Teddy Riner's Paris Moment: Discover the City on a Paris Sidecar Tour
Paris has never been short of ambition. It gave the world revolutions, couture, existential philosophy and the conviction that a small coffee can justify a forty-minute discussion. Now it has another headline to digest: on 9 November, French judo champion Teddy Riner announced that he intends to run in the 2027 presidential election. France, naturally, has opinions. France has opinions about the opinions, too.
Google Trends' France seven-day Trending now view showed “teddy riner” among its active searches, at 500K+ searches, with “teddy riner president” among the related queries. That is a sizeable amount of curiosity for one man. It is also a reminder that Paris is never merely a backdrop. It is a stage, a debating room, a sporting arena and, occasionally, a rather expensive open-air theatre.
I am not going to turn a Paris sidecar tour into a political campaign analysis. I have neither a manifesto nor a suitably dramatic campaign soundtrack. What I do have is a way of discovering the city that makes more sense than trying to absorb it through a coach window.
Paris loves a big entrance
Riner's announcement is striking because it crosses worlds: elite sport and public life, personal ambition and national conversation. His sporting career has made him a familiar name well beyond judo. His presidential ambition is a new chapter, and the details of any campaign belong to the political debate, not to a sightseeing article.
But the reaction says something about France's relationship with Paris. The capital concentrates attention. A statement made here can become a national conversation before the coffee has cooled. Grand boulevards, public squares and monumental façades provide a permanent stage set. Even an ordinary Tuesday can look as though someone is about to announce a new republic, a new perfume or a new parking regulation.
Visitors often arrive with a similar sense of scale. They want the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre-Dame, Montmartre, the river, the perfect photograph and possibly a croissant that changes their understanding of civilisation. All perfectly reasonable ambitions. The difficulty is trying to fit an entire city into a checklist. Paris is not a box-ticking exercise; it is a very beautiful place that refuses to stay inside the boxes.
Forget the campaign bus. Take a sidecar.
At Wild Side Tour, I welcome visitors to Paris through private guided experiences on a Vespa Primavera or in a vintage Chang Jiang sidecar. The point is not to race through a list of monuments. It is to experience the capital at street level, with a guide who can connect the grand view to the smaller details around it: architecture, the changing atmosphere between neighbourhoods, the everyday theatre unfolding on the pavement and the stories that make a place feel like somewhere people actually live.
A private visit changes the conversation. You are not one voice in a large group trying to hear a sentence over a dozen phone cameras. You can ask questions, look more closely and let curiosity shape the experience. The sidecar brings its own unmistakable vintage character; the Vespa offers another classic way to move through the city. Neither is a magic portal, and Paris will still be Paris — including the occasional traffic light that appears to have been installed as a philosophical experiment.
The real Paris happens between the headlines
The most memorable parts of a city are not always the things that make the front page. They are often the transitions: a grand avenue giving way to a quieter street, a handsome façade hiding an ordinary daily routine, a square where several versions of Paris seem to be happening at once.
From a sidecar, the city arrives in chapters rather than isolated photographs. You notice how the scale changes, how the light catches stone, how a neighbourhood's mood can shift over a few streets. You are close enough to feel the movement of the city, but not so occupied with steering that every detail becomes a navigation problem. There is a certain luxury in being able to look up without immediately checking whether you are about to miss a turn.
That is one reason I like private tours. A visitor can arrive with a list of famous sights and leave with a better sense of how those sights belong to a living city. The monuments matter, of course. But so do the streets connecting them, the rhythm of local life and the little surprises that never make it onto the first page of a guidebook.
Vespa or sidecar: choose your kind of Paris story
For another look at the details that are easy to miss when the day is spent chasing famous silhouettes, read “The Paris You Almost Miss: Discover the City by Vintage Sidecar”. It is a useful reminder that the best discoveries are not always wearing a giant neon arrow.
The sidecar has a wonderfully theatrical presence. It makes an entrance without requiring a brass band, and it gives the passenger a distinctive seat from which to watch Paris unfold. The Vespa is a different proposition: a classic scooter experience that keeps the city close and makes the journey part of the pleasure.
There is no need to pretend one is universally better. The right choice depends on the experience you want. Some visitors are drawn to the character of a vintage sidecar; others prefer the feel of discovering Paris on a Vespa. Both are private Wild Side Tour experiences, built around seeing the city with a guide rather than simply passing its monuments at speed. You can browse the experiences and decide which version of Paris sounds most like your kind of adventure.
And no, I cannot promise that a ride will settle your political opinions, improve the national mood or make you eligible for the Élysée. Those would be ridiculous promises. The useful ambition is smaller and much more enjoyable: to leave Paris having noticed more of it.
A campaign has a destination. A good Paris ride has curiosity.
Teddy Riner's announcement has given France a new subject to discuss. Whether his campaign changes the political landscape is a question for voters, journalists and the long French tradition of arguing passionately over lunch. My invitation is simpler: come and see the city that hosts all those conversations. Look beyond the postcard, notice the spaces between the landmarks and let a private guide give the streets a little more context. Paris is easier to love when you are not trying to conquer it before 5 p.m.
