Chamonix Bike Blog

Tag: Les Portes du Mont-Blanc

All the lifts.

In 2013 Lorne and I tried to ride every lift on the Chamonix pass in a day. We failed because we didn’t really think it through first. You can read all about it on the blog here.

In 2016 Lorne and I tried to ride every lift on the Chamonix pass in a day. We failed because we were a bit ambitious about how quick we’d move at the end of the day. You can read all about it on Pinkbike here.

In 2018 Lorne and I tried to ride every lift on the Chamonix pass* in a day. We…..

Well, where would the suspense be if you knew the outcome was by the 3rd paragraph? OK, it would be in the well written prose where it’s a literary technique called prolepsis, but here you’re lucky if I dinnay stray into Scots too often, so you can just have good old fashioned chronological prose instead. (play literary technique bingo HERE with the hand guide to words you’ll never remember)

In past attempts there were pages of maps and detailed spreadsheets of timings. For this go it was as much as either of us could do to find a date neither of us were working. Date found, we met for the 0754 train outta Chamonix with a scribbled list of lift closure times and worked it out on the way.

Pedal up to Le Tour, wait for the lifts to open, go up the lifts, ride round to the Vallorcine DH. Its been well hammered by some recent storms, the “black” grading probably needs shaded in even harder. It’s quite the warm up lap.

Up the Vallorcine gondola, pedal up to the Col Posettes, head down through the bike park. It’s the July – August bike ban so the more interesting ways down are all out of bounds. Obviously, being the smoothest and easiest trail of the day, I get a puncture on the green track.

Grands Montets, Flegere and Brevent are all closed to bikes this summer (well, Brevent isn’t, but you can only go up from 1615 and there’s just 1 way down, so we’re treating it as closed) so it’s a fast pedal through the valley to Les Houches and Prarion.

Prarion lift, Prarion DH trail. There’s a new see-saw to enter the track (we don’t like see-saws) the trails running pretty good, and the new finish spits you out just above the Bellevue lift.

Puncture excepted, all had gone smoothly up to now. There was a gondola sitting ready to leave. We weren’t allowed on it and had to wait for the next lift. I bought a baguette. You make the most of downtime on days like these.

There’s a grand yet little known trail starting a few hundred meter down from the Bellevue lift that drops you down towards La Chapiot. We took this trail for those reasons, it really is grand and being little known it wasn’t hoaching. It also handily puts you onto the trail round to Pont des Places and Le Champel and cuts out a wheen of road and climbing on the way to Les Contamines.

A handy feature of many of the lifts outside the Chamonix valley is they either close for lunch or run on 30 minute rotations. Or both. The Les Contamines lift closes from 1230 to 1345. With some smugness we were on the lift by 1200. As the next lift was also closed ’til 1345 we chose to do a bigger lap off the top. Well worth the detour. And we could stop and take some photos as we went too. Bonus.

Bollocks. Having sauntered up to the St Gervais lift well before its 1345 opening we get blocked out of the queue for the second stage and made to wait 15 mins for the next rotation. Will we make the last lift in time? Will we rue those missing 15 mins? Will anywhere have ice cream in Megeve? All these questions and more remain to be answered.

From the top of St Gervais we’re aiming for the Jaillet lift in Megeve, and strike a fairly direct line towards it down the hill. The trails about here aren’t so easy to find as over in Chamonix, you don’t get as many folks exploring this far. If you can bring yourself to make the effort, then joining the dots between Les Mandarines Restaurant, Bornand, Darbelet and Les Choseaux is well worth your effort, even if forestry work and storms have damaged or destroyed some sections of the trail. About a third of the way down we score the first crash of the day too, with Lorne hitting the deck hard. An enduro crash though, he’s up and riding as soon as he can see the bike is fine.

At the Jaillet lift we find Lorne is a little less fine, but it’s only blood and the body had something like 5 litres of the stuff so he can afford to waste some of it. Jaillet lift is also home to some fine trails, a veritable maze criss crosses its way through the forest below the lift. The best way to learn it is to get a day pass and keep trying different trails. We didn’t have time for that, so Lorne had to trust I could remember where I went in races past.

It seemed to work, 45 mins after getting off the St Gervais lift we were at the Rochebrune lift and ready to rock. Except the Rochebrune wasn’t running for another 15 mins. That answers that question.

Are there any worthwhile trails to ride off the Rochebrune lift? So far the answer there is no, but I’ve not tried every trail, so mibbies there’s something. Eitherways, it’s on the lift pass, takes bikes, and the 4×4 trails help get us over to the next lift with a minimum of pedaling, so it gets taken and ridden.

