James
Getting your bike bag-wrapped at the airport is a pain in the proverbial. We were forced inot to it by an over zealous check in desk manager at Milan. 30 euros a bike and they were not keen on doing it all. They made me take my crankset off. Can't remember why now though.

We have a plan re. CTC bags.

Going to post spare clothes, trainers etc in a CTC bag post restante to the main post office in Nice, they hold mail for a fortnight for us to collect.

Will give that idea a miss then, thanks Fraser. Only 1/2 serious, would be a bit dent-risky.

Looking for some advice on Italian roads. We're flying into Milan and having a 'warm up' ride over to Turin.

Had a go with Komoot, but being a tight northerner I'd rather avoid having to pay to download a route, so over to google.

I'm assuming:
A = Motorway
SS = Are these dual carrageways?
SP = A and B roads?

Anything marked as yellow is going to be busy?

Chew, from what little riding I have done in Italy you're pretty much right. SPs can be good dirt tracks up to a larger B-road, generally just good smaller roads. They can be more like main roads in places though. SS roads are like A-roads but can still be really good, ie the yellow SS road between Sestrieres and Cesana. E/As I've avoided as they look like fast major roads.

654km
16441m de D+

This is from the French guy's recent ride of the route, they took a shorter sections or 2 based on the mileage but did ride the longer Via del Sale route. I thought the GPS sites over-estimated the height gain. When discussing this recently I was told that signal bounce between trees and ground etc can make satellite-based mapping unreliable for long routes, I'd totted up the main climbs' gain as ~15,000m. So we can relax a little now eh?

Sounds almost flat

If i knew earlier it was going to be 15000 instead of 30000 meters i would have booked it- packed it!

Out of interest (and to avoid being any more of a numpty than usual) does anyone who's ridden this or similar area before, have a rough idea of likely overnight temps and/or wind conditions.

Trying to workout which shelter and quilt for the trip...

(I think I'll be bringing a shaped tarp with my oookworks nest under it, as I'm bored of condensation in my bivy and don't fancy a week of damp.

Main tarp decision remains - Trailstar to be safe rather than sorry, or CF Zpacks pocket tarp, which might leave me sorry but would also leave me 0.5kg lighter.)

I've not ridden in the exact area we'll be riding but I do a lot of riding up and down big hills and problem you've got is in predicting the nighttime temperature drop at altitude.

Later in the summer as it will be when we're riding it's likely (likely only, don't quote me) to be nice and warm in the day but once you're at 1000m you'll notice the temperature drop off once the sun disappears. Start thinking about bivi-ing at 2000m upwards and you could easily get down below zero.

Right here, right now is a good example. Yesterday was lovely and warm and today is likely to be the same (mid 20's °c). But.....last night the temp dropped to 6°c here at 1050m and 0°c at about 2200m.

I'll be aiming to drop down low in the evenings with just enough gear to manage if this isn't possible.

Cheers Gairy - I've done a bit of UK mountain stuff and had exactly those concerns.

I sleep quite warm and can normally manage down to below 0 (just) with my planned setup but comfier above 5. Wanted to make sure everyone else didn't know that it was obviously going to be -15 each night with guaranteed gale force winds...

If I take the pocket tarp I'll aim to do the same and drop low or into shelter somewhere unless I'm feeling particularly brave.

The TS would give me more wind protection, but I need to offset my poor training as much as possible by less weight on the bike. I'm even considering dieting...

Thanks Gairy. Bivied a few times on top of peaks in the south pre alps in Sept and it can be cold, I'll take a 6deg bag and a jacket.

Sorry wotsits.. Always thought the gps sites overestimated it though, on any route. I'd have been in trouble if I'd have said 15-20k then sent out files showing over 30k : ) a few ride traces from Sept will give us a better number.

Jim, I'm also dieting. So I can eat more pizza on route : )

Remember its not just about kit, its how you use it.

So as Gairy said, push on a bit to get low, or stop early. Also make the most of natural cover to get out of the wind (thinking woodland, rocks, etc...)

Hopefully I'll have something to show you next week on the CTC plastic bag / tarp idea

Chew wrote:Remember its not just about kit, its how you use it.

So as Gairy said, push on a bit to get low, or stop early. Also make the most of natural cover to get out of the wind (thinking woodland, rocks, etc...)

Cheers Chew - competely agreed.

Was mainly keen to know if there are any obviously adverse prevailing conditions out there at that time of year.

Bearbonesnorm wrote:Hopefully I'll have something to show you next week on the CTC plastic bag / tarp idea

Fetal position, mostly zipped up, with head poked out?

jameso wrote:Sorry wotsits.. Always thought the gps sites overestimated it though, on any route. I'd have been in trouble if I'd have said 15-20k then sent out files showing over 30k : ) a few ride traces from Sept will give us a better number.

It's my own fault James, i've just been a wuss instead of Manning-TFU. Climbing doesn't normally bother me either & i'm sure i'll feel even worse when you all start posting up about how amazing it is!!

Manning-TFU.

Nah, no manning-up required, just Ignoring-TFGPS!

The flights aren't full yet ; )

I've got a buddy here in Chamonix who's tempted and so the reduced total accent might just tip him over the edge into coming along.

Jase, get yourself booked, you know your want to!

If I didn't have family commitments and limited holidays I'd be all over this like white on rice

This page has been up for a while but not added to the navigation, wasn't sure if it would have much appeal but thought 'why not' - http://torino-nice.weebly.com/follow-the-ride.html
If anyone riding would like to share your profiles on that page or use the hashtags on posts, please do.

I've enjoyed following the TCR and the ParisChill guys riding the Torino-Nice route on instagram recently. Following a ride in lo-fi way by simple location tags on instagram images or intermittent twitter updates is nice, maybe not at trackleaders level of addictive but more varied and personal, plus I'm a sucker for the escapism of nice landscape images. PCR did full justice to the great weather they had en-route - https://www.instagram.com/pcrgravier/?hl=en

They've got some cool photos and little gif style videos

I'm strangely addicted to seeing this all, would love to do something like this one day - definitely on the bucket list with a group of mates

Looks like they've done it on gravel bikes

It looks beautiful, doesn't it. Looks like a CdF and other similar bikes.
Did they essentially do the same route, James?

Jim, scroll down this page, there's a link to their strava track for each day. They took a different route out of Turin to the Finestre and said they went off-roue elsewhere but unless that was day 4 (mis-link to wrong page) all the rest looks right, on a brief glance. They used the Col Izoard and Col Preit options, so basically the same as the route on Pannier.cc.

CTC poly' tarp: http://bearbonesbikepacking.co.uk/phpBB ... =13&t=8225