Lots of cols yesterday, big ones and not empty of traffic. Word is out that summer has arrived in the mountains.

Col de Vars (2108 m.) and Col d’Izoard (2764 m.) are classic “Route des Grandes Alpes”. Part scenic and part sporty. The Tour de France comes along here in couple of weeks’ time so the surfaces are all in good nick.

Gendarmes lurking in the shade at the start of the Combe de Queras; the massive limestone gorge between the massifs on the route. Looked like they were checking and turning back overloaded or unsound bikes (eg tyres).

But the Col de d’Izoard is mythic for pushbikers and they were here by the van load. A lot from the Netherlands. Not badly behaved but just so many of them. On the other hand, one of the Dutch saw me with my camera and asked me to take photos of him on his pocket Leica . He did a good one of me too on my Nikon.

Read more: Bike adventure 3: Vars - Izoard - Lautaret - Galibier - Iseron

Lunchtime: GPS shows 1250 m. altitude and the Cime de la Bonette is 2802 m. altitude so I still have more than a vertical kilometre still to climb since breakfast café & croissant at the Carnolès beach (Menton). Weather now ideal: blue sky and no wind.

Bike riding fantastic. This is the first full week this route has been open since the winter so it’s not yet got a lot of traffic. Indeed hardly any.... Sweeping curves and open straights. Lots of opportunities for low-gear high-rev riding except that the blue sky, jagged cliffs, cascades and thrusting mountain peaks are so attractive and distracting... Nice problem to have.Quiche Lorraine, Myrtille tart and can of Zéro finished so onwards and upwards.

Read more: Bike adventure 2: Menton - Bonette - Barcelonette

Now in Carnolés on the Côte d'Azur, it’s a suburb of Roquebrune for administrative purposes but feels more like a suburb of Menton as it’s on the same bay so gets the same gentle Riviera weather. Carnolès is usually the beach people mean when boast that they slept on the beach at Menton on their Interrail or hitching trip.

Long hot ride across the Var from Marseille yesterday. I took the direct route - ie the autoroute - as the forecast showed storms spreading down from the mountains from lunchtime onwards. Even so, having left Marseille at 28°C, I saw 35°C en route but by the time I was passing through Nice the blue sky had gone, the mountains were shrouded in dark clouds and the thermometers were showing just 25°C.

Read more: Bike adventure 1: Marseille - Monaco - Menton

Tens of thousands of highly polished chopper motorbikes with riders and pillions converging at Port Grimaud in the south of France for the 2017 HOG Eurofest. Several thousand bikes participated in the parade through the streets of Cogolin, St. Tropez and finishing at the festival site on the beach at Port Grimaud for a rock concert. Traffic jams for the cars and mobile phone networks overloaded... Big noisy Harleys predominated but not a few other chopper bikes from other makers, customised more or less within the limits of being street-legal. And even Harley do a sports bike.