Just take a deep breath and pedal like 'fou'

By SIMON O'HAGAN

Here's some advice for tackling the Arc de Triomphe on a bicycle. Don't.

At three times the radius of Hyde Park Corner, and 10 times more undisciplined, the Place Charles de Gaulle, which has the Arc at its centre, is like the bottom of Niagara Falls, with cars instead of water. And the other thing you have to remember is that all the drivers are French.

When I stopped at the edge of the precipice and contemplated hurling myself in, I noticed something else. Traffic approaching the place wasn't stopping. If anyone was stopping, or at least slowing down, it was the vehicles already on it. I thought this quirk of the French highway code had disappeared around the time M Hulot was falling off his bike. But it lives on here, maybe in honour of this proudest of monuments to la gloire de la patrie. Cedez le passage? Forget it.

The prospect of being hit broadside, not to mention being mowed down from behind, helped to concentrate the mind. Then I realised what was required, and it worked. So this is my proper advice: treat the challenge as if it was a game of Trivial Pursuit. I don't mean that you should only try it after you've got drunk at a dinner party, though I can see the appeal of that. No. I mean you have to work your way forward segment by segment.

No fewer than 12 roads converge on the Place Charles de Gaulle. Traffic arrives at a fair old lick. So. Hug the kerb. Pause at every junction. And then move on. Not very heroic, and I've always taken the view that hesitancy is the enemy of safe cycling. But this is different - or at least for 364 days of the year it is.

In four weeks' time, central Paris will come to a halt in an annual ritual of homage to the world's greatest cyclists. The climax of the Tour de France sees tens of thousands of Parisians take to the streets, and the city thrown over to the 100 or so two-wheeled gods who have survived three weeks on the road in the ultimate bike race.

With this in mind, I wanted to see what cycling in Paris was really like. Like all London cyclists, I have learnt that you have to fight for the right to be out there among motorists. But France is cycling's spiritual home. Men like Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil, past winners of the Tour, are national heroes. Would this add up to a more conciliatory attitude to ordinary cyclists who dared to venture on to the streets of the capital?

On the basis of one morning spent exploring Paris, it would be glib to say "yes". But one thing was apparent: the extensive provision of bike lanes. That told its own story, and only showed up the ludicrousness of the minimal bike-lane provision in London. If Paris has a bike lane it does it properly - none of London's hopeless, almost apologetic 10-yard stretches. You can ride in a bike lane for hundreds of metres up the Rue de Rivoli, one of the great shopping thoroughfares.

That cycling is regarded as integral to French life was made clear in another way: the leading bike-hire centre was run by RATP, the Paris equivalent of London Transport. It does a standard-issue, gear-free, basic model, which in its vaguely retro way is not unstylish. Much more important, it is extremely comfortable.

Commercial traffic was much lighter, than London's. Huge lorries hardly featured. The horrible obstacle that is the London double-decker bus has no equivalent in Paris. Taxis weren't engaged in open warfare with anything on two wheels. The motorcycle courier, a species that has proliferated in London, was oddly absent from the streets of Paris. With the exception of landmarks such as the Arc de Triomphe or the Place de la Concorde, I'd say Paris was a much less stressful city for the cyclist than London. And it's a great place to cycle round for much more obvious reasons. It's flat, small, and is full of wonderful sights. You could "do" the whole thing in a couple of hours.

If it felt strange to be out on a bike in Paris on a weekday morning, that may be because there's a sense in France that everything has its time and place, whether it be meals, holidays, or other forms of recreation. The cyclists' time in Paris is at weekends, and again, as with so many other aspects of life, France's approach has been much more radical than Britain's.

Last year Paris introduced road closures on Sundays that kept out all but non-motorised traffic from a roughly two-mile stretch either side of the Seine, between Notre Dame on the Right Bank and the Eiffel Tower on the Left. Of course it's not just cyclists who take advantage. Skateboarders, roller-bladers and walkers are also out in force, which can be a pretty dangerous combination. Nobody seemed to mind, though, and the sense of freedom from the tyranny of the motor car was palpable. Can you imagine London doing something like that?

So, bonne route! And steer clear of the Arc de Triomphe.

- INDEPENDENT