Gravel tour Turin-Nice: 620 km and 14,000 metres in altitude between peaks and the sea
Karen Eller
· 15.08.2025
Dust hangs in the air and I wipe my forehead and eyes for what feels like the hundredth time. At last, the annoying quad bike that was just driving behind me and tormenting me with noise and dust is over. Soon all I can see is its cloud of dust, then it too has disappeared and the engine noise has died down. Now there is silence again and I ask myself the question that everyone asks themselves at some point on such challenging tours: Why am I actually doing this? It's hot and the dusty air feels like I'm breathing in a sandstorm without a face mask. My lips are so dry that I'm constantly moistening them, which is about as helpful as a watering can in the desert. But I guess that's part of the adventure, I think to myself as I try to rub the remaining dust out of my eyes.
Gravel tour: 620 kilometres from Turin to Nice
This time I wanted to go further, wanted to see what lay beyond the mountains and valleys. I really wanted to travel across borders.
I have been travelling as a mountain bike guide for countless years, have guided countless nice people through breathtaking valleys, have explored strenuous mountains - and have returned to the valley every time. But this time I wanted more. This time I wanted to go further, I wanted to see what lay beyond the mountains and valleys. I really wanted to travel by gravel bike, from one point to another, across borders, through different cultures and countries on a route steeped in history. And I had discovered a corresponding gravel tour with the British organiser Pannier: from Turin through the mountains to Nice. That sounded like an adventure.
I was immediately hooked. An epic route through the Alps, partly over famous passes, partly over little-known mountains and through remote valleys. 620 kilometres from the north-west of Italy to the dazzling Côte d'Azur in the south of France. It was to be a journey that combined two worlds: the rugged beauty of the Italian Alps and the picturesque elegance of the French mountains.
And so here we are, a group of adventurers and biking enthusiasts who could hardly be more different, from different corners of the world, but all with the same goal in mind. Two lads from South Africa, two Englishmen, one Italian. Plus Stef from the organisers, our man for everything that bikes, stomachs and legs need, and of course my friend and photographer Moni, who captures every stage with her camera. Every picture she takes tells a story of the effort, the dust and the beauty that accompanies us on every metre of this adventure.
Would the MTB have been the better choice?
Everyone rides gravel bikes; a choice I don't regret in the first few days because we ride a lot on tarmac and the gravel sections remain rideable. However, this choice seems very questionable to me here on the seventh day. Today we face an even bigger challenge than on the last few days - and it has a name: Via del Sale. This old salt road, also known as the "High Salt Road" because it oscillates between 1800 and 2100 metres above sea level, is a spectacular former military road in the Maritime Alps. The completely unpaved 30-kilometre stretch connects Limone Piemonte with Monesi and Triora in the mountainous Ligurian hinterland. It leads us into a moon-like landscape, crosses the Marguareis and Ligurian Alps nature parks and passes several military installations from the end of the 19th century.
Although the Via del Sale offers many spectacular views, its rough gravel is also known for pushing gravel bikers to their limits. In the past, mules loaded with sacks of salt were driven through the mountains here. When I think that these animals mastered the same gravel path, while I fight for every metre on my modern gravel bike, I wonder whether the mules complained about the poor "road condition" back then too. Back then, salt was transported from Nice or Genoa over the mountains to the Po Valley; salt was one of the most valuable commodities.
And today? Today we drag ourselves along the same path on our bikes - without salt on our backs, at most on our skin, but with a good supply of adventurous spirit in our luggage.
The gravel tour begins with the queen's stage
After a restful night in a cosy mountain hotel and a hearty breakfast by Italian standards, we set off from Limone Piemonte in the morning. The queen stage of our gravel tour with around 130 kilometres and almost 3000 metres in altitude awaits us. On the first few kilometres, an asphalt road to the Col de Tende, which climbs steadily but pleasantly, gives us time to slowly warm up our tired muscles from the previous six strenuous days. It is still chilly, we set off very early. The morning sun is just beginning to shine over the mountains, casting its first rays onto the winding road.
After a good hour, we reach the end of the tarmac road at a mountain hut, where the path forks. We meet a group of mountain bikers who belong to a cycling club that is going on a weekend ride today, Saturday. At the left-hand fork leading eastwards, there is a sign saying "Via del Sale". Everyone quickly fills their water bottles, as there is no opportunity to refill them for the next 70 kilometres. And although it is still morning, the sun is now very hot. We dutifully pay our Euro for bicycles at the toll booth. Now we are allowed to enter the High Salt Road.
