Sportive

RCUK’s essential guide to road cycling in Nice

Want to visit the Côté d’Azur for your next cycling break? We don’t blame you...

As one of the most popular spots in Europe for pros to settle during the off season, as well as for training between racing, Nice and the surrounding area around on the Côté d’Azur offers great roads and a temperate climate around some of the most picture-postcard-perfect scenery in the whole of France.

Nearby Monaco is home during parts of the year to many pros, with Team Sky having a permanent base there that riders can use – and the surrounding area is perfect for accessing quiet training roads, steady yet challenging climbs and relaxed culture.

Nice is also the final destination of the prestigious Paris-Nice stage race – the race dubbed ‘The Race to the Sun’, even in March time, as northern Europe continues to shiver in the last throes of winter.

Nice is an ideal base for cyclists, whether you’re a pro or looking to book a weekend break (Pic: Sportograf)

Nice is one of the most beautiful and accessible cities for cyclists to visit. As a major city and tourist destination it offers easy access by air and all the amenities you’re likely to want or need, while offering a great mix of riding among the foothills of the Alps that skirt the area.

With smooth, well-kept coastal roads that serve tourists during holiday season, the place is ready-made to cater for cyclists, and as a base for access to the Maritimes-Alpes and Italy not far away, as well as the wider Côté d’Azur, you have free reign to explore this glamourous location.

What to find out more? Read on…

When should I go?

The Côté d’Azur is home to many pros, including Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas, and that’s because the weather is generally temperate all year round.

Average high temperatures of 13 degrees in January, and 27 degrees in July and August, with a relatively low number of rainfall days make it an ideal training ground throughout the year.

The summer is, of course, the height of the holiday season for the southern Mediterranean coast, but there’s good cycling weather to be had outside of the traditional high season, especially during the spring.

The Paris-Nice Challenge takes place in March, where temperatures average 15 degrees (Pic: ASO)

In March, temperatures are beginning to hit high averages of 15 degrees, while the sun is gathering strength. It’s around May when high averages hit 20 degrees (and often higher), making anywhere between March and June a great time to head to Nice, while the average temperatures stay in the high teens through October.

Nice is also home to one of the biggest week-long stages races in the world (Paris-Nice) when it arrives in March, making this a great opportunity to catch some early season WorldTour racing, with the added possibility of taking part in the Paris-Nice Challenge sportive.

Where should I base myself?

Nice

Staying in the city of Nice itself has an air of exclusivity about it. A port city that’s home to many rich and famous (ok, not as many as nearby tax haven Monaco, but there’s no getting away from the fact that it’s an exclusive location), its locale spreads from the beachfront on the Promenade des Anglais, up into the lower slopes of the hills of the Alpes-Maritimes region.

It’s packed with hotels – many four or five star – and boutique rental properties from which you can base yourself, as well as some more affordable apartments, with easy access to the city life Nice offers. You can choose to stick to the more tourist-friendly seafront, or stay in ‘Vieux Nice’ old town slightly inland of the coast, which is where you’ll find the majority of locals living their quieter everyday lifestyle.

As a tourist centre, there’s no shortage of facilities like restaurants and public transport links, while the city represents one of France’s picture postcard locations – especially the Bay of Angels seafront – and is kept clean and tidy year round.

Nice offers the opportunity to combine city life with access to spectacular cycling, but while it’s relatively laid back by urban standards, there is still traffic to contend with to get out to quieter roads, particularly in downtown Nice.

Wider area

No matter how relatively laid back city life can be, it’s not for everyone. You still have to contend with the traffic and ride out of the city if you want to head to quieter roads. However, there are many villages and towns surrounding Nice that offer the similar access to the same cycling roads around the area, including Villefranche-sur-Mer, Menton, Cannes and Antibes – even Monaco if you can afford it.

Each offers a different flavour of coastal life – Menton, for example, is a town with medieval roots, while Cannes offers glamour of a different kind with its links to the film industry.

With roads and views like these, it’s little wonder Nice is so popular with pro cyclists (Pic: Phil Gale/Cycle Cote d’Azur)

Alternatively, you may also want to think about staying in the small inland towns nestled in the hills, including Vence, Contes and Carros, which still provide relatively easy access to the famous Nice beachfront but also keep you out of the main hustle and bustle of city life when you go out on your rides.

