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I think doing it anytime is fine, there isn't an official event as such any more, but first Sunday in September there'll always be a bunch of people doing it un-offically. Which is also a good time of year to do it in terms of weather, accomodation, etc.
You'd miss a load of the best bits (Salt road, probably Little Peru, etc) by only doing the first bit. However Nice is horrible and Turin's great, so might be worth just jumping on a train back to Turin after finishing?
ad441
Looking to have a go at the route this year. Is everyone else quite strict on only doing this as the official event or has it progressed to a canonised route by now and doing it whenever is totally fine?
Going to be on off road drop bar bikes. Will look to sort out some 650b's based on the advice in this thread.
Alternatively: Turin looks and sounds like a cool place to spend some downtime after the ride. Is there potential for a 500km ish loop, so doing the first 250km of the route and then turning back through the mountains in almost reverse? or is that going to be rubbish, missing the best bits, etc...