🛵 Seven rides
Ride guide
Round trips from the Promenade, with the parts the tourist maps leave out: the gate that shuts, the sand drift, the last ferry. Tap a ride for the route, a map and where to pick up.
6 km round trip40 min ridingThe White Town loop
An hour of mustard-yellow walls, bougainvillea and French street signs, done slowly and mostly in second gear.See route & map
28 km round trip1 hr 10 min ridingAuroville and the Matrimandir viewpoint
North up the ECR, left at Kottakuppam, and into red earth and canopy. The viewpoint passes are free but they run out.See route & map
16 km round trip35 min ridingParadise Beach by the Chunnambar backwater
Ride to the boat house, leave the scooter, take the ferry across the creek. The beach is only reachable by water.See route & map
12 km round trip30 min ridingSerenity Beach at sunrise
Twenty-five minutes up the coast for the only surf break near town, and breakfast at a shack that opens before the sun does.See route & map
8 km round trip45 min ridingThe Tamil quarter and Grand Bazaar
The other Puducherry, two streets west of the postcard one. Louder, older, and far better for lunch.See route & map
14 km round trip35 min ridingArikamedu and the Ariyankuppam river
A Roman trading post from two thousand years ago, a ruined Jesuit mission, and a river mouth with almost nobody at it.See route & map
200 km round trip4 hrs ridingUp the ECR to Mahabalipuram
The long one. A hundred kilometres each way of coast road, shore temples at the end, and back before dark if you leave early.See route & map