How to get there

Flying to the Nice area is simple as it has its own airport that sits right on the coast. It’s widely served during the year. Direct flights from regional UK airports are less common in the holiday off-season, with stopovers in Brussels common, but once Easter holidays have kicked in more flights are generally available. You can fly direct from London year-round, however.

The location of Nice makes driving a long journey (approximately 14 hours from London), although if a road trip is your thing then it’s realistically possible to make this journey in two driving days. Alternatively, you might like to take the train. You’ll need to take the Eurostar to Paris Gare Du Nord, transfer to Gare De Lyon, then take an SNCF train south to Nice Ville for a total journey time of around nine and a half hours.

Note: if you choose the train option, ensure you’re happy with the travel arrangement for bikes that Eurostar and SNCF provide, as well as the need to arrange specific transfers across Paris.

Highlights

Col de la Madone

The Col de la Madone is one of the favoured training climbs of the local pros, thanks to its consistent gradient and swinging switchback turns that imitate those of the high alps further north. Infamously it was a test climb for Lance Armstrong as he benchmarked his condition before the Tour de France. Now it’s still used by the many pros who live in and around Nice to test their fitness.

These days the unofficial record is rumoured to be held by BMC’s Richie Porte in 29:40, but for us mere mortals it’s a climb that will take around an hour to complete. One of the great things about the climb is that it’s relatively quiet, with only the hillside village of Saint-Agnès on the road from the town of Menton.

It’s at this point you need to take care, making sure you make the sharp left turn rather than the right hander to the village itself(a mistake this rider made on an ascent!). Soon after, the steady gradient eases off to around 4-5 per cent for 1.5km, before kicking again at around eight per cent towards the finish. Other than that variation, it’s a consistent yet winding gem of a climb, with views back down into the valley facing the Mediterranean coast.

Vital statistics

Length: 13.1km
Average gradient: seven per cent
Elevation gain: 875m

Col d’Eze

Made famous by the Paris-Nice stage race, Col d’Eze was unfortunately closed off during our ride at the inaugural Paris-Nice Challenge in 2016 due to a rock fall, but it remains a popular pass in the region and one easily accessible from downtown Nice.

The main climb starts almost from the city centre as you join the M2564 road up into the hills. Romain Bardet currently holds the Strava KOM on this ascent in a time of 20:09 during the 2016 race, although times within 20 minutes have been recorded in the past by the likes of Bradley Wiggins and Richie Porte.

The annual Paris-Nice Challenge gives you the chance to ride an early-season sportive under (hopefully) spring sunshine. Combine the ride with a few days in Nice to make the most of the area (Pic: ASO)

It’s a climb of four parts, steadily undulating and bending all the way to the summit. You start at an average gradient of 8 per cent for the first three kilometres, easing off for the next two, before steadily increasing again to an average of five per cent. The top of the segment is a false flat drag to the finish, with the town of Èze situated just off the M2564 road.

If you choose, you can also ride the pass from the other direction via La Turbie for a different view, but there are plenty of options in these hills above the principality of Monaco that visit the towns of Cap-d’Ail, Beausoleil and Roquebrune-Cap-Martin.

Vital statistics

Length: 9.7km
Average gradient: five per cent
Elevation gain: 505m

Col de Braus

The Col de Braus is a spectacular road (pictured above) approximately 30km north of Nice. Starting from the town of L’Escarène, the road climbs for just under 10km at an average gradient of six per cent. You’ll find some steeper sections but, all things considered, it’s not a hugely tough climb by French mountain standards.

The most scenic section begins after about 5km, with a series of hairpins tightly layered on top of one another. At the top of the climb you’ll find a monument to René Vietto, winner of the Tour de France mountains classification in 1935.

From the summit you can also continue on to the Col de Turini, another stunning, hairpinned road which rises to 1,607m, making it one of the most popular Alpine climbs within a full day’s ride of Nice.

Vital statistics

Length: 9.6km
Average gradient: six per cent
Elevation gain: 622m

M6098 coast road

The coastal road between Nice and Menton along the Riviera is a beautiful ride, and one we’ve experienced ourselves when we visited in March 2016 to ride on the Mavic Cosmic Carbon SL C wheelsets.

