Is there such a place? Signposted?

Also looking for some other sightseeing, shopping, eating, lazing nearby for the other half….

Dude, your way off track, try Saudi Arabia.

The hills above Monaco are supposed to be pretty cool, Nice is pretty good as well i’m told. Not been to ride, just heard stories.

Not a cheap endeavour to stay in Monaco tho…

I spent 3 months in Nice, looked hard in the local area and found nowt. There are big hills but the trails are either fire roads or steep hiking trails covered in baby-head rocks and not really rideable unless you’re in the push-up and plummet-down club. I actually stopped another rider on a fireroad once and asked him “where are the great trails”, he grinned back and said “this is it, great isn’t it!”. I thought there would be a trail-riding scene in Nice but didn’t find it.

As above there “ought” to be some good stuff to the E (N of Monaco), the terrain looks right but I didn’t take the bike. Basically look on the map for villages, ideally at different altitudes, where there will be longstanding trails between them.

I found some near Théoule-sur-Mer to the west, but it turned out the best trails were out of bounds in a National Park or reserved area of some sort. Still, had a couple of good rides with a German fella I bumped into.

Further afield, the Luberon is supposed to be a bit Moab-ish but I didn’t get there.

ps Nice is absolutely purgatory to get in and out of by car, you take your life in your hands. It’s an OK place to spend a few weeks but does wear out after a while.

Obviously “south of France” is a big area!

Take your road bike and go do Ventoux!

Yes, there’s great trails.
Sign posted, no!

Invariably you need a local to show you around/the best bits.

Even when there are ‘waymarked’ circuits they aren’t always strung together for max enjoyment.

If you are serious try googling the local cycling clubs, and get yourself invited on a ride or few.

Also – Just along the coast from Nice is Frejus, home of the Roc d’Azur.

Hello

I hired a bike from this guy Click though he doesn’t seem to be open at the monent. I stay in Antibes quite often just round the bay from Nice and he’s local and really helpful.

He gave me a GPS with the trail info loaded up and pointed me in the direction of the Esterel mountains west of Cannes – not too far from Nice. All his routes begin at a train station so even without a car it’s easy to get to the start of the trail.

As for the riding look at the pics below. I loved it, plenty of cross country style single track and some of the most amazing views.

Let me know if you want and more info, I think I’ve got the GPX file of the route somewhere…

Sospel and peille for starters, the petit maures and maures have some decent stuff (not signposted). The estererel has some stuff but its pretty hard to find. Inland, some stuff around draguignan. Buy the v topo guides for the var and alpes maritime, plenty to go at.

One thing to consider, in summer a lot of areas are off limits due to fire risk.

Yes Esterel, that was the place, I went there and enjoyed it too.

Go west to the Midi. There’s a good amount of singletrack around, but none waymarked. Locals work off gpx files, but are happy to share. We found a good hour or two riding in Nissan Les Enserune which had a way marking of sorts… Locals had painted a trail with three different colours, and what appeared to be a start and finish line. A MTB shop just outside Bezieres towards Valras gave us some tips. The conclusion we had to draw was that the locals don’t do trail centres, but do like their XC style riding. They ALL had carbon XC bikes and didn’t know what to make of my lad’s mmmbop! Organic, not organised.

I spent 3 months in Nice, looked hard in the local area and found now

Yeap the only good thing in riding aournd the nice/cannes/frejus area is the fact that you have mostly crap fireroad. And trust me I live there.

Absalon and chavanel live near frejus, pretty sure they didn’t move there for the crap fireroad riding.

Nope they moved for the fact that you can ride the crap fireroad in shorts all year long

Ridden there many a time, loads of single track, local info is best but otherwise walking maps.
as for just fire roads, the enduros they run round there are no fire roads, sospel has awesome riding as are some of the trails down off the col de vence but no wayward signs.
Esterels is more xc as sospel/peille are all mountain hence 2 multi DH world champs living in the area all there lives, Fabien barel and Nico vouilloz.
Sospel enduro

Very overrated honest you’re better off in Spain or in Italy. Trust me nothing to see here.

Where were all you wise guys when I was in Nice in 2005? I put the same q on here and the only answer was from the German living in Esterel (and we had a good ride).

Thanks one and all, plenty to investigate and consider there.

Guess ill avoid staying near Nice but may visit as I’ve never been!

If you want route guiding in the area, contact Greg Germain:

http://www.1001sentiers.fr/en/guiding.html

…or Ash ‘Trans-Provence’ Smith:

http://www.trans-provence.com/sospel.shtml

There are plenty of waymarked trails in the hills north of Carcassonne. Look for Parc Naturel Regional du Haut Languedoc. Carcassonne itself is pretty and has it’s old Citadel and views across to the Pyrenees but if you want to stay near the trails you will be out in the sticks 40 or so miles away. Lacaune is where I passed the start of an ‘Enduro’ event. I stopped a couple of nights at a very nice B&B run by an Irish lady about midway between the two, here.

juan – I can’t quite work out if you are taking the p*ss or not!!

but I did try finding decent stuff around Grimaud many years ago, and failed…………

Nice is worth a visit, pleasant old town and chateau, and you can go skating up and down the promenade. Art museum was good too. It wouldn’t be my choice to live tho.

The Sospel tip sounds a winner!

As Juan said its terrible place o ride…even worse over the border in Italy 😀

Enjoy

All the posters who claim that there are half-decent trails in the south of France are quite frankly talking out of their behinds. You would be far better off looking in Spain or Italy, although I hear there is some in the Provence/Cote d’Azur. Bugger all elsewhere though
HTH

You’re overplaying your hands you lot! There’s going to be a mass influx of Bifs on Bikes!