Petite Fontaine. This is more like it. We’re running seriously tight here to get to the next lift by 1630, so there’s no photos only memories (and they don’t convert to 1’s and 0’s well yet), but this lift is way more what folks have in mind when they think of undiscovered alpine chairlifts. Big rolling terrain and sweet rooty singletrack. Over all to soon but with the schedule we’re on, probably soon enough. Or maybe not, we get to our next checkpoint with so much time to spare we can buy ice creams. Another question answered.

Mont d’Arbois. Fourth of the poorly named Megeve trilogy, the lift brings you back up to more or less the top of the St Gervais lift. That means it brings you up to the top of the “Wizz” flow trail. In a region of the alps not known for getting flow trails right, this is a wee gem of a trail that could have been lifted straight out of Whistler. Early season Whistler before the braking bumps form up at that. Not sure about the name though.

Wizz trail ridden, we’re still 620m above and 16 mins before the last tramway, our last lift, of the day. Whilst it would be nice to do those 620m on some quality singletrack that’s not an option in this area, and even the average singletrack is a bit time consuming, so we crack on with a bit of road riding and cut through finding.

Two minutes early is as good as 10. Two minutes is enough to buy a can of juice whilst you wait for the Tramway car to appear over the horizon. You learn to make the most of downtime on days like these.

Arriving at the bike high point of the tramway, Bellevue, it sort of dawns on us that we’ve actually managed to get round all of the lifts. We’re both a bit tired and the cumulative wear and tear of the day is showing. The sensible choice here would be to take the classic GR5 trail down as a victory lap…..but somehow that doesn’t seem quite the fitting way to end. No, to celebrate we decide that we’ve not done enough today and the perfect way down would be to drag our battered bikes and bodies up towards the Col Mont Lachat and ride one of the most technical and consequential trails in the valley.

I’m not sure I could truthfully say the Arandellys descent is the most suitable trail to end this day on, but I guess there were a few parallels to the rest of the ride. You need a certain amount of ambition, confidence and luck to ride it clean. Neither of us rode it clean, but we were both above our average for getting through each section. Amazing what a bit of success does for the riding confidence.

Another convenient coincidence of this trail, it ends at a pub. So did our ride**

*Some caveats. These are all the lifts on the Chamonix Mont Blanc Unlimited annual pass that you are allowed to take a bike on during the bike ban months of July and August. Outwith these months there are more choices in the Chamonix Valley, but then most of the lifts outside the valley are closed. Brevent is the complicated one as after a few years of being closed to bikes in July and August has no opened to bikes, but only after 1615 and only to ride the road down. So we missed it out.

** Well, only figuratively. We then rode home after a couple pints (err, don’t drink and ride kids). As I live in a ground level apartment and Lorne a 3rd floor flat then I assume this is why my strava gives 9819m of descent and Lornes’ 9996m. A fair bit either way. Lorne worked out the numbers on the ride without the lifts and train. 123.4km, 2070m climbing, 9996m descending. Up for it?

Relive ‘Every lift August 2018’

17/08/2018
MB Enduro Megeve

Another weekend, another race.

For the last 5 years Megeve has been publicising the opening of it’s lifts for the summer with “the most difficult race in the world”, a 140km, 7000m +/- marathon race that in the 2010 running only 1 of the 600 starters finished.

That sounds a bit much like hard work, so fortunately they also have a 1 day enduro using the Portes du Mont Blanc network of lifts.

Being close to Chamonix there were a few familiar faces dotting about the paddock. The entry forms implied you could choose the riders you wish to race with so we had hoped that Nina, Ally, Spence (here for his first ever race) & I would all get to start at similar times. Instead Nina started 1st with the girls, I was mid pack and Ally & Spence were in the last 10.

Most of us had ridden in Megeve before, me only in the dry (more here) and Nina and Ally only in the wet. In the dry the trails looked well drained, but Nina and Ally said otherwise. An overnight storm meant the trails were pretty slick, but the forecast was for sunshine and light winds so the trail would probably dry out. Mud tyres or normal tyres? Looking about the paddock there was a mix from brand new Swamp Things to virtually bald High Rollers. In the end inertia chose for us and we all went with whatever was on our bikes already.

After some hectic running about Megeve trying to find where to register, we headed up on the Jaillet lift for the 1st of 6 stages. The stages were being ridden properly blind. Not only was there no practice runs, the only clue we had to what was coming was a (highly inaccurate it turned out) profile trace on the back of our race numbers. I’d done some reconnaissance (i.e., looking at previous years headcam footage on vimeo) the week before so figured there would be a mix of bike park, fire road and fresh cut loam.

