The plan for this trip was to fly into Nice, cycle up into the mountains and intercept the Torino Nice rally route about halfway and follow it back to Nice. But John also had several passes he wanted to hit west of the route, which (spoiler) turned out to be quite ambitious for the time we had.
Before the trip, John had pulled up some videos from Torino Nice that convinced me I would need lower gears! The bike now has at 11-50 cassette, with a 38T chainring. While we were at it, I ended ups also changing the bike to wireless electronic shifting with blips (like my road bike). This is a great setup for a travel bike. No derailleur wires makes things much easier. I use a cable splitter for the rear brake, and simply take the front brake off the fork. The handlebars just have a cable and the front brake attached. With no wires, I can pop the rear derailleur off. The puzzle gores into the S&S case much easier. With SRAM wireless, I just carry a tiny spare battery for the derailleur.
We spent the first day recovering from jet lag, assembling bikes and walking around the city, I had bookended the trip with the same airbnb, hoping to be able to store the cases there, but they had no storage. I found an online storage service, where various businesses in the area would store luggage, so I booked that. We hauled our cases off to a coffee shop, where they stayed for 10 days.
After enjoying breakfast at this coffee shop, we began the long climb out of Nice. I was already happy for those lower gears. I was also happy I'd packed lots of sunscreen and a lightweight jersey as it was quite warm and sunny!
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