This is a ride of concentrated excellence. We wax lyrical about where we ride. We tell you about our choice of merino products that breathe to regulate temperature but warm when the air bites. Marketing hype? Well, here we are to put our money where our mouths are. And to hurt our legs in the process.

The idea for this ride was born a year ago, as we went to watch the world rally cars blast their way over the Col de Turini during the famous Rallye Monte-Carlo. Searching for a spectating spot between the trees we found ourselves walking along a cross-country ski piste and thinking, this could be fun to ride on a bike.

Cut to drinking espressos in the Café, shooting the breeze with Kieran, a former professional road racer turned mountain biker, about the possibility of riding that ski piste and the concept snow-balled into a bigger idea to ride from sand to snow. Never shoot the breeze with a mountain biker. They are a different sort.

Yes, there is is an overlap of interests between road biking and mountain biking, touring and racing, but is there the perfect ride that can please everyone? If we categorise our cycling, is there an hors catégorie ride that pleases all of the riders, that captures the spirit of why we all ride?

Two weeks later and here we are sitting on the sea wall in Menton looking up at the peaks that jut out above the clouds, formed where the sea breeze meets the mountain air, reminding ourselves of the route that will take us from the sand in front of the old town to the snow. Sand, tarmac, gravel, tarmac, gravel, tarmac, gravel, snow, gravel, tarmac, snow. In that exact order. The one simple element of this ride will be that it is up. Ever up, from sea to sky.

That's exactly what Stage 16 of the Tour de France did back in 1950 in an era when the grande boucle used to visit these mountains much more than it does today. Stage 16 started in Menton over the Col de Castillon and Col de Turini.

But that's pure road racing, la tète dans le guidon, with a focus on the finish line rather than absorbing the beauty of the area. Sure, we want to taste that heritage and, like the more famous climbs of the Tour, imagine the riders of old battling on the very same piece of tarmac that we roll on. But we also have to please the mountain bikers we're riding with.

So at Monti, one third of the way up the Col de Castillon, we take a right to attack the first gravel secteur. Climbing on gravel is a novel experience to the road rider, the concentration required to pick the smoothest, fastest line distracting from the sting of the gradient. It's meat and drink to cross-country mountainbikers (and maybe boring to downhill adrenaline junkies), but what it provides for everyone is immersion into the quieter parts of the alpine foothills. And that's something every cyclist loves, no?

Between Monti and Col de Braus we head into the wild. Gravel, tarmac, gravel. And cols. Col des Banquettes, Col de Ségra, Col du Farguet and finally Col de Braus; all in a mere 35kms.

There is something special about arriving at a col by gravel rather than the traditional route. The smugness factor is high. Over a thousand metres high to be exact. It's February 16th and we are in warm sun, eating lunch in the grass just above the René Vietto memorial. René is known for his punishing and extreme training ethic. We wonder if his disciplined regime ever allowed him to venture off the beaten track.

Does every ride have to be hard like René's? Does it have to involve suffering? It is maybe like choosing a favourite album - the genre of your ride really depends on your mood at the time. There is the café ride, the endurance ride, the training intervals ride, the social ride. But if we are looking for the perfect do-it-all ride (do we call it the free ride or the soul ride?) then surely it has to be long enough, high enough, and tough enough with adventure and beautiful scenery to satisfy all the discerning cyclist's desires. Are we in the process of finding that sweet spot of riding?

We can't make that judgement with a descent to Sospel and the big climb to Turini and the snow still to come.

Turini is our big mountain. It matches any other climb you can find in Europe. A hors catégorie climb for this hors catégorie ride. Classic switchback road porn in the Gorge du Pion before another 90-right onto gravel at the tiny hamlet of Le Moulinet.

And here comes the snow. In the shade, in between the trees on the dark side of the mountain. In the belly of the mountain you might say. It's steep, it's cold, and there is little traction. The gravel tyres that dragged on the tarmac are paying back their debt now.

Emerging from the forest at Piëra-Cava we are greeted by a snow-lined avenue to the col. The light is fading and dapples through the branches from over our left shoulders. Golden hour has begun and it's pushing us to the summit before the sun dips below the western peaks. Up, ever up.

And more up, because the objective is to reach the ski pistes at Camp d'Argent, which is to be found two and a half kilometres above the col itself.

But in the end that didn't matter because three hairpins after leaving the col the vista, the sunset light, the cold misty air and the perfect tarmac below make us stop. We have found it. Cycling perfection.

(But we went for cake and beer and to boast to Yvonne anyway.)