EuroVelo 8: What's the route like through the Alps for a recumbent bike?

hi, I'm planning a recumbent bike trip from the Pyrenees to Greece. On the EuroVelo 8 route, it doesn't specify the path through the Alps. Are there any experienced cyclists here who can tell me where they go to avoid climbing too high? Also, is there another traveler/bike forum better suited for broadening the responses? thanks

EuroVelo 8 runs from Cadiz to Athens, mostly following the Mediterranean coast. In France, there are greenways and small roads between Le Perthus and Menton, but the route isn’t fully developed everywhere—some sections are still shared small roads rather than dedicated bike paths.

The route often sticks to the Mediterranean coast or the Provençal hinterland until the French Riviera. On the Italian side, EuroVelo 8 dips into Alpine valleys to descend toward northern Italy, particularly around Nice/Ventimiglia, but this section isn’t (as of now) 100% easy or well-marked. In other words, EuroVelo 8 doesn’t completely bypass the Alps—it sort of "brushes" against them between Nice and the Italian border, then between the Provençal hinterland and Turin/the Po Valley.

If you want to avoid steep or high mountain passes, touring cyclists tend to use different strategies, like shifting toward the Po Valley (gentler terrain) or connecting to the coast via wider, more gradual valleys instead of tackling a major pass. This sometimes means going as far as Turin or Alessandria to stay at a gentler elevation.

For forum discussions, Reddit, for example, has a cycling community that recommends alternative routes, like this thread, where some suggest bypassing the toughest mountain sections by taking hilly routes or making big detours toward more gradual passes (e.g., Mont-Cenis to reach Turin instead of steeper cols). Others note that GPS logic might take you over passes by default since it follows the most direct route, but you can avoid this by adding POIs in Komoot/Osmand.

The EuroVelo 8 passes lower down, in PACA no big mountain passes crosses into Italy via Menton http://cbandiera.free.fr/vv/euros/euro-velo-8/france.php

claudio

hello

claudio has this as a project

http://cbandiera.free.fr/recits/2025-euro-8/

via Nice–Menton, so pretty flat (yay!!) and back via Col du Mont Cenis (but that’s where it climbs) (though there’s the train from Turin to Modane)