This article was produced in association with Café du Cycliste
Nice has long been a fixture on the professional cycling calendar. Paris-Nice may have started outside the French capital as often as it has not, but the ‘Race to the Sun’ always finishes down here on the Côte d’Azur. During the 1960s and 1970s, the region hosted some of the most prestigious cycling events, now long gone as the population density and busy roads pushed them out. And even through the 1980s, long before the advent of the WorldTour and races in Australia and Middle East, teams and riders gravitated here for their pre-season training camps, attracted by the beautiful roads and warm weather.
But the city is fast making a case for being the Tour de France’s ‘second city’, after Paris. It hosted the Grand Départ of the 2020 Tour de France, with a spectacular opening weekend of hilly stages around the Alpine foothills that tower above the city and the beautiful blue sea. (A bit too spectacular for many riders’ tastes – unseasonal rain caused a number of crashes on day one of the race.) And this year it hosted the final stages of the race, a mountain stage on the Saturday and time trial on the Sunday, the first time the Tour has ever finished outside Paris, which was otherwise occupied by the Olympic Games.
Nice is also, just like Paris, embracing the bike as the best way of getting around cities in the 21st century. The mayor and council have built a dense network of bike lanes, in combination with a well-organised and efficient public transport system, to try and reclaim the streets of the city from the motor car, for which Nice is not suited. And WorldTour pros have been coming to live here for generations, with a strong community of American professionals especially.
There’s a thriving coffee and cycling scene also, with outlets like Café du Cycliste proving modern spaces for cycling fans and selling apparel. Joe Dombrowski moved here in 2013 when he turned pro, and he’s been here ever since, even beyond his retirement at the end of 2023.
“I think it’s the best place to be in terms of riding, and the airport,” says Dombrowski. “The city is big enough that there is stuff going on, but it’s not a huge metropolis.
“I’m a mountains guy, and as a cyclist I was a climber. I also love ski touring and SkiMo, and I love the mountain environment. But what I love about Nice is that you have both. You can go ski touring in the morning and the beach in the afternoon on the same day.”
Dombrowski has fully embraced life in his adopted hometown in France. He has an apartment overlooking the old port, and loved the proximity of iconic climbs like the Col d’Èze and Col de la Madone. But he also loves the culture and colour of Nice. Who better to show us the coolest spots around France’s burgeoning cycling city?
Promenade des Anglais
The Promenade is iconic, but it’s not exactly a secret and so it’s tourist central. It’s pretty quiet today, but on a sunny Sunday afternoon, it is completely full. There are so many people using the bike paths on a weekend that I feel safer on the road, but it’s a cool spot.
It’s not so far from where I live, so in the summer, going out for late evening dinners with friends, it’s nice to walk back and enjoy the ambiance of people on the beach. We don’t have sand in Nice, it’s small rocks and the sea makes a nice noise as the water is receding, like a rainstick.
There’s a also phenomenon here after it rains. In this area, everything is light rock and it’s all steep valleys so whenever there is heavy rain there is a lot of damage. The river Paillon goes under Nice, and it comes out below the Promenade and you can see the water gets kind of churned up. If you go up to the mountains where you have a view of the whole city and the sun comes out you get this amazing blue that you’ve never seen before. The most blue blue ever. I’ve lived here since 2013 but whenever you get that blue, I still always take pictures.
Old Port
This is where I live. You’re separated from the main part of Nice by the Colline du Château so even though you’re in the city, you feel more over here that you’re in a neighbourhood and not in a big city centre. To me, this is the best part of Nice – you get the sea breeze, that marine smell, a bit salty, fishy... It’s a really unique place.
It’s calm in the old port. You don’t have that pressure of being in the city centre with honking cars, but on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, if it’s sunny and warm, this place is flooded with people walking dogs and kids playing, and it’s a nice place for being so close to the centre. You can sit out in the morning and have breakfast and watch the boats come and go in and out of the harbour.
I follow what the city do in planning and development, and they’re doing a lot of nice things. All along the front has been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site, so they’re quite sticky about what you can do to the housing. You have to paint your house a certain colour, to match the colours – you can’t just go and paint your shutters pink.
They’ve also been adding a lot in terms of infrastructure for transit and bike lanes, and I’ve seen the city improve a lot just in the 10 years I’ve been here. They built the tram to come here, and for me as a cyclist, you are always going to the airport, so for a euro I can be at the airport in 25 minutes. It’s also a super convenient place as a cyclist – we’re a kilometre from the bottom of Col d’Èze, and you can be out of the city in five minutes.
Colline du Château
Here is where you get the best view of Nice anywhere in the city. I used to come up here more in the off season, though now I’m retired, everything is off season. When I was a pro, every October I’d have a few weeks off the bike and I would try to run, but I’d always injure myself. So I ended up doing a lot of walking instead – I could go and do long hikes in the Mercantour, but also I like walking around the city and it’s a good workout to walk up here.
There’s an old fort here, and some ruins, some flat bits and some petanque courts, of course. The ruins are from the 1700s or 1800s, and you have to remember that this part of the world wasn’t historically part of France, but the Kingdom of Savoy, up until the 1860s. That’s why you get the Turinoise architecture that you see in some parts of the city, with orange, yellows and reds, which you can contrast with the more Parisian boulevards with Belle Époque architecture in the centre of Nice.
In the past, the colourful houses were where the workers lived, but these buildings are really sought after now because they are so iconic. I guess the fort was here because high points were always a point of defence, but nowadays people come up here for the amazing scenery.
Flower Market
There’s a market here through the week and on Monday mornings it’s more of a flea market. There are lots of cafes and stalls here, and no cars, so it’s a nice place to come. I like the stalls where they sell old stuff, for example there’s a poster dealer here who has a lot of cool vintage posters, which I like going through. They have old Formula One posters, or historical posters advertising the Côte d’Azur or the ski stations up above Nice, and they’re always really evocative. I’m really into design and architecture, and mixing and matching different periods, and I really like the historical aspect of Nice you see here, and old photography.
Quartier des Antiquaires
This whole neighbourhood is a hidden gem – it’s full of art galleries and antique dealers, and it’s one of my favourite places to come to. It’s fun to poke your head in and get to know some of the gallery owners, and they have some really great stuff – we’ve acquired most stuff in our house from around here. My wife says I have an addiction to walking around and looking at things, and I think the antique dealers kind of find me interesting, because I’m well under their normal client age.
The Harter Galerie is one of my favourites. It has a really diverse mix of art, and a lot of pieces by the Swiss artist Albert Chubac. We have a couple of pieces at home which I acquired here, though some of his work is well beyond my budget. Chubac was a Swiss artist but he lived nearby Nice and this gallery bought quite a lot of his collection when he died. He’s also got some pieces at the Museum of Modern Art in Nice, and I love his work because it’s so fun. He worked with primary colours, and I like having modern pieces in the backdrop of an old building, which is a cool mix.
Coco Beach
There’s a really nice path along from the Old Port where you can do a bit of a walk along the seaside. Basically, though there are some bits you have to go on the road, it goes all the way around Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat and all the way to Monaco. Our favourite spot along there is Coco Beach – we go swimming there, and it’s more local people. It’s quieter, whereas on the Promenade des Anglais it’s a bit too much.
We sometimes take paddle boards and paddle to Coco Beach, and there used to be a really nice restaurant spot also with diving boards, and there would be all these kids climbing up on the diving boards and jumping off, but it got taken over.
Coco Beach is a really cool local spot, though. I still do a lot of sports, but it’s also nice to go and sit on the beach. That’s what the south of France is for.
