Nice Sports & Outdoors Tips by NiceLife Top 5 Page for this destination

Two legs good, two wheels better!

No other nation is quite as barmy about cycling as the French. The Tour de France has the entire nation gripped (despite being won by an American for the last four years in a row). Paris - Nice 2005 is one of the biggest races, after the big one. Held in the second week of March, it too was won by an American, Bobby Julich .

Against a pure blue sky, the Men in Lycra hurtled from the Prom pursued by a pack of photographers on big motorcycles, cheered on by young and old cycling groupies similarly decked out in logos, spandex and shades. The Promenade was festooned with logos of obscure companies that make space technology derived titanium mudguards, performance-enhancing energy drinks, or Bleu Azur radio station.

Competitive cyclists in their brightly coloured jerseys sped off like a swarm of bees pursuing their queen, around the Port and off uphill towards Villefranche and the dizzy heights of Eze, winding its way back to the finishing line in Nice. The champions greeted by national TV cameras and thousands of journalists from Top Velo! or Quel Mudguard? .

That evening the cycling media circus packed up shop, and headed back to Paris to file their copy and their expenses. Upturned cycles were loaded onto roof racks, and the spandex folded away, whilst diaries were marked up for the next competitive event on the cycling calendar.

I sat on a plane heading back to London recently , next to a Frenchman who was reading, as it happens, "Top Velo". I mean how can anyone find enough things to write about to fill eighty pages about cycling? Every page had a picture of someone - wait for it - on a bicycle. Maybe I'm missing something but bikes are for riding on, not reading about.. Though not if you are French apparently. Can't wait for next months issue, can you?

Equipment: Bicycles and spandex

Theme: Biking

In-line skating

The Promenade des Anglais is just made for in-line skating. A wide tarmac strip dedicated to skaters runs the 5km length of the prom out to the Airport. . You can also hire the requisite saftey pads for knees and elbows, though more experienced skaters will think you look a bit of a pussy. Its difficult to look cool padded like an ice hockey goalkeeper. You might want to don shades, and instead make a note of the address of the St Roch Hospital Accident and Emergency Department.

Nice hosts several competitive skating events, and a spectacular evening skate "Nice en Roller" in the summer

Equipment: You can hire skates by the hour, but bring your own shades.

Theme: Other

OCG Nice - Le Foot a Nice

Pushing leather since 1904, OGC Nice - originally the Gymnastic Club of Nice, the red and blacks have a strong local following. Evidenced by the tooting of horns all Saturday afternoon after a big match at Le Ray Stadium in North Nice.The biggest rivalry is when Nice play Marseilles, grudge match celebre for the crown of the Cote d'Azur.

Other towns on the Riviera could take a leaf out their book. How about a St Tropez Wanderers, limbering up in their flipflops and thong-displaying shorts? (Whole team currently suspended for failing a random drugs test - recreational variety.)

Or Dynamo de Cannes . Shorts all bulging with wads of Euro's as they attempt to bribe the opposing team to put up a speculative off-plan sales apartment building behind their goalmouth.

I confess to have no interest in any sport whatsoever. A failing that has freed up countless Saturday afternoons, and left at least 30% of brain cells available for matters of greater import.. Cricket? Chirrup, chirrup! Rugby? For oddballs. Tennis? Love all. Snooker? Too energegetic!

Theme: Other

Website: http://www.ogcnice.com/

Nice Lawn Tennis Club

Anyone for tennis?

19 courts of which 13 hard courts, recognised as the best in France

Address: 5, avenue Lenglen Suzanne - 06000 NICE

Directions: Near the Russian Orthodox Church and Parc Imperial

Phone: T?l. : (+33) (0)4 93 96 71 70

Theme: Other

Ironman Triathlon

June 2005 - France's Herve Faure and Holland’s Mariska Kramer won the Nice round of the biggest endurance event on earth: Triathlon. Swim 2.4 miles for starters, cycle 112 miles for main course, and for dessert, run 26.2 miles! Even thinking about it left me exhausted and in need of a lie down.

I completed the London Marathon myself in under four hours, but that was in 1992 - an altogether more aerodynamic NiceLife - before I had the waistline extension and additional chins fitted. The mind boggles at the level of fitness required to do all three in a row.

This years Nice round was played out in over 30 degrees of sweltering heat. And the reward, for most, a T-shirt for completing it. Further heats in Monaco and around the globe, culminating in the World Triathlon Championship finals in Hawaii.

Ironman competitors featured among my fellow travellers on the return flight from Nice. I am suprised they didn't walk the thousand miles to England backwards carrying an anvil under each arm and then swim the Channel. This kind of fitness is not an afterthought or a fashion accessory like a trip to the gym - it's a way of life. They have my admiration.

Address: Promenade des Anglais

Theme: Extreme Sports

Power-assisted para-flying thingumy

Don't know its proper name, if it has one, but what bloody fantastic way to fly.

Sort of one man parachute-assisted microlite with a small rear-mounted propellor and an upright pilot--seat.

He came sailing over the Chateau, virtually silent , in a gravity-defying slow glide, and gently rolled around the sky over the beach and out to sea. All in all must have been up in the air fifteen or more minutes. And I want to know where I can get one because I want one too. However I suspect this one was home-built.

Theme: Other