Cagnes-sur-Mer sits on the coastal cycle path between Nice and Antibes, a flat and well-used stretch of the Promenade des Anglais extension that riders use to warm up before turning inland.
That turn comes fast. The climb up to Haut-de-Cagnes, the walled medieval village stacked above the modern town, is short but genuinely steep — a taste of what waits further into the hinterland, where roads climb toward Vence, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, and on to passes that have featured repeatedly in the Tour de France and Paris–Nice.
One well-known local training loop, once used by Lance Armstrong, runs from Cagnes-sur-Mer up through four of the region's sixteen villages perchés before returning to the coast — a route still ridden today as a benchmark for hinterland fitness.
For a base, Cagnes-sur-Mer offers the coastal ease of Nice with faster access to the climbing that made this stretch of the Côte d'Azur a fixture of professional racing.
