As we were riding along the dry and dusty trail beneath 870-metre Col de Brouis, my guide Olivier pulled to a halt and pointed into the trees.
“Two years ago I saw a wolf just there”, he said with classic French insouciance.
Now I’ve been lucky enough to ride my bike in some pretty wild places – remote corners of the Rocky Mountains, Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara and even parts of Wales, but nowhere have I met anyone who has ridden with wolves as part of the scenery.
I asked Olivier what happened and he said “He just returned my gaze then trotted off”.
Even so, it kind of summed up the mountain biking here – not what you expect.
‘Here’ were the hills above the Vallée de la Bévéra in France’s Alpes-Maritime region, between the wild Mercantour National Park to the north and the glitzy Cote d’Azur to the south.
I had based myself in the picturesque medieval town of Sospel, once a major hub on the ancient ‘Salt Road’ between the coast and Turin, and Olivier and I had taken a van shuttle up to the Col de Brouis from where we were making a 900-metre-plus descent (with 400-metres of climbing thrown in to justify this indulgence) back to town.
Uncharacteristically the day was rather overcast, but even so the panorama at the start of our ride was impressive, taking in ridge after ridge of hills and mountain rising up to almost 2000 metres, with Italy squeezed up against our left shoulder and, Olivier assured me, beautiful views down towards the beautiful people on the Mediterranean coast on a clear day.
A minute later the views were the last thing on my mind as we hit the top section of ‘Trail 6’, which soon transformed from an easy dirt road into exhilarating singletrack that took us through a mix of upland meadows and woodland.
This is the kind of riding that someone brought up in the wet and gloopy UK dreams about; the trails are bone dry and just loose enough that you have to focus on where you’re going but at the same time you can enjoy sliding the back wheel around most corners and generally having fun.
It’s all well signposted so even without a guide you can’t really get lost (I certainly couldn’t, since not only was Olivier leading the way he’d also helped to develop the trails and put up the waymarkers). So you’re free to pretty much rip along at your own pace.
Not long after our ‘wolf stop’ we rolled into the rustic old village of Piène Haute, situated on a ridge a high above the River Roya. As when I’d been walking around in Sospel earlier in the day with Olivier he seemed to know every inhabitant, all of whom had a cheery comment for us, but it wasn’t always like this hereabout; apparently in centuries past the residents of Piène Haute were a bit of a law unto themselves thanks to their remote and inaccessible location on the border of France and Italy, and generally played fast and loose with the more tedious aspects of life such as bureaucracy, law and taxes.
From here we hit some truly luscious single track which threw everything at us – rocks, roots, switchbacks, drop-offs, trees – lots to challenge but little to terrify.
And it all smelt so good – yes, you read that correctly. For we were literally surrounded by the famous ‘herbes de Provence’, and the bouquet of thyme, fennel, basil and even absinthe filled the air as we rode; so if mountain biking doesn’t give you appetite enough for a big lunch the atmosphere here will whet it for you instead.
We eventually crossed the border into Italy and rode into the small town of Olivetta, where a coffee stop was posited and then dismissed as a waste of time when we had more fantastic trails awaiting us.
A steep climb saw us hit the ‘Sentier Botanique’, roller-coaster single track where more cultured riders than I may stop occasionally and read the various signboards informing you about the flora you’re passing through.
Philistine that I am I was content to recognise the olive trees and make do with that. It would in fact be hard not to recognise them since they’re to be seen everywhere; high quality olive oil is the major produce of the region, and it’s largely thanks to this that we were having such a great time.
Olivier told me that most of the trails through the area are centuries old and were developed to provide access to the olive groves or other agricultural areas. Others routes take in hunters’ trails since ‘la chasse’ is a big thing hereabouts, particularly for wild boar, and we regularly came across areas where the beasts had been scrubbing up the earth for food.
Suddenly the trail became more challenging – accompanied by some five-star grunting and straining, Olivier polished off a back-breaking climb up steep, rubbly switchbacks that he’d been taking on for years without prior success. I pushed…
From here we rode along rocky strewn single track where you really wouldn’t want to take a tumble to your left as it would be a second or two before you hit the river (or rocks) below.
And then the unexpected happened – it started to rain. Rain is as uncommon here as dry trails are in the UK, but it was quite refreshing to feel warm raindrops on my face after a couple of hours of burning up the calories; and we were only a couple of clicks from Sospel; and we’d just nipped into the back yard of Olivier’s uncle’s house to help ourselves to a bunch of his deep purple grapes, grown on the local hillsides – so who really cared?
The rain had stopped by the time we rode down Sospel’s ancient main street, and no one batted an eyelid as I checked into the Hotel des Etrangers with my hair plastered to my head and mud splattered across my face; it’s part of the scene here the same way as mule trains carrying salt once were.
Indeed, despite my abysmal French everyone I met whilst riding or wandering around Sospel’s lovely old streets was not only friendly but seemed to genuinely appreciate the fact that the region is attracting mountain bikers in increasing numbers – so it seems that whilst the Salt Road may be gone, the off-road is here to stay.
FACT BOX
Contacts
www.oliviercarriot.com Olivier is proudly ‘Sospelloise’ and will cheerfully guide you around his backyard.
www.trans-provence.com Ex-pat Brit Ash Smith offers the only English-language mountain bike guiding in the area
www.espace-vtt-sospel.com General info on mountain biking in the Sospel area
ROYA-BÉVÉRA TRAIL INFO
Sospel is an official ‘Site VTT’ and is located in the heart of the Roya-Bévéra area, with around 170km of marked trails; there are over 660km of trails in Roya-Bévéra in total.
Like Sospel, the mountain town of Tende to the north is also a ‘Site VTT’ with a great network of trails, and it’s quite easy to visit both locations on the same trip.
