Nice

A year ago Stuart and I had a weekend break in Nice.  A bit of November sunshine in order to get ready for a bleak winter.  We enjoyed the weekend so much we decided to do exactly the same this year!  However, we planned things a little better this year and chose a delightful hotel, Hotel Rivoli, just off Promenade Des Anglais which is located right opposite the bike hire shop!

However, not everything goes quite according to plan.  On the Thursday before we are due to fly, our amazing Autumn has translated into an amazing amount of Autumn wet leaves and Stuart comes off his bike and breaks a couple of fingers.   He is duly despatched to the minor injuries unit, bandaged up and our plans continue with some minor modifications.  One of which is that Stuart has to borrow my pink rain jacket.  We hadn't realised that his hand wouldn't fit through his rain jacket.  As he had brought a good quality rain jacket and I had brought a cheapy, my jacket was sacrificed!

Another change of plan was the type of bike that Stuart hired. Originally he was going to hire a road bike, but this had to be changed to a flat handle bar hybrid, so that he could operate the brakes!  I hired a carbon fibre road bike with DI2.  I was happy!

On the first day, we started with breakfast on the beach (as last year!). I think this could become a tradition!  However, this year although we had some lovely sunshine the temperature had dropped a few degrees.  I think I would plan to go slightly earlier next year to improve the chances of warmer weather!

We planned a really easy day to ensure Stuart was OK on his bike. Along mainly cycle paths and quiet roads from Nice to Cannes and back again.  The route is also flat as a pancake!  The only real difficulties are on the cycle paths close to Nice which become an obstacle course of roller bladers, dogs and pedestrians.  We were in no hurry, so this was not an issue.  A highlight of the journey was the coffee stop.  In Baie des Anges is a little cafe called Just Before.  Their coffee gourmand is so much more than coffee!

Day 2 we decide to head to Italy for lunch.  This coastal route is slightly hillier but so picturesque!

Our route takes us through Monaco, which we quickly realised last year is just full of rich shallow people, so we rode straight through.  Carefully avoiding said rich shallow people who don't seem to pay much attention to anything other than their own little worlds when driving their cars. Cyclists beware!

When we get to Menton, instead of going into one of the fancy tourist cafes on the beach, we stop at a little hole in the wall boulangerie,  just in sight of the border crossing.  Yesterday we were stung €8.40 for two tiny cups of tea. Today we had one of the finest apricot pastries ever and fresh coffee for €7.60.  Worth avoiding the tourist traps 

There are three tunnels just after crossing the Italian border, which have a reasonable shoulder to ride on, but I was still glad that I had brought decent lights for my bike.

Last year we made it as far as the tiny Italian village of Latte, where I was disappointed to find they did not serve Lattes!  This year we pushed on to Bordeghera, as we had read in Geraint Thomas's book that this village served the best coffee.  If you ever want a coffee recommendation ask a cyclist!

Once, we found a route that avoided the very busy road through the middle of Bordeghera we were pleased to be on a quaint pedestrianised sea front road.  Google maps did not direct us there because it is pedestrianised, but worth persevering to get onto this road.

We had a lovely lunch in a sea food cafe, followed by the famed marvellous coffee.

We had already planned to take the train back to Nice to avoid cycling into the setting sun, which makes visibility on the coast road very difficult.   On arrival in Nice we found that the train station drops us almost at the top of Rue Rivoli, making it a very easy ride back to the hotel.

Day 3 and we plan a shortish ride as we are catching a plane later in the day.  Today we decide to tackle a small climb, taking the road to the Observatory.  The views are beautiful, and the climb was very easy (although being overtaken by the postie, on his clunky old bike laden with parcels was a bit humiliating!

Next year I think we will attempt some bigger climbs, possibly Mont Chauve  and Col de Vence (a climb that has featured in the Tour de France).  Stuart looked like he was ready to give them a go this year, but fortunately we had to give it a miss or risk missing our plane!

Instead we headed off to the delightful Villefranche for a relaxing lunch, but only after a few wrong turns meant we had to walk quite a way on a sea path to get to our proper destination.

On our way back into Nice we decided to explore the town a bit to see if we could find the beginning of the routes up to the Cols for next year.  What we did find was that Nice main town is very busy and full of crazy traffic and that we need to do some serious research before we go.

However, I am very much looking forward to our next trip which will be more Cols than coffee!!

Autumn Loveliness

This Autumn has been one of the finest in the UK that l can remember.  For all of October and most of November the days have been mainly sunny, hardly any rain and very little wind. 

This has meant that the Autumn colours have been gorgeous this year, but I have hardly any photos!  Obviously this is due to the cycling, but the most noteable occasion was when I joined the VCC Intros group for the first time.

The route was beautiful, the colours of the leaves at their peak, the sun was shining and the sky bright blue.  It was painful to cycle past all the gorgeousness without taking a single snap.  At the coffee stop at Wilstone I asked Bob, our run leader, if we could have a photo stop.  He looked perturbed, as if a Sunday morning cycle run is actually about cycling! Fortunately, he agreed to a group photo! Unfortunately, it was in the car park of the farm shop! You'll just have to trust me this was one of the prettiest days ever!

I had inadvertently ended up in the intros group this Sunday, because Bill was away and only two sociables had turned up for the ride.  I thoroughly enjoyed riding in the group and was quite happy with the speed on the flat, but as ever my speed up the hills is an issue.

I resolved to do some extra hill training, and have set myself the Pedley Hill Challenge.

Pedley Hill is a reasonable climb that I seem to take several minutes longer than others to climb.  I plan to regularly attempt this hill over the winter to see what % improvement I can make on the Pedley Hill Pedal segment.  My best time when I first considered this idea was just over 9 minutes.  I then threw myself up the hill (to the point of nearly vomiting) and set a baseline time of 8 mins 6 secs.   Over the next month I haven't managed to get anywhere near my baseline time, I wish I had left my baseline as 9 minutes.  Oh well!

As well as several other VCC rides I have been out on a few Saturday mornings with some friends plus Stuart.  As the only male in the group I think Stuart rather enjoys his Saturday rides!