Too rough for gravel bikes
The Via del Sale may be legendary, but it's definitely too bumpy for gravel bikes. The rough gravel shakes me like a cocktail in a shaker. Every bump hits me directly in the arms, which soon feel like I'm going to have to dismantle them. A suspension fork? Please, yes! It would work wonders here. My otherwise speedy gravel bike, which felt so light and elegant on the tarmac roads of the first few days and even this morning, now feels like a stubborn horse underneath me that sees every stone as a personal attack. The stubborn ride over the mountain road is all ups and downs.
The descents are also a challenge - if you consider "challenge" to be a friendly way of saying: "I hope I can survive this with all my luggage without falling and without a flat tyre." Without suspension, I feel every pebble as if it were a rock, even though I'm already running my tyres with as little air pressure as possible. My hands are constantly clawing at the brake levers because I have no desire whatsoever to involuntarily kiss the ground. Surprisingly, the luggage is not uncomfortable - everything seems to be very well strapped down.
Moni rides behind me, her camera always at the ready. She manages to capture even the moments on the gravel tour when we look like we've just emerged from a sandstorm. But she also takes photos of the few breaks where we try to pretend we are enjoying the magnificent view and not secretly thinking about a shortcut, which doesn't actually exist here. Once inside, there's nothing left to do but push through.
Gravel tour from Turin to Nice: a test of courage instead of a bikepacking adventure?
The Via del Sale offers many spectacular views, but is also known for pushing gravel bikers to their limits.
The Via del Sale takes us to an altitude of over 2000 metres, where the rugged rock faces and deep valleys look like something out of an adventure film. It is not tarmac anywhere, there is not a single rifugio on the entire unpaved stretch, only a single watering hole. In some places I can still recognise the old structure of the salt road, a narrow winding path that used to be the main route through this rugged landscape.
What must it have been like back then? Probably just as exhausting, only without the modern functional clothing. In addition to the steep climbs and the unyielding gravel, off-road vehicles and motorbikes also give us a hard time, repeatedly speeding past us and covering us in a cloud of dust. Then we hold our breath, drive on blindly and hope that we don't accidentally roll into the abyss.
At these moments, the Via del Sale feels more like a test of courage than a bikepacking adventure. By now, the dust is sticking to my skin, my legs are burning and my head is about to burst because I have to concentrate all the time on finding the right path. In between, I have to keep reminding myself why I'm actually doing this drudgery here. Oh yes, adventure and all that...
French mountain solitude
But then there are also those special moments: we stop, look around and I realise that I'm experiencing something unique here. After hours of gravel battles and endless climbs, and the nasty, never-ending 15-kilometre downhill, which is more like a mountain bike enduro track than a nice gravel route, interspersed with rough boulders, steps and ledges, we finally reach our destination for the day.
We pause, look around and I realise that I am experiencing something unique here.
We roll into La Brigue, a small, romantic French village with no more than 700 inhabitants, situated at an altitude of over 700 metres in the Alpes-Maritimes. A small, inviting café appears on the right-hand side. We pull over. And discover Stef, who waves to us from the café's shady garden. Our man for everything.
He also made it this far. But he drove round the mountains in a wide arc. Stef drives the van that carries our large luggage. And he has chosen a nice table for us. We immediately stock up on everything we fancy: Coke, coffee, ice cream, sandwiches. Everything in order and in a jumble. We are famished and the ice-cold cola tastes wonderful to our parched throats. Like the participants in Paris-Roubaix, we are covered in dust. It feels as if the dirt is now part of us.
Gravel tour from Turin to Nice: between exhaustion and pride
I can feel the exhaustion in my bones, but also the relief and pride of having made it this far. After a few more colas and a well-earned beer, the conversations get going again. And we laugh heartily about the fact that everyone has completed the route with unsprung bikes - the laughter had gone out of us in between.
The Via del Sale was tough, much tougher than I had imagined. But it was also one of the highlights of the entire route. The old salt road made history in the past, and today we have added a little piece of our own history to it. Only one more day to Nice, I'm looking forward to it. But I won't forget the Via del Sale in a hurry - dusty, agonisingly exhausting and yet brilliant. And I'll definitely be back. Until then, however, I have a gravel bike with a suspension fork.
The stages of the Graveltour from Turin to Nice
Day 1: Turin - Susa (115 kilometres | 2200 vertical metres)
The route heads north-west out of the city of Turin towards the Alps on tarmac. Time to roll in: 32 flat kilometres lead through the Stura di Lanzo valley to Lanzo Torinese, where our route turns west and follows the Stura di Viù river slightly uphill. After 47 kilometres, Viù, the last major town for a long time, is a good place for a lunch break. Seven kilometres after Viù, we leave the valley to the south. The 13-kilometre climb begins - first on asphalt, soon on gravel - over the Colle del Colombardo to the highest, nameless point at an altitude of not quite 2100 metres. A long and winding descent of 1700 metres to Condove (km 88). From there, good side roads lead gently up the Susa Valley to Susa.
