It could be suggested that Mike Covino and Kyle Marvin wrote The Climb as an elaborate excuse to buy beautiful Speedvagen bikes and half the Café du Cycliste collection before ‘jumping the pond’ to ride the roads of the Côte d’Azur. Making a film that ended up winning the Coup de Coeur in the Un Certain Regard category was simply a nice by-product.

After Festival Director, Thierry Frémaux, used The Climb as a prefix to talk at length about cycling in the region and Eddy Merckx's 50th anniversary of winning the tour during the official selection announcement, it was mutually agreed the inaugural edition of the Tour de Cannes had to happen. Everyone talks about cycling in films, but what about films (or their makers) in cycling?

With agendas full of meetings, press interviews and free bars the premiere parcours was kept coastal, away from the slopes of the arrière-pays. The best escape from the Festival buzz is to head west along the coast to the Esterel, or the Corniche d'Or as its known locally.

For The Climb production team, it was a welcome break from the intensity of festival business and a chance to connect with local riders, like the Icard family - father Michel, son Florent and brother/uncle Marc have a local heritage in the regional cycling scene like no other. Broken french meets broken english meets the joy of cycling on the Côte d’Azur. Hand gestures and false sprints up each rise bridge the language barrier.

Any aller-retour needs a good turnaround point. Agay is a good one because (a) there's a roundabout and (b) beside that roundabout is a café serving the best tarte aux pommes - or if you're an American film maker – apple pie. Here Mike and Kyle answer questions on the film, why it involves the bicycle as a theme and why they choose the Col de Vence as a location for the first (and for some critics the funniest) scene. They also ponder extending the ride instead of turning back to make the first meeting of the day.

On the return the Tour de Cannes peloton comes upon one of the regular mid-week rides of elder cycling statesmen, one of whom is sporting World Championship bands. 'If you can beat him up the hill, the film will win a prize.' And with that Mike was off. American film director (maybe with some slight ‘festival fatigue’) plays 50 something Azureéan cyclist. Let's just say.... it was the right result for both riders.

Returning to the Croisette, the roll was called for a photo in front of the red carpet of the Palais des Festival where the film premiered the next day. After which it set the online review world on fire, after which…it won the Coup de Coeur prize in the Un Certain Regard Category. Before that however, it was agreed that even if Mike and Kyle don’t have another movie in next year’s Official Selection, they’ll still be there for the second edition of Tour de Cannes next year.