riding from charles de gaulle airport

I'm flying in to charles de gaulle airport and planning on riding from it to start my tour de france. Anyone ridden from the airport and what were their experiences. Planning on maybe heading towards Chantily and then heading down to Auvers-sur-Oise and then from there over to Vernon. Whats the traffic like on the outskirts of paris, most airports are right on the edge of the city so i'm hoping its quite.

 

I've traveled to CDG about 6 times in the past three years but haven't ridden into the city from there. The traffic is crazy and the north side of Paris is definitely not the nicer side. The area immediately near the airport is a wasteland of crappy hotels and concrete. Once you get near the stadium, it turns into socialist style housing and run-down neighborhoods. That said, I've found drivers in France, even Paris, much more respectful of cyclists than here in the US.

chris

 

Cheers BeeGuy, Yeah most airports are surrounded by wastlands. I'm hoping that if i head north away from the city it wont be too bad and find some nice D roads to start my journey.

 

The worst bit is getting out of the airport itself. I came though there last week for the first time and it was insane, a huge, sprawling tangle of interweaving roads, with taxis, buses, cars and trucks swerving across multiple lanes as they realise at the last minute they're about to miss their exit. It's bad enough in a car, and I'm a race car driver... I wouldn't go near the place with a bicycle. If I were you I'd get off the plane, out of the terminal, into a taxi and get it to take you a few miles out of town. You don't want your Tour de France to end the prologue in the hospital...

BeeGuy's right about drivers here in France being more respectful of cyclists, but as with so much here, Paris makes its own rules, and is totally unlike the rest of the country.