Feeling strong? Don’t worry, a visit to Nice will soon kick some humility back into you. The area’s winning combination of mild winters, upscale Mediterranean living and the cycling equivalent of ski-in, ski-out access to the mountains has persuaded a good chunk of the WorldTour peloton to base themselves along this sparkling stretch of the Côte d’Azur.
If you somehow found yourself in possession of a Marauder’s Map-style plan of the city and its surrounding countryside, you’d see names such as Neilson Powless, Matteo Jorgensen and perhaps even Monaco-based Tadej Pogačar or Pauline Ferrand-Prévot floating around it on any given day. As a result, even the most prolific of amateur KoM hunters will find themselves catastrophically cowed by a post-ride Strava scroll.
Pro cyclist residents and the occasional visit from the Tour are far from Nice’s only links to the sport. Since 1933 the city has served as the spiritual and, most years, physical end point of Paris-Nice, connecting France’s first and second most-visited cities via a dramatic eight-day race.
The route takes the peloton from the cold, often wet conditions of Paris in early March to the welcome warmth of the Riviera, where the surrounding hills have traditionally provided an arena for deciding the race. There are plenty to choose from, but one climb in particular has become inseparable from Paris-Nice’s history.