All this trolling is not even funny 🙄

If you want route guiding in the area, contact Greg Germain:

Mwahahahahahahaha, now that is going to be very funny. No need for a bike though, will cost you less in travel fees.
And really there is no need to come down and ride over here. Really no need at all.

I flew into Nice to go riding with Riviera just over the border.

To the OP mrkbutty

THere is lots of ace riding in the mountains around Nice….

Contact Ash at trans provence who lives in Sospel behind Nice (about 1hr on the train).

We are near menton/monaco just over the border in Italy ventimiglia/sanremo where we rivierabike are based for the winter.

There are much more trails than the French VTT maps show

There are much more trails than the French VTT maps show

Yes that, but I insist that they are no “trail centre” trails, they are used by walkers, horse riders and the CAAF (red socks association) is all mighty. Riding is threaten, so make sure you get a local to show you where you can and can’t ride. And FFS don’t cut corners. This is one of the things that pisses me off and got us banned from numerous trails. So either go to Sospel and book with Ash, or go to Molini with Adi. Both are good. Bear in mind that everywhere else is going to be very hard for you.
Greg is far from being my favourite person plus he has no idea about “fun” on a bike (oh and yes hecan’t speak english for sh1te).
So if you come and ride there, remember you don’t own the place, respect the trail and the people you meet and you’ll be able to ride the year after.
If neither ash nor adi can take you I’ll put yo in touch with some people who can.

What’s the legal side of the VTT access situation in France, Juan? (I’d assumed, naively maybe, it was fairly open, like walking access in the mountains).

It is open to considerate and well mannered people everywhere outside national parcs.

@mattj
Pretty much legal unlimited open access outside of the national parks and even they have some permitted routes in them (to a certain extent)
Just as Juan says, don’t take the piss, respect the chain of priority and don’t cut the hair-pins on the way down. There are paths that are waymarked for bikes around my way that I wouldn’t use on nice weekends because of the amount of fair weather walkers (these are not designated bike trails, just shared footpaths)

EDIT: See above post

I was in Frejus over Xmass. Rode dusty dry trails every day with blue skys in shorts.

There were trails everywhere – lots of double track, some flatish, some narrow and difficult, some bloody steep with loose baby head rocks – big variety from sea level all the way up into the mountains. I did find some singletrack in the forest where I stayed and some tricky stuff in the hills / mountains.

Loads to do, just get a map, compass and explore. At least it wont be muddy like here. It was nice to start at sea level and work you way up to 500/600m then come down again knackered/dusty and happy.

None are signposted, but you can see them on the IGN map. Just not in the flesh as the ground is hard so you wont see trail erosion or tyre marks like you do here. A GPS will help you pinpoint exactly where you are. Some was had hike-a-bike bits to get up, but it was always an adventure.

Its rock and gravel so when it rains there is a lot of trail erosion, some of the singletrack was more like a dry river bed. A lot is under used, so it gets overgrown, unlike the stuff we have here. Overgrown with bushes that will rip you to shreds. The bush is hard, your not going to cut a trail through it like you would back home.

Its very different, not like our soft and forgiving singletrack in our woods.

Dont be put off by the sound of double track. Its not like some tractor rut-fest you may get here, just a dirt track that can be easy or hard, fast or twisty, wide or narrow. Some I did were techy as well, but marked as a track.

Compared to here over the winter I loved it. But you cant beat a dry day in UK woods for singletrack. Its just those days seem so few and far away.

oh and yes hecan’t speak english for sh1te

His English is certainly a lot better than my French… at least in the emails I’ve exchanged with him.

None are signposted

Many trails are signposted. If you get the 1:25,000 IGN maps, you’ll also see that many signposts are numbered, with the numbers marked on the map, e.g. the yellow boxed numbers here:

http://www.geoportail.gouv.fr/accueil?c=7.455427358741321,43.89193383271196&z=0.00003477825725136404&l=GEOGRAPHICALGRIDSYSTEMS.MAPS.3D$GEOPORTAIL:OGC:WMTS@aggregate(1)&permalink=yes

However, the signposts point towards named destinations, not the number of the next signpost.

If you want to research routes in the area, I suggest http://www.vttrack.fr/ as an excellent resource in conjunction with Google Translate.

Both sospel and peille are FFc centres, there are waymarked trails and you can get a map from the tourist office in Sospel. Trails are nothing like a uk trail centre though, pretty techy and in places seriously exposed.

Yeah… FFC Centres are all over the place in France, generally on ‘existing’ trails which are mostly all open access over there.

Some of the Peille routes are on their website:

http://www.peille.fr/index.php/sports-de-pleine-nature/v-t-t

Unfortunately, the FFC website doesn’t give you the trail maps. Those have to be picked up from the local Tourist Information Office and are usually pretty naff and need to be backed up with IGN maps. However, if you’re lucky, some kind soul will have put a GPX of some of the trails on a website somewhere. Again, http://www.vttrack.fr/ can be useful in locating them.

If you want to know where the FFC VTT centres are, here’s their web link:

http://www.ffc.fr/a_VTT/a_SitesVTT/index.asp

The “Grandes traversées” (“Major Crossings”) link on that page will take you to a list of eight long distance point-to-point routes.

at least in the emails I’ve exchanged with him.

You can thank ash for that, so honest don’t bother with him, if ash can’t take care of you let me know I know of other people with better english and better knowledge of the trails than greg.

No idea about the politics that seems to be going on here but: the v topo guides to the var and alpes maritime were written by Greg germaine and most of the routes I did were pretty good.

It is a bit disingenuous to suggest he doesnt know his way around the area, plus voullioz is happy to work with him so he cant be totally useless.

No idea about the politics

Well don’t talk then. Do you honestly he wrote the Vtopo all by himself? That Vouilloz do the days for free?