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Amsterdam to Paris
I visited Europe for the first time in 2019. I didn’t want to leave without doing a multi-day bikepacking trip. I had loosely imagined riding from Amsterdam to Paris, but didn’t actually start planning until a week before departure. Triggered by a mid-winter slump in the southern hemisphere, my friend Ian from Melbourne decided to join the adventure. He landed on Thursday evening, and we set off that Saturday.
Bike
Bike
Day 1 — Amsterdam to Antwerp
The plan was to ride 550km over 3 days. We booked some Airbnbs for each night and that was all there was to it when it comes to planning – I put a lot of faith into Komoot because I did absolutely zero investigation on the route it generated for us 🙃.
Riding south to the border between Netherlands and Belgium was amazing, because dedicated bike lanes paved the entire way. Better yet, they have Under River Tunnel for bikes!
+1
We arrived at Antwerp around 4pm, checked into our Airbnb, then headed out to meet Nicolas, a long time insta friend who’s a local. He kindly showed us around his favourite stomping grounds in the old city of Antwerp, where we bonded over dinner & the finest belgium beers 💯🍻.
Bike
Day 2 — Antwerp to Saint Quentin
Ian and I departed for Saint Quentin on the second day. This was the longest leg of the trip, 235km. We were out the door at 6am on the dot, and decided to skip breakfast and head straight to Ghent (60km in) for a hearty meal instead.
The morning segments from Antwerp to Ghent was spectacular. We were early enough to ride through the lingering morning mist.
We rolled into Ghent around 10am and headed straight to a diner for breakfast. I picked up a bag of dates, bananas for the road, and took a short detour through the town center, before heading back on the road again.
130 km in, we arrived at Tournai. We started to think every European town is starting to look the same – Big church with a big square in front.
Trouée d’Arenberg
The Trouée d'Arenberg is infamous for being the first five-star cobbled sector in Paris-Roubaix. Our route coincidentally was quite close to it so we decided to take a little detour to check it out!
After pretending to be Peter Sagan racing on the cobbles of Arenberg, we pushed on to our destination of the day – Saint Quentin.
Bike
Day 3 — Saint Quentin to Paris
After the longest leg from the previous day, we decided to treat ourselves with a bit of snoozing in and began riding at 8am. We only had to cover 150 km, we thought it would be a piece of cake and we’d make it into Paris by early afternoon. Little did we know Komoot would surprise us with some sketchy sand paths that made us walk our bikes, which added 2 hours to our original schedule.
After breakfast, we set off for our final destination — Paris. Ian’s legs felt good that day, mine didn’t. But I was looking forward to a celebratory beer in Paris, so that kept me going.
Noyon
40 km in, we stopped by Noyon to get some food at Le Galway Pub, where we binged on buttery olives and a cheeky pint of IPA.
Senlis
105 km in, we started feeling peckish, so stopped at another pub in Senlis. Feeling boujee, we ordered some beef tartare and a sandwich! And of course, another pint.
After stuffing our face with food, we gave ourselves the biggest pat on the back thinking the last 50 km into Paris would be breezy. Oh boy were we wrong. Immediately after coming out of Senlis, we found ourselves riding into a forest. The roads gradually turned into gravel, then dirt, then sand… Before we knew it, we were somehow stuck in a middle of a forest, completely unridable. We had to walk our bikes out of that nightmare, onto a main road in order to get on our saddle again.
Parisian sunset
Once we were on the main roads, we raced against the clock to get to Paris, and fortunately at 8:30pm we made it into Saint Dennis just in time for the sunset! A friend of mine, Yin-Ho, kindly took us into his house for the night. He even prepared dinner for us and made us feel so welcomed in his place! 🙏 (Yin-Ho if you’re reading this, we appreciate you!)