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Day 2: Susa - Cesana Torinese (69 kilometres | 2750 vertical metres)
On the second day, the route becomes much more challenging: the metres in altitude increase and the roads wind their way up the mountains in serpentines. The landscape changes from forests to steep rock faces. The day's destination, Cesana Torinese, is close to the French border and is a popular ski resort in winter. Before that, the legendary 2176 metre high Colle delle Finestre is one of the biggest challenges of the entire gravel tour.
It is over nine per cent steep on average, with the top eight kilometres leading over a gravel road, which makes the climb even tougher. However, the pass road, which is popular with bikepackers, has also provided spectacular images during the Giro d'Italia, four times in total since 2005. After an intermediate descent, the route on the Assietta ridge road quickly climbs back up to over 2000 metres and reaches 2523 metres at the Rifugio Casa Assietta. Only after 35 kilometres does the route descend for a long time to San Sicario Borgo, a district of Cesana Torines at an altitude of 1560 metres.
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Day 3: Cesana Torinese - Molines-en-Queyras (69 kilometres | 2100 vertical metres)
The third stage leads moderately uphill to the asphalted Col de Montgenèvre (1850 metres) and after eleven kilometres crosses the border into France. This pass has a long history and has connected the two countries for centuries. The day starts relatively relaxed on the well-maintained road. The descent down to picturesque Briançon is legendary.
Briançon is surrounded by impressive fortifications and is the highest town in France with an altitude of 1200 to 1326 metres. There our route turns south-east, later southwards. The next 19 kilometres to the Col d'Izoard (2362 metres) have only one direction: uphill. On the descent southwards, you rush through a barren, desert-like landscape, the Casse Déserte - one of the most beautiful mountain pass descents in the world! It ends in the valley of the river Guil, where, after the turn-off at Ville-Vieille, the route continues uphill for a moderate six kilometres to the day's destination of Molines-en-Queyras, a beautiful mountain village in the heart of the Queyras Regional Nature Park.
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Day 4: Molines-en-Queyras - Rifugio Meira Garneri (56 kilometres | 1900 vertical metres)
On the fourth day of the gravel tour, the route remains challenging: almost 2000 metres of elevation gain in just 60 kilometres speaks for itself. Our route is mainly on fine tarmac. However, there is no time to roll in: we immediately climb up to Col Agnel, the border pass to Italy and the highest point of our tour at 2744 metres, where the thin air clearly saps our strength. This is followed by 29 endless kilometres down the Valle Vareita, mostly on asphalt, with the peaks around the 3840-metre-high Monte Viso always in view. We whizz past the Lago di Castello reservoir, switch to gravel and forest paths in the valley where possible and turn south at Sampeyre for the final asphalt ascent: ten kilometres and almost 900 metres in altitude to the remote Rifugio Meira Garneri.
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Day 5: Rifugio Meira Garneri - Rifugio Gardetta (45 kilometres | 1900 vertical metres)
From the Rifugio Meira Garneri, we climb almost 500 metres in altitude on a narrow asphalt road over the Colle di Sampeyre into the Valle Maira, one of the most pristine valleys in the Alps. There are no large ski resorts or tourist centres here, just mountains, the valley and a few isolated villages. From kilometre 26, the route is all uphill, on a narrow asphalt road via Marmora and Canosio and Borgata Breit to Colle del Preit (2076 metres), from there further uphill, this time on a fine natural road, to Rifugio Gardetta (2337 metres), which lies on a wide plateau framed by rocky peaks between 2600 and almost 2900 metres high.
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Day 6: Rifugio Gardetta - Limone Piemonte (77 kilometres | 850 vertical metres)
From the Rifugio Gardetta, it's 13 kilometres of constant ups and downs across the Gardetta plain - a challenging gravel ride. Wide tyres, ridden with slightly less air pressure, help. Shortly before Colle Valcavera (kilometre 12.8), the asphalt begins. The narrow road leads downhill past the Valcavera hills to the Rifugio Carbonetto (18.8 kilometres), which is a great place to stop for refreshments after the exertions of the Gardetta.
We then continue downhill for ages on the narrow tarmac road with wonderful views into the Valle Stura as far as the small town of Demonte. We then follow the Stura Valley eastwards and slightly downhill for 20 kilometres on narrow side roads and turn south at the edge of the Alps in Borgo San Dalmazzo. The route dips back into the mountains. Unfortunately, a little more traffic accompanies us as far as Limone Piemonte, a town known for its ski resorts.
