Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Bike trip near Versailles

This weekend, we went on a bike trip from Paris to Trappes, in the Yvelines department about 30 km southwest of Paris.  The path took us through Meudon forest, Versailles, and the Saint Quentin pond.  I had done part of this trip several years ago, in 2006.  This was before I had the luxury of a GPS, and I'm pretty sure I got lost a few times back then.

Just before arriving in Trappes, we missed a "no bikes" sign (it actually had been removed, although the "no mopeds" sign was still there) and found ourselves on the N10: the Route Nationale 10.  This road is almost like a freeway.  In fact, the freeway A12 ends and merges into the N10 right where we entered the N10.  This was a bit scary, but we found an exit soon enough: a hole in the fence which separates the Saint Quentin pond park from this road.

Below is the 33km path we took on Saturday.  The roads varied from bike lanes in Paris, to small streets in the suburbs, to unpaved roads surrounded by trees in Meudon forest, to almost-freeway craziness, to scenic paths in the Saint Quentin pond park.

A bit tired on Sunday, we only did 23km: We biked from Trappes to Versailles, then took a break and visited the park and lake at Versailles.  We lucked out with beautiful weather.  It is starting to feel like summer already.  After relaxing in the grass for an hour or so, we took the RER train to Pont de Garigliano (southwest limit of Paris), and then biked to Avenue de France, where we rewarded ourselves with a nice Tex-Mex dinner.  Appropriate for a Cinco de Mayo, even though we happen to be in the losing country as far as that holiday goes.

Paris to Trappes by bicycle

We placed my camera on the handlebars of one bike, and set it to take a photo every five seconds throughout the trip.  The result is a few humorous shots as well as some time-lapse (and possibly headache-causing) videos.

Time-lapse videos


Time-lapse video of the trip out to Trappes on Saturday:
(The most interesting, or at least entertaining, part of this video just might be our lunch break.)


Time-lapse video of the return trip:

Photos

Here are a few photos from the trip.  More can be found in the gallery.
Checking my GPS in Meudon forest
BoD's view for several hours
Respect cyclists! And that means you.
Yay! Destination reached!
Whew! Made it!
More photos from this trip are in the gallery.

2 comments:

  1. Very nice :)

    Timelapse video is a bit fast indeed... maybe you should have made more photos by reducing the interval between photos... ;)

    Anyway, as I'm knowing most of the cities you went through it was really nice to see these two videos :)


    Are you preparing yourselves for the Tour de France ? It sure looks like you are :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, I might try doing a timelapse by capturing 2 frames / second, but on a shorter trip. A half hour trip like this would then be compressed to 2 or 2.5 minutes, depending on the frame rate of the final video.

      Glad you enjoyed seeing familiar sights :)

      Why stop at the Tour de France? We're preparing for the Tour de l'Espace. :)

      Delete