I finally did this last week with some friends. It is awesome, period.
We rode the 2016 route James kindly shared. We did it at a manageable speed and definitely not with the intent of racing it, and took us 7.5 days. I think it's easily doable in 5, especially with cooler weather than we had.
Important bits are:
Wide tires (not particularly knobbly given a 50% is on tarmac)
Light setup (quite obvious)
Route understanding (climbs and gravel/tarmac sections locations)
Food and water can be found easily, with the longest stretches being 30/40k at most, 2L should be sufficient for most.
I do recommend to ride this with pelasure rather than racing it, as riding some sections at night will have you missing riveting views.
Any questions feel free to ask, I am still putting together thoughts and might share better insights as soon as I stop dreaming of being up there again.
Only downside, arriving in Nice has close to nothing to do with the vibe of the ride.
I finally did this last week with some friends. It is awesome, period.
We rode the 2016 route James kindly shared. We did it at a manageable speed and definitely not with the intent of racing it, and took us 7.5 days. I think it's easily doable in 5, especially with cooler weather than we had.
Important bits are:
Wide tires (not particularly knobbly given a 50% is on tarmac)
Light setup (quite obvious)
Route understanding (climbs and gravel/tarmac sections locations)
Food and water can be found easily, with the longest stretches being 30/40k at most, 2L should be sufficient for most.
I do recommend to ride this with pelasure rather than racing it, as riding some sections at night will have you missing riveting views.
Any questions feel free to ask, I am still putting together thoughts and might share better insights as soon as I stop dreaming of being up there again.
Only downside, arriving in Nice has close to nothing to do with the vibe of the ride.
Some pics