My favourite place to ride a bike is the French Alps – especially the Alpes Maritimes that drop down to the Med. One of my least-favourite places to be stuck in traffic, though, is the Riviera – all that heat, all those brilliant roads just within reach. Thing is, once you’re off the bike, the old town of Nice is a pretty, well, nice place to be…

 

Plus Nice is not only a place from which to get the ferry to Corsica but also handy for the southern ends of both the Route des Grandes Alpes (at Menton) and Route Napoleon (at Cagnes sur Mer). So I’ve put a bit of hard thinking into how to get a great ride around there, getting out of the city quickly, without simply repeating either of those great roads.

 

Though when I say “hard thinking”, to be honest I knew exactly the roads I wanted to use – I’ve been riding them for more more than 20 years. I was shown some of them when I did the Cento Passi (100 Passes) Rally in 2004; others I found the following year when I came back to explore on my own. A huge landslide a few years ago closed one of the roads but it's finally open again, though some hardcore roadworks are still going on.

 

The route’s just been tested by a customer on his way to Corsica, who had a day to kill before his ferry. The verdict: “a great day out... quieter and wilder than the Route des Grandes Alpes”. This is the unseen side of the Alpes Maritimes – and I love it. I’m sure you will too.