway line. And railways don’t climb steep inclines, but they do go over hills. Very gradually, on shallow grades. Which was exactly what it dawned on me I was doing. This was the 2nd ramp of the day, but at steam engine scale not car scale. I was making good progress, but it was harder than it looked like it should be because I was pedalling gradually uphill the whole time. None of this bothered me of course, it fact it was both a revelation and relief when my brain figured it out. I was getting over that 2nd hump with no traffic, no sun, just delightful woodlands and surrounded by birdsong.
Le Neubourg – 10:20
I was only vaguely aware that what gradient there was had levelled out when the path cut through the middle of Le Neubourg. And I mean that quite literally. I was not ejected onto surface streets, which is the norm where cycle ways enter towns. This one went slap bang through the middle, avoiding traffic completely aside from a few crossings with the actual town streets. There were even a few of the old rail buildings left in place as it sliced across the town. I did take a short detour from the trail here though. I’d noted this town as a possible place for a quick refuel, and as I waited to cross one of the streets in the middle of town I spotted a promising looking sign for a café. Swinging quickly down the road it signposted led me into the car park of a garden centre but, more importantly, there was a coffee stand outside. I wasted no time grabbing coffee, a pastry, a juice, and water refills. With the heat building, they’d be essential, and I’m sure that if I hadn’t already shed them, this was where I ditched any remaining outer layers. It was just the kind of stop I love: modest, everyday, and unassuming – an simple bench in an unremarkable, but no unpretty, spot with great coffee and a superb slice of pie. Unusually for me, I went with the full trimmings of cream and caramel sauce on the coffee. It looked outrageous, and tasted even better.
Whilst sat finishing my treats I offered a little prayer to the cycling gods that the delightful riding continued. A wish that for some reason, they bestowed on me. In fact, the riding became flatter and faster – wherever the path was clear of other riders or walkers I dropped onto the tri bars and belted along, albeit with a steady cadence and little in the way of real effort. Across the higher terrain the path wasn’t quite as shaded as it had been rising up out of the wooded valley, but for the most part it still avoided full sun. Even across the open fields, there was a think flank of saplings that still provided some dappled shade. After riding through a tunnel of green for the last hour, it was actually quite pleasant to have a wider view to take in across the fields. The end of the trail came up quickly. Ducking under road bridges on the run into Evreux, the trail started to dip down rapidly toward the town. The cycle way left the line of the original rail track briefly and snaked around through wooded, urban parkland. It became much busier and care was needed to negotiate the miscellany of other riders, dog walkers, and pedestrians. Somewhere towards the bottom of the hill the path picked up the rail line again though, and ran out onto an impressive old, iron bridge, that traversed the rooftops of the town. I slowed down just at the start of the bridge whilst a large gaggle of school kinds sorted themselves across to one side of the path so I could ride by. Honestly, probably my #1 tip for riding trails in Europe (or anywhere really): get a good bell. Even then it took a couple of dings to cut through the loud babble of their chatter.
Sadly, this now really was the end of the lovely trail. Just beyond the bridge, the path arced right and joined a real, still active railyard. Presumably whatever this line had been was a branch of this more major line. The path ran alongside the existing tracks and sheds for a few meters before dropping down and ejecting me onto the surface streets of Evreux. Suddenly, with no shady trees, and the bare unforgiving tarmac and brick of the town, a wave of intense heat crashed over me. For a few seconds, riding along the first of the urban streets I felt light headed and a little nauseous. Oppressive, stifling, roasting? It was all of those and more. This was around the halfway point of the day and, I really should have been looking for somewhere to get a proper meal. But the sun scrambled my rational thinking and the heat drained away any appetite. I did at least have the foresight to eat a snack bar as I slogged down into the town, and then up the steep ramp back out again. For a short while I was on busy roads at tricky junctions, but as the hill began in earnest there was a cyclepath alongside. Narrow, with a crappy broken surface, but at least out of the cars as I slogged slowly up the incline. After passing what seemed to be some kind of college buildings, the route turned right onto a thankfully much quieter street. The gradient shallowed as the road straightened out through the last of the suburbs.
