Torino - Nice Rally

Excellent. I'm already counting the days before I set off on my ride down there (2 months today in fact)... looking forward to seeing the modified route. Thanks a lot

Not envious at all : ) PM / mssg via the TNR site if you've not seen the route files by then, will send them over. Plus I should have edited the cue notes by then.

Bit of an update. Got the re-routes done now, info via TNR website if of interest.

Tende switchbacks have re-opened to cyclists.

The damaged Roya valley is passable but has a 1-way traffic system, this from a local rider recently:

Along the road you have many parts that have been temporarily repaired
with gravel sections, not a problem for a TNR rider! The big problem
in this valley is that, between Saint-Dalmas and Fontan you have a 6
km long portion where traffic is one direction at a time.

At night and on week-ends, cars can go every hour between h00 to h15
from Saint-Dalmas to Fontan, and between h30 to 0h45 in the other
direction. On weekdays the road is blocked for works and only one
crossing at 12h00 downwards and 12h30 upwards is allowed from 07h00 to
17h00.

I don’t know how it will be in September but seen the numbers of parts
of the road that have to be repaired, it would be surprising if it was
different. Maybe one may consider taking the train in Tende, it’s free
all this summer (but there are not many unfortunately).

Riders would need to respect the roadworks and the instructions they find there at the time - it's about safety as much as the reputation of riders. It's a downhill section, on gravel at the moment before the road is fully repaired, and traffic that way is reduced so I doubt it'll be a problem to ride through that 6km section.

You might need to plan for the roadwork delay so you aren't late to Nice if you have a flight to catch.
There are shortcut routes included from this area and from the Col Turini and the cafes in La Brigue are really nice if you have some time to relax there. I sat in the small park by the church for breakfast the last 2 rally rides.

the cafes in La Brigue

Great memories..

So after not doing this last year (for a good reason), I start the TnR route on the 25th June. I've only done just shy of 1000km on the bike this year so what can go wrong? If anyone else will be in the area at that time let me know

is there a general concensus on whether this is better on mtb or gravel bike? Or does it not really matter.

I’m thinking about this for next year, was planning to ride my new “gravel” bike, takes up to a 50mm tyre.
How long does it usually take?

I rode it in 2018 on a gravel bike (on 47mm WTB Horizons), which felt like a good compromise, and I'd probably choose a gravel bike again. There's a lot of road miles and a LOT of climbing. Any smaller than a 40c tyre would have been tough going on some of the rougher gravel sectors. I'm sure a mtb with fast rolling tyres would get you round absolutely fine too though.

How long did it take you? Any other tips?

thanks for the reply! What sort of ratio did you?

Rode 5 days of the route earlier this year on a gravel bike with 44mm byways. Was perfectly fine other than one climb that I doubt I’d have done better on with an MTB.

I rode it in 2018 over 8 days on 47mm Byways on a gravel bike. I was glad of the extra volume on the rough descent from Col de Peas and on the Via de Salle. I found a gravel bike ideal. Gearing was 11-36 cassette and a 38/24 mtb chainset. I am not very fit so was glad of the gears for the 18,000 mt climbing on the route.

I did it a couple of months ago on a gravel bike with 650x47 Vittoria Terrenos, good compromise but if I went back with a free hand on bike choice I'd probably go for a rigid 29er with something between 2.4 & 2.6" tyres and take the hit on the road sections. Depends whether you are a better descender than me!

My gearing was a lazy (should have looked at the route harder) 50/34 x 11-36 and I have since replaced that with a GRX 46/30 so you can guess what I thought about my choice at the time!

Epic route though.

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I did it on rigid mtb with 2.1 tyres. Was a great choice for the rougher bits (via de sale, etc), less good for the road bits. Tyre choice is probably most important - wouldn't want to go narrower than 47.
Majority of people were doing it on gravel bikes but you'll be fine with either. Lowest gearing possible is main thing, there is a lot of steep climbing.
Think I took 8 days, most people did it in 6 or 7. But basically you want to take as long as you can get away with - the longer you have, the more opportunity for leisurely meals, etc. The route's flexible enough that you can adjust it as you go along depending on time limits. If I'd had more time I'd have detoured to Molini di Triora. Whatever you do don't miss Via di Sale.
Personally I'd sacrifice time in Nice for more time on the route - Nice (for me anyway) was horrible and overcrowded after being out in the mountains and was glad I only stopped there briefly before heading to the airport. On the other hand Turin is a nice place to spend time beforehand.
Would love to do it again - don't think I've met anyone that's done it who hasn't had an amazing time.

(have probably spammed my photos on here before, but if not - https://www.flickr.com/photos/adownie/albums/72157711147121713)

great photos! it looks amazing

Agree with the other answers here, I used a rigid 29er with WTB Nano 2.1s which was pretty ideal. Lots of gears and big fast tyres is the move.

I rode it with a friend and we were at the younger, less experienced end of the rider cohort but we both had an incredible time. I found we quickly settled into a routine of bumping into the same riders every day who were going at a similar pace. It was our first big bikepacking trip, but we'd done plenty of shorter Welsh/English trips before. It still remains my all time favourite trip and I'd love to ride it again someday. This has got me reminiscing, massive thought dump below:

Distance - 740km over 6.5 days riding (135km of which was gravel). 21k m of climbing for the week. The Via del Sale was my favourite stretch, though I'm not sure if the route still goes that way, there were some bad floods that washed away a lot of roads last year or the year before. We were both reasonably fit but had some long days in the saddle, 10-12hrs daily. Biggest day was ~130km with 3600m climbing.

