Priceless Moments In The South Of France

Good morning…

It is the end of day here in Nice, France.

I have only been in the South of France for a few days, but I have had many priceless moments.

Forget the friends, food, hotels, natural beauty, and seeing the Monaco Grand Prix stands being set up, some incredible moments have happened.

Today our group did a tough climb called Madone d’Utelle (approximately 16 km and 3,500 feet).

Here I am at the top with my pal Roy Rubin…

The BIKO team is doing an incredible job as always (my fifth adventure with them) with planning and safety, but what makes the trips with them super special are the extra benefits like the wicked good photography of Toby. Today, he was hiding out up on top of one of the peaks and snapped this ‘priceless’ photo of me grinding my way to the top…

Yesterday, Fillipo invited the founders of Cafe Du Cycliste (French cycling company, founded and headquartered in Nice) along for our ride and it was a real treat to have them talk about the company as they led us up and down some local passes. I love following this luxury cycling fashion brand and we carry their lines at our portfolio company DSTNC.com a deal Fillipo set up for us.

I was riding behind Roy (pictured above) and Cafe Du Cycliste co-founder Remi Clermont as they discussed e-commerce and witnessed the delight of Remi learning that Roy had founded the e-commerce platform Magento which is the platform they use to run their business. The world is indeed small and wonderful at times.

Also priceless…it turns out I have at least TWO blog readers that are citizens of Monaco (30,000 residents). Yesterday I had a drink with one of them (I won’t expose his Twitter and Stocktwits alias) who runs a single family office here and spent his early career working at John Paulson’s hedge fund. We had a great time talking about life in Monaco and the markets.

On Sunday, another reader has invited me to play golf at the Monte-Carlo Country Club and I can’t pass that up.

Yes, I have been writing for 18 years here on the blog, but these type of moments make it all worthwhile.

Now it is time to catch up on some work before another great dinner with friends.

Have a great day.