Once out of Evreux there was no more cycle path, but the rural roads beyond were mostly quiet and pleasant cycling – or they would have been, without the inescapable glare of the sun, and the heat. There was some comfort that, according to my count, there was really only 1 more ridge to get across now before Paris. Much less helpful though was the complete absence of any kind of shops or cafes. Honestly, the villages I passed through seemed for the most part to be ghost towns – deserted and almost complete dead. I barely saw another human as I wound through each little cluster of buildings. I wondered what it must be like to live in them – no shops, no cafes, not even a small Tabac. Modern shopping patterns and ways of living must have gutted them of the little bakeries and other establishments which surely must have been there at one time.
The town of Épieds marked the end of this stretch of flat countryside. And as the road began to dip down, there was a clear view of what lay ahead. Rolling downhill I was looking along a broad, flat river valley with a high escarpment across the other side. At some point along the road, I knew I’d be cutting across the valley bottom and up that ridge. The last fold in the landscape before reaching the last valley of the day – the valley of the River Seine. And as I gazed at it, I realised it wasn’t in fact that high either – even with the heat, I doubted it’d be a huge effort to overcome. Annoyingly though, I’d be doing it without extra fuel. Despite being a sizeable town, Garennes-sur-Eure had nowhere open for food. The little Tabac that was open did at least fill up my water bottles, and offer some helpful directions to a nearby town which did have somewhere open for food. But the directions came at me fast, and in a heavy accent, and seemed like they were not the direction I was going. At least I had water, and no shortage of snacks, so I could manage for now until I found something open. Glancing at my cue cards, the town of Bréval seemed hopeful – only another 10km or so, albeit almost all of those were uphill.
The valley floor was pleasantly cool, but too short. The ramps began as soon as I’d wound across the various courses of the river. I’m going to borrow a couple of snaps from google, and the hill profile at this point to illustrate what prolonged heat does to a riding day.
On any normal day, nothing about those 2 hill segments would be troubling. They rose maybe 100m out of the 180m or so of the total elevation out of the valley, and never ramped much above 10%. But in full sun, in the high 30s celsius, for the second day in a row, somewhat under fuelled and with lingering sunburn they weren’t an easy spin. Don’t get me wrong, I was still enjoying the riding and the scenery immensely, but I was also flagging more than a little.
The route took an impressive set of loops around the hillside town of Guainville. I did pause at a junction and looked up into the town to see if I could spot a shop. But I decided the extra uphill was unlikely to be worth it. So I freewheeled down the other half of the loop into the river valley below, before completing the last of the four loops up to start the last of the climb up to the ridge I’d seen from across the valley. Within 15 or 20 minutes, the hill was done and I rolled into Bréval.
Bréval – 13:50
Across a junction in the centre of town was an obviously open café. I didn’t even bother to look what the cuisine was, I would have eaten pretty anything at this stage – especially if it got me into some shade. It turned out to be a real mix of cuisines – pizza, some other Italian dishes, plus kebabs and a variety of Mediterranean cuisines. I wasn’t sure how my stomach would cope with anything as heavy as a burger or pasta, so I went with a vegetarian Falafel and chips. Washed down with a large coke, it was spot on. The annex I sat in wasn’t fully air conditioned, but it was a lot cooler than outside. It was a huge relief just to be out of the sun for a while, and it wasn’t easy to motivate myself back onto the bike. But with around 50km still to go, there was no escaping it.
The scenery was on the prettier end of “rural pastures” – small villages with old stone buildings, some of them ornate but mostly rustic and functional. The road followed some form of rail line – I guess rather inevitable heading in towards a large capital city. At some point across the many pastures, villages and lanes the landscape shifted subtley. Open farmland gave way to a different view – the wooded hills I could make out in the distance were beyond my destination for the day. They sat across the other side of the river I was heading towards, but couldn’t yet see down in the bottom of the valley. In fact, as the lanes continued to drop off the higher ground there were few, if any, real glimpses of the river or valley I was heading down into. Short rises, small woodlands, farm and village buildings masked anything more than a sense of where I was approaching. Which was a shame really, because the bottom of the valley itself was a complete anti-climax. After so many kilometres of lovely rural riding, I was ejected into a messy, noisy, hot urban sprawl. Nothing about it was picturesque or inviting – but I guess that is true of the outskirts of most large cities really. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise – but it was. At least I could console myself I was nearly at my destination for the day.