Food - plentiful, delicious and good value. Didn't eat a single bad meal the whole trip. Italy was especially good. Figs! Keep an eye out for fig trees, they're everywhere and perfectly ripe in early September, so delicious!!

Water - I took 2 x 750ml bottles and didn't feel short at any point. Plenty of streams, village water fountains, and cafes to fill up at.

Camping - I think we had 3 ad hoc nights in campsites (joining other riders), 2 wild camps (easy to find, quiet spots right off the road in most places), and a night in a B&B after the one wet day. Took a tarp between us, with bivy bags and 0° rated down bags, nice and comfortable all week.

Trains - We flew to Turin at the start with hard case bike boxes and left them at the hostel we stayed in. At the end we rode a little further along the coast from Nice and got a train back to Turin from Ventimiglia, which was very straight forward and cheap. Well worth it to avoid to hassle of finding cardboard boxes to pack up your bike, which has been stressful on other trips. Having said that I don't know if the rules have changed a little and now exclude flying to the Rally?

Weather - largely warm in the days (20°+) but down towards freezing overnight, especially higher up. We had one day of rain and I was really glad of a jersey/fleece/insulated jacket/waterproof combo coming down a big descent into Demonte, hands got very cold without waterproof gloves!

Bike - I'd echo the comment about going for low gearing. I had an 11-40t cassette with a 38/22 manual shift double and was really glad of the full range. Glad I took spare brake pads too. I took a decent sized power bank for my phone, glad I did as the dyno hub didn't generate enough power to charge a phone crawling up climbs at 10km/hr. Navigation wasn't complex, we did it off a couple of phones with no Garmin, it largely consisted of pedalling up a col for 3 hours, whizzing down the other side then pedalling up the next for another 3 hours.

Agree with your comment about Nice, felt a bit jarring to descend to the noise and decadence of the Riviera after being in the mountains for a week. Turin was lovely though.

I believe Via de Sale, etc is all open again. At least to bikes.

All good advice.
I got lucky and barely any rain/bad weather, but riders who made it onto the Strada dell'Assietta the night before me got caught in snow. I did it the next day in sunshine (after staying at the particularly great Rifugio over the top of the Finestre).

Would echo not eating a bad meal on whole trip, EXCEPT Italians are rigid on mealtimes and if you turn up at the wrong time you will often not get fed. Some places also very firm on booking for meals, I think because they'd rather serve no food than bad food.

If/when I do it again I'd try for the leaving a bike box in Turin. You can buy a flimsy cardboard bike box at Nice airport easily, but it still wasn't a very fun experience. I think James was keen to make it a no-fly ride, but not sure this became official policy - partly just because it's so time consuming to get there any other way.

I pointlessly made a food collage for an article I wrote about it (which then didn't get used), should further inspiration be required.

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Just for info to help people, we got the train from London in case anyone is looking for alternative options to flying. It meant that (a) we didn't need to take a plane and (b) we were totally autonomous as we didn't need to get back to anywhere to collect our bike boxes or anything. The journey took about 11hrs on the way out and 9h30 on the way back including changing in Paris.

We interpreted the Eurostar bike dimensions (max 85cm) as an 85cm cube and basically fully-disassembled our bikes, strapped all the bits together, covered them in a Rinko bag (bin liners taped together would also be fine but there is a lot of carrying involved in getting on/off trains plus the Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon transfer in Paris) and carried them on as hand luggage.

It felt like a bit of a risk when we set off and we half expected to be denied boarding at St Pancras but it was ok. There is one bigger scanner which they direct you towards and you have to kind of get the bike to stand up in it. We made it work. In Paris on the way back it's no issue, the scanner was massive. 85cm is also the max the luggage racks can accommodate which I think is what drives the restriction.

This setup was also really handy for the TGV as there is really nowhere to put a bigger bag/suitcase/box, especially on the return to Paris where the train really filled up. We carried the Rinko bags with us all trip to re-use from Nice back to London. They roll up about the size & shape of a new skinny coke can.

I managed to fit a 58cm frame in this way so most people should be fine. Depends on geometry and appetite for reassembly but it didn't take long in the grand scheme of things.

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riders who made it onto the Strada dell'Assietta the night before me got caught in snow

I got caught in a hailstorm on the Agnel. Ended up spending the night up there... that's me sheltering with the guys on the Stone King Rally until their van came to get them and I defrosted enough to roll down about 1.5km to the refuge.

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I got caught in a hailstorm on the Agnel.

I remember it being so hot on the way up the Agnel that I stopped at every stream to soak my cap in cold water to stop myself overheating.

this is genius

the biggest cunts in this operation are eurostar, the rest in france (tgv/rer) arent jobsworths but just have design/congestion limits sometimes

i have this fairmean bag for TGV but really need to figure out Eurostar

I think @Klar has same rinko bag as you

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the rest in france (tgv/rer) arent jobsworths

I think you've just had positive outcomes. RER/TER etc are usually fine, but TGV is a pain in the arse at times and the jobsworth contingent are out in full.

Can definitely echo the sentiment about Nice beaing the least nice part of the ride. My memories of the ride end in Sainte-Agnès