Nice bright sunshine in the morning. We’re actually able to start the day without 5 layers of riding clothes. Now if we can just find our way out of St. Etienne…..
The plan was to have (a sort of) a leisurely ride into Nice, if that’s possible. However, we all decide to ride to Menton instead, pack the bikes on top of the van there and drive to Nice. Menton is muuuuuch smaller than Nice and probably much easier to navigate on a bicycle.
There’s one catch (isn’t there always?!?). The route to Nice is basically down hill along the Tinee river. However, the route to Menton entails two climbs. Since no one has reconnoitered the route, no one has any idea what the roads and climbs are like.
Since this is our last day and we believe the route to be rather easy, I declare this to be ‘large-chainring day.’ No wimps today — grind out those hills! Hmmm. Maybe I spoke too soon… Dick sags in the morning and Robin takes over in the afternoon.
The day was gorgeous — sunny, light wind, rather warm and traffic was light (until Menton, anyway). The two climbs for the day are la Colmiane and Col de Turini. La Colmiane is a big mountain bike and hiking area. It was teaming with kids ‘doin’ the trails’ the day we cycled through it. A popular destination is Col de St. Martin which is really only accessible by mountain bike and hiking trails. We decided not to bike to the top.
As usual, the road was windy and narrow. Don’t look down or over what guardrail existed!
Here are Terry, Robin and Russ at la Colmiane. Boy those clouds in the background look bad. We take off before the rain starts.
And here comes Dave not far behind.
What’s an easy climb with an easy descent?!? Climbing is for wimps, descending makes men of cyclists……
We had lunch at Roquebilliere, another little mountain town. The clouds keep coming and they look bad, and we head out before the rain starts falling.
The last climb of the trip! The route to Col de Turini, according to the map, is 15 km and 1100 m of elevation rise for a 7.3% grade. Bulls***. I think this climb was tougher than Alpe-d’Huez. I had to stop once and my heart rate was always straddling 170. At least on Alpe-d’Huez I could get my heart rate in the 150s for a short bit throughout the climb. Not here…. But I made it. Terry was about 5 minutes behind me. Here we are just about to descend to Sospel.
And Dick and Dave arrive at Col de Turini.
On the way down to Sospel, the route took us by an awesome ancient church, St. Sebastien, just outside of Moulinet. I looked for its historical significance on Google, but I didn’t find anything in English. Bummer. It was quite a site. Here you can see the church in the right center of the photo (boy those clouds look bad).
Hang on Dick!
Ahhh that tastes good! The gang at Sospel relaxing before final push to Menton. Terry and I started down Col de Turini together, but he beat me by 8 minutes to the bottom. I received the Capt. Bad Descender award for the day. My shoulders and back are quite sore from hanging on to the handlebars going 60 kph down these hills.
Dave and Dick about an hour behind us. The clouds still hang around us, so we take off for Menton.
We have one more small hill to climb before descending to Menton. But we’re driven! And there it is! Navigating Menton on bikes on a Saturday evening was a bit tricky, but we found the beach and Robin was able to find a parking spot for the van about 2 km away. We all gather for hugs and kisses and high fives.
Of course, we all need to dip our front wheels into the Mediterranean. Here’s Russ:
And Dave:
And Robin:
And Terry:
And Dick. “Now, what do I do?!”
Ah, yes, that’s it!
We did it! The sun was setting so we packed up the bikes and took the autoroute to Nice. We didn’t have tooo much of a problem finding the hotel. That evening was quite a feast. My wife, Sheila, made it to Nice earlier that day and joined in the festivities. She was to arrive in Nice on Friday, but missed her connecting flight at Gatwick Airport due to a late departure from Minneapolis. Oh, well.
We ate and drank well into the night. I’m pretty sure everyone lost more than a few pounds (sorry, kilograms) of weight during the week. We all agreed that Dave is the best trip organizer and toasted him many times that evening.
And the rain held off for the day……
End of day 7. Statistics (for the day):
- Start: St. Etienne de Tinee
- End: Menton
- Distance: 132 km
- Climbs: la Colmiane and Col du Turini
- Total gain: 2500 m
Total trip statistics:
- Start: Geneva
- End: Menton
- Distance: 610 km
- Total gain: 13684 m
(Thanks to Dick for the following image.)
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