Had I looked more closely though, I’d have put that consoling thought on hold and reset my expectations. But I didn’t. Instead, as I zipped through housing estates, across busy, confusing junctions, and on cycle lanes along busy highways my thoughts were “at least I’ll be there soon“. But 30km of rough, urban cycling is anything but “soon”, especially in full summer heat. I did at least start to see something of the Seine, albeit in a distinctly industrialized zone after snaking around and under a spaghetti like jumble of highway overpasses, railways, and urban surface streets. On any other day, the D113 wouldn’t have been a bad road – especially if I’d fancied a bit of time trialling. It was straight, flat, and potentially fast. But a cycle lane separated from trucks only by a thin white line after the day of riding I had been enjoying just did not stack up really.
Seine river valley – 15:30
Thankfully my route mapping had other plans. With just under 20km remaining, the GPS beeped that I should turn left across the D113. But where? All I could see was a somewhat suspect looking sandy track with 2 very definite looking “no entry” signs. I decided these were probably just for cars, and took it anyway. It was sketchy gravel and sand, but rideable. If you try and follow the rest of my route on Google Maps, good luck! There is no street view of this part, which was suddenly not surprising as I started across it. Rutted, broken farm / service tracks led down to a trail along the banks of the Seine itself. In theory, according to OSM Cycle, this is the V33 cycle path. In practice, it went from rough double track to almost unrideable single track, which would have been tough even to walk along. It wasn’t especially scenic either, a tangled overgrown slither wedged between factory yards and the river. It was though, oddly enjoyable (except the parts past dodgy looking broken down vans which had a definite feel of drug dens to them). Ignoring those though, there were sections you had to ride so fast to make anyone smile and whoop out. Because every few yards was a sharp bump in the trail of maybe a meter or two high. I guessed each was covering a drain or pipe of some kind. The only way to ride them was to pick up enough momentum to get up the sheer side, but not so much you became airborne when it dropped off the other side. Honestly, on a mountain bike with no luggage to risk, I’d probably just have popped off those tops. But the undergrowth was way too thick to risk anything becoming detached – it would have been swallowed up in an instant.
After nearly an hour of bundu bashing along river banks and dodging around rail yards and industrial yards, the path suddenly opened out onto some civilization. An actual paved riverside path, with even a small chateau style building alongside. It suddenly felt like I was riding into the suburbs of a city. There was one final stretch on neat, gravel paths through parkland before the route turned away from the river and past playgrounds and rows of changing rooms for a lake area where people were swimming. I found myself riding out through the pay gates of the parkland and wondered if someone was going to ask to see my ticket, or charge me for being there. But none of the attendants so much as looked at me. Beyond, I rode out onto surface streets of Verneuil-sur-Seine – my destination for the day. After navigating a narrow bridge across a wide expanse of rail lines, there was just one short section of cobbles and a short ramp up before I stood right opposite where I was staying.
Verneuil-sur-Seine – 17:10
The Idées déco At Home turned out to be as much as a gem in real life as it had appeared to be during my research. Behind a large, heavy wooden door sat an interesting and eclectic mix of home furnishing shop, café, and B&B. The owner and her daughter were super friendly, immediately agreeing to me finding a safe spot under cover in the yard to store my bike, and pouring me a panache to take the edge of the heat and the day. As I sat they explained which of the various keys were for the main gate and the B&B annex, and how the self-serve breakfast worked. They also recommended a place for dinner: Sol Y Luna. The amazing many-course meal I ate there later was a highlight of the trip and, just like the B&B itself, crazily good value for somewhere on the outskirts of Paris. Nothing else I had found during my planning had come close to either of these for such friendly service and excellent hospitality. Needless to say, sleep came easily after the long hot day, the obligatory laundry, a wander into town for food, a large steak, and a couple of decent glasses of wine.