I was completely correct for 5 of the 6 stages. Each one was some fun but generic bike park berms n rolls, great fresh cut trails through the forest which reminded Ally and me of our days racing the Scottish series in the borders, and brutal, brutal climbs. If it hadn’t been for the climbs then any of the stage could have been all time great trails, but instead some parts felt more like an XC race than an enduro. I think I’m fairly fit and I couldn’t even run up some of the climbs let alone ride. It showed the gulf between normal riders and the pros when we heard that the same climbs were getting ridden up by the fast boys.

Normally I’d have a mix of Spence’s photos and the official event video to save you from relying on my description of the riding, but Spence was racing and the official video will be mostly about a 140km death loop, so instead you’ll just have to use a mix of my description and some crappy i-phone pictures.

Stage 5 was the highlight for me (ignoring the killer climbs) which pretty much went straight down the hill in a loam trench. Sometimes twisting through natural bobsleigh runs, sometimes just hanging off the back of the bike hoping you don’t catch a root. Running in the middle of the pack meant you could feel the roost of loam over your legs as if skiing powder, even Spence & Ally at the back of the field had the same which shows how deep the brown pow was.

Another reminder of the SCU races was the amount of grip. Stages 1 & 2 were almost tractionless most of the time, and completely tractionless in the roots. It was amazing! It did also mean the bikes gained several kg of mud each stage, fortunately the organisers provided enduro specific sticks and puddles at each chairlift to help us clean the bikes. Less fortunately timing issues meant that stage 2 was not included in the overall results, Ally & I were particularly gutted as we both were definitely the fastest riders of the day and easily made up 5 minutes on the lead. Or something.

Stage 6 was not wet or loamy. Dry tarmac and cobbles instead for an urban stage through the posh centre of Megeve. Lots of fun, and always amazing to see how many random people line the barriers for these things to cheer you on, but despite finishing at a lower height than it started it felt like a 2 minute hill climb and was pretty brutal on the legs.

Not being a national level race we were all hoping for better results than usual, or at least, Nina and I were. Ally hadn’t raced since he was on the Scottish development team about a decade ago, and Spence had never raced at all, so was at least guaranteed a pb by finishing.

Nina rode consistently well, no crashes and overtaking several riders each stage, but was denied a podium place in 4th and 123rd of the 170 finishers. Spencer tried, but failed, to take Nina’s crown of stupidest rider induced mechanical in a race by knocking his forks to lock-out during a crash on stage 1, and not noticing until stage 3. His times improved dramatically from there and he got his pb as 70th man. Ally had a solid ride for his first race in about 10 years, staying pretty much upright for all 6 stages and cruising into 30th in men.

My race was going well, riding well within myself and happy to be not too far off the times of Nico Lau given how physical the stages were, until the 4th (or 3rd timed) stage. About half way down my derailleur caught into my wheel, mangling it and snapping my chain. I picked up the remains before running and freewheeling the rest of the stage, then ran the mile or so back to the car to put on a new mech hanger, fix the chain and bodge the derailleur as best I could. I was able to continue with the middle 5 gears of the block more or less working, but worried any impact or hard pedalling would be the end of the mech. Given all this, I was pretty happy with 18th overall.

That’s the racing over for a while now, time to get back to just going out riding.

07/07/2014
First chair, last col – Les Portes du Mont Blanc

Tuesday seemed to be a popular day for getting out of Chamonix. Groups were heading to Pila, La Thuile and the road cols of the Aravais. True to our Scottish roots, Lorne & I chose to make the 45 minute drive to the area with the cheapest lift pass, the Portes du Mont Blanc. 12.50euro for a day pass still represents a fair outlay in Irn Bru mind, so we were there for the 1^st bin and rode till they closed the lifts on us.

So what was the riding like? Very different to Chamonix. A break down of the riding around each lift is below, but the need to knows are: if you’ve got a DH or Freeride bike, head to Megeve and play under the Pres chair and Jaillet gondola. If you’ve got an everyday MTB, head where ever you feel like, you’ll not be over or under biked.

The trail map is available online here: http://www.combloux.com/images/stories/decouvrir/plans/plan-vtt-2.pdf or you can pick up a copy at the ticket offices or tourist info, having it open in another tab will make the descriptions below easier! There are bike maintenance and washing points dotted around the bases of the lifts and a fair few of the mountain restaurants are open if you forgot your baguettes. Again, all of these are marked on the map

Lifts open from a civilised 1000 and close at 1700 with a break from 1300 to 1400. We used the lunch break to ride over the non lift accessed trails from Ball Trap to Praz-sur-Arly and, preferring the trails off the Pres chair to the slopes above Megeve, we rode there for last chair before descending directly to Megeve from the Col du Jaillet side via the base of TS Pres.