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Day 7: Limone Piemonte - Sospel (126 kilometres | 2900 vertical metres)
The queen stage of our gravel tour, with almost 3000 metres in altitude, starts on a beautiful asphalt road that climbs 14 kilometres to the Col du Tende (1871 metres), the border pass to France. There you have another opportunity to top up on water. However, our stage does not cross the border to the south, but follows a mountain ridge to the east for 20 kilometres before turning south.
We cycle along a long and challenging gravel route, the Via del Sale, which demands everything from us. If you take the Via del Sale, you should take enough water, food and spare inner tubes with you. There is only one place to refill for 70 kilometres: the Rifugio Barbera at kilometre 38. And the extremely rough descent to La Brigue challenges your equipment and riding technique. In La Brigue, a small French mountain village, there is everything again: fine tarmac, food, drink and shade. Refreshment is also necessary, as there are still 570 metres of ascent up to the Col de Brouis before the day's destination of Sospel.
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Day 8: Sospel - Nice (60 kilometres | 900 vertical metres)
After a French breakfast, we set off from Sospel. The route immediately begins with climbing: first on tarmac, soon on gravel over the Pas de l'Agrée (there again on tarmac) to the Col de l'Abléus. From there, we descend 40 kilometres on asphalt via L'Escarène and La Trinité to Nice by the sea, enjoying the gradual change from Alpine to Mediterranean vegetation. Traffic accompanies us through the suburbs of Nice, to the harbour and to the beach.
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The route of the gravel tour
The route from Turin to Nice is one of the most beautiful bikepacking routes in Europe. Most of it runs through the Italian region of Piedmont; it reaches the French department of Hautes-Alpes on the third day and leaves it again for Piedmont on the fourth day. On the seventh day, after a very slight detour into Liguria, we enter France again: this time the Alpes-Maritimes department, where Nice is also located. The route of around 620 kilometres and almost 14,000 metres in altitude can be divided into five to eight daily stages, depending on how fit you are and how much time you have available for exploring and relaxing.
Numerous variations are possible, and you can even bridge sections using public transport. The tour starts and finishes in major cities. Although the traffic in these cities can be nerve-wracking, it does die down in between, apart from a few kilometres; on some sections we only share small gravel paths with mountain hikers. Every day is different: sometimes we climb over famous Tour de France Alpine passes such as the Col d'Izoard, sometimes over lonely mountain roads, sometimes the route is tarmac, sometimes gravel.
The route offers everything you could hope for from an Alpine tour and bikepacking trip as a cyclist: majestic landscapes, rugged mountains, magnificent panoramas, idyllic mountain villages and the gentle hills and olive groves of Provence, including the sun-kissed Mediterranean coast. The route crosses several national and nature parks, including the Parco Naturale delle Alpi Marittime on the Italian side and the Parc National du Mercantour in France. Also exciting are the traces of the Via del Sale, which was once used as a salt trade route and which we follow on the seventh day.
Info about the gravel tour
The beginnings
The route was developed in 2015 as the komoot-Turin-Nice Rally, an annual group ride with the opportunity to raise sponsorship money for the Smart Shelter Foundation, a foundation that builds earthquake- and storm-resistant houses in developing countries. Information at torino-nice.weebly.com, under "Smart Shelter Foundation".
Best time to travel
The Alps are known for their changeable weather, especially on hot and humid summer days there can be thunderstorms in the mountains early in the afternoon. And in bad weather, it often gets unpleasantly cool at higher altitudes, even in summer. It is therefore very important to take warm clothing and rain protection with you.
Overnight stay
On our route, you will find accommodation for different budgets, from city hotels to simple agritourism accommodation - usually with very good local cuisine - to mountain huts such as the Rifugio Gardetta or small, cosy mountain hotels in ski resorts and beautiful campsites. And if you want to be even more adventurous, bring your tent and simply sleep outside. This also makes it easier to divide the stages more evenly, which is difficult if you plan with accommodation.
Organised tour
If you prefer to take an organised and perhaps more relaxed approach to our route, the British tour operator Pannier from Birmingham is the perfect choice. Pannier offers the tour in small groups. You usually start together, without a guide, but with a GPS track, so everyone can cycle at their own pace. Pannier also sometimes (not every day) provides food along the way, takes care of luggage transport from accommodation to accommodation and organises overnight accommodation: in 2024, the eight-day trip with accommodation cost 1595 euros. Info: pannier.cc
Equipment for the bike
Due to the mixture of tarmac roads and gravel tracks, a gravel bike or lightweight mountain bike is ideal for this tour. A mountain-compatible gear ratio for long climbs and robust, grippy tyres that are as wide as possible (at least 40 millimetres) will help you to master the partly gravelled passes.
This is a must!
As you are travelling through remote regions, you should carry enough food and water with you, especially on days with long climbs. A light tent or bivouac sack can be useful if you want or have to spend the night outdoors.
