How to climb the Observatory hill in Meudon with a bike

Last updated: 13 March 2023

Working at the Paris Observatory in Meudon has is perks, considering its great canteen and fantastic view on the city of Paris. However, if you do not drive to work it takes quite some time to walk from whatever public transport station you use all the way to your office at the observatory, conveniently located at the very top of the hill in Meudon.

A possible enhancement to your commute can be to use a bike or an electric bike. You could of course bike all the way from home to work and back, but in case this is not an option for you (at least not permanently), below I list a couple of helpful items that can help you integrate a bike, rented or owned, electric or standard, into your commute.

Bike parking

No matter if you own a bike or rent it, one of the first problems to solve is whether you want to take it all the way home every day which means taking it on the train (Transilien N or RER C usually). The public transportation administration of the Paris region, Île de France mobilités (these are the guys from whom you get a pass Navigo), offers a pretty neat solution for this: locked bike parking spaces.

Of the train stations around the observatory, Gare de Meudon (N line) has a metal box with about two dozen spots for bikes. It is entirely enclosed and locked, only accessible with key cards.

The way this works is that you can sign up online to reserve a spot in this bike garage which is then permanently yours for the period of time you book. You can book it per day, month or year, where of course the yearly option makes the most sense for commuting. It costs a couple of euros per month on average - but the cool thing is that you can get the yearly parking entirely for free if you own a yearly subscription to the Parisian public transport system, a “pass Navigo annuel”. In this case, you still have to sign up online for your spot, but it comes at no cost at all. You gain immediate access to the bike parking as soon as your order is finalized and confirmed online.

This is already excellent to know if you use your personal bike and don’t want to take it on the train with you. But it is also a fantastic feature if you want to rent a bike, which I talk about in the next section.

For all info about these bike parkings, see here (they have an English version too, you can toggle it on the top right of the website):

Véligo – Des espaces sécurisés pour votre vélo

To sign up, go here: Souscription Parking Vélos

Renting a bike with Véligo

I commend everybody who uses a standard bike to get up to the observatory, but a slightly less sweaty alternative is to use an electric bike. These are expensive, but you have two options to reduce the cost:

• Buy an electric bike using some of the available subsidies (not covered here)
• Rent an electric bike from Véligo

What you might have already seen inside of Paris is a service called Vélib - this is not what I am talking about here. Vélib works on a pay-as-you-use basis. This means after collecting a bike, you have to return it to a station and you will be charged for the time the bike was in your possession (cost depending on the plan you are on).

With Véligo however, you literally rent the bike for several months. This means that once you collect it, you have to take care of it 24/7 until you return it.

The options range from a classic bike over an electric bike to cargo bikes with plenty of additional options like bicycle training, helmets and children seats, but I will focus on the electric bike option in the following.

When you want to rent an electric bike with Véligo, you can do so for a nominal fee of 40€ per month. Students pay half price (20€/month). You also get a 3€/month discount if you are signed up to the bike parking I talked about further above.

To start renting such a bike, you have to plan a couple of weeks ahead of time as electric bikes are not immediately available. Once you sign up through their website, choose your options and sign the payment order, it takes a minimum of 2-3 weeks for your bike to be ready to be picked up at your collection point of choice; sometimes even longer. Once the bike is ready you will be notified, then you can collect it and this is when the monthly payments kick in.

Véligo has extensive documentation on their website that explains the bikes, the pricing models and features of the program. One thing to keep in mind that this is not a service you can use for an infinitely long period of time. The idea behind it is to give people the opportunity to try out a day-to-day life with an electric bike and in the end, to incentivize them to buy their own. This is also why their website holds a collection of explanations on how to receive subsidies if you decide to buy your own electric bike.

With all of this, one option for your commute to the observatory is to get a pass Navigo annuel to get to Gare de Meudon, sign up for the free bike parking there due to your pass Navigo, and then rent a Véligo that you use between Gare de Meudon and your office. The batteries of such an electric bike comes off with the same key you are given for the lock, which means you can conveniently charge it wherever you want (you do not have to approach the whole bike to a power outlet).

What remains is a question of cost, but it turns out that you can claim part of these expenses through your employer, which I talk about in the next section.

Véligo website (also available in English):

Véligo - Location de vélo électrique à Paris et en Île-de-France

Employer contributions to bike rentals

As you will have likely already found out, French law mandates that the employer reimburses you at least 50% of your public transportation expenses if they are used for the commute to work. Some companies even contribute more than the required 50%. This means that at least 50% of your pass Navigo annuel will be covered if you choose to get one.

As of late 2022, this rule was amended to include bike rental fees - even on top of your Navigo pass! If your bike rental does not substitute the public transportation you would use otherwise and instead it connects you to your workplace after your last stop with public transportation, your employer is required to cover at least 50% of the bike rental cost as well. Bear in mind that you need to be able to show this, and a short walk of 200 m does probably not justify it - but the 1.1 km walk from Gare de Meudon to the Obervatory park entrance (and even more since you still have to walk to your office!) should normally be covered under this. Which means that if you are signed up for the free bike parking due to your Navigo pass, and even if you are not a student, you can lower your out-of-pocket monthly total costs for this setup to about 18.5€ per month: 40€/month for an electric bike, -3€ if you are signed up for the bike garage makes 37€/month, and 50% of that is 18.5€.

As always, please refer to the official government texts and your own HR department for any concrete guidelines and clarifications.

As a side note, making use of the situation I describe above does usually not qualify you for the end-of-year “sustainable mobility subsidy” (”forfait mobilités durables”, requested once a year, usually at the end of the year) your employer pays out. If you get your bike rental reimbursed at at least 50%, you cannot request the latter. This is different of course if you use a different arrangement, for example if you buy your own bike. Bottom line, the mandatory 50% reimbursement of a bike rental and the forfait mobilités durables seem to be mutually exclusive.

Summary

• Your employer pays at least 50% of your pass Navigo annuel if you use it for your commute
• The pass Navigo annuel gives you access to free, secured bike parking at Gare de Meudon
• A subscription to the bike parking gives you a 3€ discount on a Véligo
• If you use your bike rental to complement your commute, your employer might very well pay for at least 50% of that as well, on top of your pass Navigo.

Note how I only know about the bike parking at Gare de Meudon, which is where the N line stops. Bellevue, the other N stop in Meudon, does not seem to have such a facility at this time, and neither does the RER C station.

If you have found this site useful, you can always find me in my office 205-B of building 16 to drop me some coins for an after-work beer.