En France

I've been in Nice the last couple of weeks on holiday with the gf and since, unlike her, I get a little restless lying on the beach all day, I thought I would bring my bike along and do some riding. It was a bit of a hassle lugging my bike to and from the airport, but I'm so glad I did! The area around here has some of the most fantastic coastline, and it has been some of the nicest riding.

The ride up the coast to Monaco was absolutely awesome. It's only about 20 miles, but if you take the coastal road, you are travelling up and down these massive coastal cliffs that seem to start in Nice and run all the way through Monaco and beyond. So 20 miles of riding with towering cliffs on one side and the deep blue Med on the other, going up one cliff then straight down into a picture perfect coastal village, where you barely have time to count the number of mega yachts moored in the bay before you are through it and straight up the next cliff. I'm not much of a hill climber, but fuck it was good fun.

The ride down the coast was a bit more sedate, but still great. It was dead flat, fairly straight and absolutely filled with old roadies just asking to be burned off. I tried to stick to the coastal road again, but somehow managed to follow some roadie onto the motorway, the A8 I think. If I wasn't following him, I probably would have panicked a bit, but he seemed to know what he was doing and sure enough, they have a bike lane on the motorway! Viva la France! So the ride to Cannes and back was about 40 miles, but some of the smoothest, most carefree miles I've done in a while.

If anyone gets the chance to ride around this part of the world, I highly recommend it. It certainly made my trip.

fabulous!

sounds great. good for you.

there is a bit of a triathlon scene down there. so if you do a swim first and run after. there you go.

Nice part of the world that.
I wonder if you stopped in EZE half way between Nice and Monaco, stunning old town.
Oh! Slack chain cobber. ;)

I was down that way 2 weeks ago, lovely part of the world, though most of the residents resemble Peter Stringfellow, and Nice has more than a touch of Blackpool to it! Wished i had had my bike though.

Some muppet's left a bike in all your nice photos..

you mean Nice photos..

ahahhhhaa

Lovely, I did a couple of weeks tour out of Nice last year. As a recommendation, don't lug the bike from the airport, ride it. There's a nice wide cycle lane all the way into town along the sea front.

Oh man it looks awesome out there! I'm planning my route for my roadtrip in august.. got the maps and books out last night, 3 week and i'm off!

good one andy. looks unreal down there, weather's great! pics ruined by that shtty bike tho ;)

you're pretty lucky that you're allowed to go on a jolly whilst on holiday with the missus. i'd get my balls chopped off for such suggestion :S

sounds amazing. there's something dreadfully exciting about cycling in another country. bike bag ok? you need to perfect the cycling emo-shot whilst on the road. it's a staple of solo bike ride photography. see here for example:

good one lebowski, appetite whetting stuff

Lots of good roadie/touring type cycling there too. The Col du Turini is right outside town if you fancy some uphill, the Col de la Madone (Lance's practice hill) is just down the coast and San Remo is doable as a daytrip if you want to buy a knock-off Rolex...

(three of us rode to San Remo from Nice and in the time it took us to have a coffee and panini literally 7 different guys tried to sell us fake watches... Probably Darren's fault, they saw his Cervello and figured we actually had money).

top tip: it can be quite cold in February though :)

I used to be based in Antibes. Wasn't into road biking then so rode mostly CC - which was amazing round there. But on the roads, if you go geared and head inland it is, as pete says, mind blowing. I remember heading up behind San Remo once and being able to see snow on Corsica 70 miles away.

I was out driving down from a big col aways inland from there once. Nothing in my mirror for a long way. Few seconds later I was overtaken by an entire team, came around both sides of the car. Appeared out of nowhere. Turns out it was the old USPS team who were doing a training camp nearby. Nuts. Classic cycling country.

Nice pics and write up Andy, I was in Monaco a couple of years back with a geared road bike (before I had my fixed) and rode some of the stuff you did, coast road from Nice airport to Monaco is fantastic also did Turini, Madone and at one point rode into Italy and ended up on a main road to the coast with a long busy tunnel to go thru, luckily there was an old road which involved a bit of cyclocross at one point. I guess fixed would be pretty cool out there but hard work on some of the bigger hillsDSC01299.jpgDSC01306.jpgDSC01372.jpg

And yes that is a stupidly steep angle on the stem (now changed)

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at one point rode into Italy and ended up on a main road to the coast with a long busy tunnel to go thru, luckily there was an old road which involved a bit of cyclocross at one point.

Was that the road over from Sospel down to Ventimiglia, If so I did that road the other way. I kept having to scout a head to check we could get through but each time we met a opening in the tunnel we would see a roadie blasting by.