This Spring I went down to Alpes-Maritimes and stayed with my French mountain cycling club – Club des Cent Cols – in Gilette just some 20 km up the Var valley from the Nice airport. It was a gathering for a week, but I stayed some days extra at the end to be able to cover all the places of interest that I have not been too before in the area.

Late April must be the perfect time to visit this area, with good temperatures and a very green and nice landscape with flowers everywhere in full bloom. The really high mountain passes might only open first in May, but a few of them opened before I left, but I did not go there as I have been to them all before and I had other things left to see at lower altitudes.

One day it was raining all day and I anyway had a spoke break the evening before, so had to spend the day getting the wheel working fine again. The last day I only cycled up to Gilette in my travel clothes to have a coffee and some photos of the village. But for the 11 full days of cycling I made 2127.2 km (193.4 km/day) and 42196m up (3836m/day), which is probably a new record for the amount of days for me (or would at least have been if not interrupted by the rest day). It is easier to go longer when you stay at the same place than when trying to find a new place to stay at each night as on my Summer tours.