Im going to St Tropez for a week at the end of June.
I’m driving so i’m putting the bike in too!

Staying with the “out”laws in the mountains just outside St Tropez itself……now the obvious question.

All the sites i look on seem to be advertising full week trips, or be miles away.
Any body ridden there?
I could just go alfresco riding, but i’d prefer to tag on a trip and be sure of some good riding in the day/two i get.

If you have the car I recommend you drive to the country side of nice, it’s about one hour driving and it’s wicked.
I know that clser to St tropez there is le massife des maures that is supposed to be very good.
Providing there is no fires, you can just buy a map and ride. There is no restriction on the trail in france outside the Parc naturels nationaux

Have a look here

it’s a site that lists all the waymarked routes in France. They’re generally pretty well signed. If you head up in to the mountains there is an excellent ride from Sospel. You can get details of the local ones at the Office du Tourisme for the area.

I’ve been going out to Cogolin with work, town just up from St Tropez. Last year I had a spare day and hired a road bike (a carbon Giant – where could you do that in the UK?) from the bike shop in Cogolin and pedalled around the hills up to Collobries – fantastic ride. But, the off-road riding looked great. When I went in the shop, I think a ‘Cycle Evasion’ shop a fella’ from Manchester was working as the mechanic and suggested that there are locals who meet and go out from the shop, off-road, if I was ever there over a weeeknd. If your french is good – which mine isn’t, might be worth trying them.

About a 20/30 min drive east along the coast at fjeus is where they hold the roc d’zur some good trails above the town there although they’re not waymarked.

2 years ago we stopped at a site near to a place called La Mole (by St Tropez private airport). The roads would be a cyclists dream in that area. I went into Coglin, small town with a supermarket and found a great bikeshop, owner was an ex tour rider who spoke 5 or 6 languages fluently-top fella. I asked about hiring a bike for the odd day as I had the familly with me and could literally escape for a few hours here and there. He asked for my passport and charged my 10 euros a day for a nearly new Meta 5, gave me a few maps and away I went. Offroad was stunning with huge mountainous areas etc…. I’m sure there would have been the opportunity to join a regular ride in that area.

Brilliant, start looking at the areas now.

I could just go and chance it………..but i’d rather have an idea of somewhere to head.

be careful about sheldona advice as you are not allowed on singletracks in l’Esterel

Last September I had some days riding in La Garde Freinet (a bit further up into the mountains from Cogolin). Some great tracks around there but everything started downhill hence it meant that at the end of a long ride you were always going to have to climb to get home. Also I was very happy to have my GPS with me as it was quite easy to get disoriented.

Some pretty dry rocky tracks around there as you’d imagine so don’t go for the skinny tyres…

In the morning you see all the ‘mature’ retired cyclists coming up the 10km climb on the lovely smooth main road from the valley around St Tropez.

dave360 from round here knows it quite well. He might be along in a min.

forget to mention you can drop a lmine to FMF they are from cogolin