The whole area is much quieter than the Chamonix valley, both with walkers and cyclists. Away from the Pres & Jaillet lifts we didn’t see any bikes, though there was a good mix of families on hire bikes and top end DH machinery out. Walkers were all very friendly, but remember the trails are shared so control your inner Danny Hart.

Ball Trap / TS Pres

I could have happily lapped red 8 & 17 for most of the day. 17 is the faster and more man-made of the two, with smooth running berms and small but well formed doubles and step-ups that look pretty forgiving if you come up short.

8 is more natural, more roots and some loam, but with the deft touch of a good trail builder enhancing what nature came up with. If you really want a break from the steep tech of Chamonix, this is a great tonic. There’s also a cruisier blue snaking down with less incline and some fire road for less confident riders

Combloux / TS Pertuis

We didn’t ride any of the lower trails, accessed by the free bike bus shuttle, partly because the buses run on 30 minute rotations and we didn’t want to lose any time, but mostly as we were pretty disappointed by the trails under the chair. Red 12 starts out promisingly enough on some playful singletrack shared with a blue run, then turns to fire road for most of its 4.5km. Red 16 just starts on fire road. The blue 11 looked like it had promise from sections glanced at, but we were already moving on (EDIT! Lorne went back a week later, and said…“checked out blue 11 down towards Combloux, really nice high swooping berms at the top, some BMXy whoops in the middle then mellow turns through the forest onto the road” so there you go, our top tip for that side of the hill!). Descents from the summit all the way down to the lake at Passy are possible from here, and 1300m of DH to end in a swim would be worth a go, but overall, we were fairly underwhelmed.

Megeve / TC Jaillet

For the uplift, the bikes are hung by the rear wheel from the gondola, if you’re of a nervous disposition about your stanchions then you might want to lag them, though no one was and I didn’t feel the bike was going to get trashed. The marked red 13 isn’t particularly memorable, however the unmarked freeride/northshore trail that runs next to it is much more interesting.

Now that the features at Les Houches and in the woods above Les Praz are no more, this is probably the nearest place to Chamonix if that’s your bag

Le Plan / TS Torraz

Tricky one as the lift is closed for the whole summer, so several black and red runs which go to its base are closed for the year, unless you fancy a real slog back. This is a real shame as there looks to be the best potential for natural trails and some big enduro days in the area from here, ho hum. You can loop round to the top of the Christomet chair which accesses most of the trails from the top of the Pres & Pertuis chairs by following the signs for 6, 12 19, & 20 then, after the singletrack descent, contouring round on the fire road. The undulations look worse than they are and you’re quickly at the top of the (closed) chair where you can either follow the black 5 back to TS Pres (which we didn’t) or continue on to red 25 & 22 towards Praz-sur-Arly.

After previous disappointment with red fire road, we were keen to avoid the same here and were considering using a single dashed black line on the IGN map. In the end we lost the track and ended up on a locals trail that took us on about 600m vert of loam (another rarely seen commodity in Chamonix) down to Villard.

I don’t know the local etiquette on hidden trails, so I’m not giving any more clues, but it’s not too hard to find from the walkers trail, just look out for the tyre tracks…

Praz-sur-Arly / TS Cret du Midi

First off, if you find yourself in Villard, Villaret or such whilst trying to get to Praz, don’t bother with the trails, just take the road! Moving on, there’s not been much effort put into the tracks here, some bike hangers for the chairs (from the front wheel this time, check that QR…) and a few signs. The lift is also closed on Mondays & Fridays.

The black 24 run follows a walkers trail complete with slippy log steps and rubble strewn double track. Despite this it’s a lot of fun, swoopy sections through meadows, fast leaf covered tracks through deciduous trees and some serious mud.

Last bit’s not so good admittedly, but we liked it despite this. There’s a long cruisy blue (21 & 39) that takes you downhill from the top into Megeve which looks like an easy way to get back, but with rotations on the looooong chair taking 25 minutes, and 1hr till last lift back at TS Pres, we skipped it to put the saddles up and heads down for a 10 minute blast up the road back to Megeve.

Definitely somewhere to head back to for more exploring, particularly once the Torraz chair re-opens. The potential for some really long rides here is great, and it’s refreshing to ride somewhere that bikes seem encouraged and welcomed….

The opening weekend for the area includes a series of XC and enduro races and a week long VTT festival. Dates aren’t up yet for next years, but the 1^st weekend in July would be a reasonable guess.

19/07/2012