Log in to check out faster. On Bike. Off Bike. La Marque. Forever Outsiders. La Gazette. Select Regions. United Kingdom. Rest of Europe. United States. Asia Pacific. South Korea. Rest of World. Torino-Nice Rally. Gravel in front, gravel to the right. They climb and they descend and they roll on rare flat sections, some smooth, some more rocky. On day four they are used to taking the rough with the smooth. This section - 'Little Peru' - serves up 35kms of high mountain, gravel riding wilderness.
Pre-event packing worries have disappeared, first day nerves are gone and mechanical paranoia is forgotten. Riders flow with the rises and falls of this double-track paradise, which skirts around the inside of a bowl of jagged granite peaks before its helter-skelter form rejoins the tarmac just below the Colle Fauniera. Popular opinion surmises that this is the sweet spot of the whole event. The group that assembled in Torino shows a huge selection of bikes, from enduro MTBs to adapted cyclo-cross and even road set-ups.
We made the flippant statement in pre-event email exchanges with organiser James, 'they are only mountains. Oh, and your 9kg luggage. This is Torino-Nice Rally. Like it and lump it. A new, high kind of blue. And at the other end of the journey, the Via del Sale walks the ridge line and the border at 2,m. The unpaved paths that lead off and usually continue upwards from the regular road cols, deliver free-riding paradise.
No-one said getting up there would be easy. Not the warm-up tired legs needed. Doubts are found down here. Unexpected tiredness, re-grouping and resurrections over Izoard, but maybe Agnel is possible before sunset?
There is a hotel at the bottom of the climb and the only other confirmed accommodation is 18kms up the road and it's h. Sleep outside in true TNR fashion? Did we mention the trattoria on the Italian side, delivering perfect doppios and foccia with smoked ham, tomatoes and mozzarella?