The M6098 first skirts the Port of Nice, before heading around the coastal locales of Villefranche-sur-Mer and Beaulieu-sur-Mer with an optional loop on the Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat outcrop, Cap-d’Ail, into Monaco.

The M6098 coastal road is a stunning ride in its own right, and also offers great access to Nice and its surrounding areas (Pic: Mavic)

There you can ride parts of the Grand Prix circuit, then climb out towards Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, then onwards to Menton. The views are beautiful, and the roads smooth and quiet if you go in the off-season.

You can then choose to continue along the coastline towards and into Italy, loop back via the likes of the Col de la Madone or Col d’Èze passes, or simply have a coffee and pastry in medieval Menton and turn around back along the flat road for a 60km ride out.

Package or DIY trip?

There are two fundamental ways to get organised for your trip: package or DIY. Nice is a popular training destination, so you could use a tour operator or cycling holiday specialist, or you could tailor it yourself.

Of course a tour operator or trip specialist will take the hassle out of your booking, and generally they will look after you on arrival to Nice, from airport transfers to hotel bookings, routes and bike hire.

There are also options for all budgets, though keep in mind that booking through an operator could mean you are bound by the itinerary of the trip. A cycling specialist based in the region may offer more flexibility, and customisation to your package.

For the full tailored experience, however, the best bet is to arrange the visit to Nice yourself – hotels are plentiful, and you can use sites like AirBnB to find private lets too. Want to wake up in the morning, look at a map and pick out an area to explore? Then you’re better off on a DIY trip.

Be careful not to let the little extras mount up on a self-supported trip however – don’t forget to factor in insurance, transfers, food, spare kit and so on.

Preparation

The area around Nice is certainly hilly, and is part of the Maritimes-Alpes department. The climbs aren’t as vicious or long as those you’ll find in the major Alpine regions, but nevertheless you shouldn’t underestimate them.

The climbers among you may prefer a standard double 53-39t chainset or (more likely) semi-compact 52-36t chainset, but most riders will appreciate a compact 50-34t chainset paired to an 11-28t cassette.

If you know climbing really isn’t your strength, opting for a cassette with a 30 or 32-tooth sprocket (if your bike will accept it) will give you an extra gear or two when the gradient bites too hard.

A 50-34t chainset will be a sensible option for riders heading to Nice

That said, gearing will only get you so far. You must also be well-trained for the climbs and distances you’re going to be covering too. Make use of Strava or similar route-plotting tools to plan your rides and gauge the climbing you will be taking on.

Be realistic with your goals too – if you’re heading over for a winter training camp, you’re not going to be smashing Strava times and setting new PRs. Again, consider an extra sprocket if you’re at risk of overestimating your fitness. After all, having the appropriate gearing will make the trip all the more enjoyable and enable you to get the most out of your stay.

Finally, don’t forget your basic spares. We don’t want to teach you to suck eggs, but we all know how easy it is to forget the likes of spare tubes, tyre levers, a pump, CO2 canisters (airline restrictions-dependent), a puncture repair kit, versatile multi-tool, chain lube or a charger for an electric gruppo if you use one.

Did you know?

Historically, Nice has strong ties to nearby Italy. In 1860, Italy gave up its claim to the city in repayment to France for help in defeating Austria at its Alpine border – one of the forming factors in the creation of the ‘new’ Italy that we know today.

Events you might want to try

Paris-Nice Challenge – The Paris-Nice Challenge is run in March by the ASO, who also happen to organise the pro race it’s named after, and the Etape du Tour flagship sportive event too. That means organisation is second to almost none, and with the route taking in the final looped stage starting and finishing in Nice (the day before the pros), it’s easy logistically too. Check out our ride report of the inaugural running of the Challenge in 2016.

The Paris-Nice Challenge offers typically top-notch organisation from ASO (Pic: Sportograf)

Gran Fondo Gassin Golfe de Saint Tropez – Part of the Grand Trophèe series held around France, this April event starts in the famous port town of St. Tropez and finishes in Gassin. The long 162km route features seven categorised climbs, although the parcours profile indicates three others that are unmarked, for a total of 2,600m of climbing. There’s also a 132km mid-distance route, and a 62km short ride.