HITTING THE HEIGHTS | THE MONTMARTRE VÉLO CLUB

Montmartre is perhaps the most romantic neighbourhood of the world’s most romantic city. It sits on a hill of the same name on Paris’s northern edge, commanding an unrivalled panoramic view of the Eiffel tower, Notre Dame and all the other attractions of the City of Lights.

Home to a famous community of bohemians and artists (and now tourists too), it also houses vineyards, Paris’s last functioning windmill and the white-domed basilica of Sacré-Coeur. During the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the steep cobbled streets will play host to the final circuit of the men’s and women’s road races.

When that comes around there will be a few local cyclists who will know the climbs better than most. The Montmartre Vélo Club was founded during the big lockdown of 2020. At that time in France, people were only allowed out to exercise within a kilometre radius of their house – which definitely presented a challenge for cyclists who wanted to keep fit!

It started with a small group of friends who lived in Montmartre, who previously had met every Saturday to ride out of town. Instead, they began to get together and loop up and down and around the historic roads of the neighbourhood – rue Blanche, rue Lepic, rue Azaïs – and spend their allotted hour of recreation in some semblance of normality.

Antoine Ricardou, was one of the first to call this informal gathering the ‘Montmartre Vélo Club’. Every time they passed a cyclist on the road, he’d ask him or her to join them. “We’d meet a bunch of guys,” Antoine says, “and we’d say to them, ‘See you next Saturday.’” And little by little it grew.

So Montmartre became a social space as well as a training ground. The streets were otherwise deserted, leaving plenty of space for the Montmartre Vélo Club to take shape. A place to make new friends. Riders all had nicknames – the ‘President’, the ‘Landlord’, the ‘Pilot’, the ‘Swiss’ – and it wasn’t all about sport: group discussions might range over cultural or political subjects, and not only the last Strava KOM.

The club became ‘renowned for its good spirit and frank camaraderie’ – or so its motto tells us. The good vibes and the camaraderie are real, but watch your back: MVC members are likely to turn on the afterburners on the hills.

These days, with life more or less back to normal, the club still meets on Saturday, starting off together to head out of town and finishing a little more spread out – although you’ll find many of them at the local bar Au Rêve for an après-beer. The biggest group rides out on the road, but there’s a gravel contingent too.

Each year it’s been possible, they head out on a training camp: Mallorca, Switzerland and, this year, the hilly Cévennes region in southern France. This year they’ll be wearing their new kit – bibs and jerseys designed and made in collaboration with Café du Cycliste.

If you see them on the streets of Paris, or further afield, give them a wave!

Picture credits : Luc Frey