Chamonix Bike Blog

Author: chamonixbikeblog

New term, new toys

The skiing might not be over for everyone, but most of us have put the planks away now and are looking at pinkbike instead of TGR, or endurotribe instead of skipass depending on your nationality…

Of course, new season means everyone has spent their money on new toys and group rides are a smorgasbord of shiny bits. 650b, pikes, BOS, 1xwhatever and wider still bars. Ruaridh hasn’t had any upgrades (unless that’s a new collar), but still seemed to be the quickest up the hill.

With no bike lifts running in town, a quick lunchtime ride meant pedalling up the 4×4 track towards Montenvers then hitting the Caillet buvet trail back into town. There’s only one small patch of snow on the way up, and one on the way down, so I’ll count it as completely clear, though there were a few walkers out already.

Most of the lower valley trails are clear of snow now. Below the tree line on the Aig Rouge side of the valley there’s only small patches of snow on the trails in the more shaded gullys. On the colder side of town the tracks are clear from about 1600m, with increasing snow and snow melt above there. The trail above the Chamonix ski jump has some “entertaining” downed trees to hack your way through….

Plenty to ride then.

09/05/2014
What, where, when. 2014 lift openings

In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of mountain biking (Tennyson was a keen early mtber, award yourself 10 smug points if you got the reference), lift accessed mountain biking at that, but where?

Well here’s a list of when Chamonix’s lifts open (probably, subject to usual CdMB changes) and some other options for nearby if that’s too long to wait.

Le Tour: 14^th June

Flegere: 14^th June

Brevent/Planpraz: 14^th June

Prarion: 14^th June

Bellevue: 14^th June

Tramway du Mont Blanc: 14th June

Grand Montets: 28^th June

Vallorcine: 28^th June

And beyond the valley:

La Thuile, 28th June : http://www.lathuile.it/homepage.asp?s=E

Portes du Mont Blanc, 5th July : http://www.combloux.com/en/activities/summer/pass.html

Tignes / Val d’Isere, 28^th June (more than an hours drive, but the lifts are free again): http://www.tignes.net/en/summer-sports/free-and-unlimited-activities-252.html

Grand Massif haven’t released their dates yet, but probably 5^th July: http://ete.grand-massif.com/plans-d-ete

Pila, Dates not up, but probably 21^st June: http://www.pila.it/en/holidays/tariffe/tessere-a-punti/ *update Aosta-Pila lift only open weekend of 14/15 June then full area opening from 21 June.

Aosta valley shuttle riding, April: http://aostavalleyfreeride.com/freeride-bike-out-season.php

Portes du Soliel also doesn’t have dates up, but likely some lifts open from 14^th June with the full area open for the Passportes on the 27^th-29^th June: http://en.portesdusoleil.com/summer-lifts.html *update! Les Gets is open the 2 weekends before it’s full opening on the 14th

Verbier, weekends only from 7^th June, then all week from the 23^rd June: http://www.verbierbikepark.ch/horaires_fr.php

La Saleve, 10^th April: http://www.saleveautrement.ch/Pratique

Dorenaz, never stops: http://www.dorenaz.ch/dorenaz/transports

14/04/2014
Public transport: Dorenaz.

Generally when you think of using public transport to ride your bike, it’s looking sheepish as you trail mud through a Scotrail carriage to hook your bike up by the toilet then sit getting cold on the way back home.

Switzerland is a bit different. In Switzerland the topography lends itself more to cable cars than trains so access to many smaller villages is by publicly run telepheriques. Dorenaz is one such place where the local bus driver also sells tickets and presses buttons on a 670m height gain gondola.

As Dorenaz is at only 450m and the hill faces SW, the trails are generally clear of snow most of the year round, but it can still be pretty chilly in winter. No such problems for Spence and I when we headed out of Chamonix for some t-shirt and shorts riding in low 20’s temperatures and clear blue skies.

After hooking our bikes onto the underside of the gondola by their wheels and panicking most of the way up that they were going to clip the hillside and get knocked off, we arrived at the Champex plateau where it’s a short pedal up the tarmac to the start of the marked DH trails.

It being the first proper days riding (or should I say #pre-season training as this year I’ve gone ENDURO so no more riding, only #training or #set up testing for me now…) of the year I’d hoped for some flowing singletrack to get back into the flow of things.

No such luck. From the get-go the trails are steep, fast and rocky. To add to the fun the lack of rain recently has left the track bone dry. Chatting to some locals later in the day we were told that the track runs better in the damp, giving much more friction. This did make us feel a bit better about our riding, but not much.

After a lap of the DH trail and a few minutes at the lift to recover, collect our thoughts and steel ourselves for another lap, one of the other locals (at least, we’re assuming they were locals as they were flipping quick, turned up in a van with “Crossroad Cycles CH” written on the side, and that shop seems to sponsor the trails, I think Mrs Marple would come to the same conclusion….) took pity on us and said he’d show us some of the “easier” trails…

They were “easier” than the official trail, but certainly weren’t easy!

Back up and back on the official track we explored some of the variations marked on the trail map. Apparently these are graded from blue to black, but I’ve no idea how you tell the difference as they all felt just as interesting. Try them all and repeat the bits you like the most would be the recommendation.

It’s not too easy to find information online for Dorenaz, but if you want to head over and give it a go (and you should if you like the Vallorcine DH track, or techier tracks in general) then check out the Dorenaz facebook page and the telepherique website for more info. To get there from Chamonix, head to Martigny, follow the signs through town for Vernayaz, then the signs for Dorenaz once outside Martigny. Or look at a map.

07/04/2014
Last train to cold*

Winter’s turned up again in Chamonix, only this time she’s brought her luggage and it looks like she’s staying for a while.

Normally the easiest way to escape her clutches is to head down the road to Saleve, only a quick glance at the website showed they’ve closed until the end of March for works. Valley trails under our own steam it is.

Down the valley and past Vaudagne the geography of the valley changes from the granite boulders and steep coniferous lined slopes around town to mellow slopes with deciduous trees and loamy ground, perfect for the icy conditions.

Before we could hit the loam, we had to contend with the road from town to Vaudagne. As they don’t really grit the roads here (stops the chain getting rusty I guess) the only time we got a break from the black ice on the road was when it was a sheet of inch thick actual ice. Somehow or other, Sandy & I both got there without hitting the tarmac.

Once on the off road, traction improved considerably as long as you stuck to the band where meltwater flowing down the trail had removed the snow before freezing the ground. Sandy couldn’t believe his luck at getting to ride in such warm and easy conditions after spending most of his life MTBing in Aberdeenshire.

The last section of the trail dropped us down to Chatelard just outside Servoz (there’s only one trail on the map that drops you down to Chatelard, you can work out the rest from that) and it’s pretty good even by local standards, a natural bobsleigh run covered in a thick layer of leaves. Skids might not be big or clever but for once you’re not doing much harm, so why not….

Alas the camera succumbed to the cold at this point so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

As we sprachled over the path above the motorway, the next problem presented itself: the train went by en route to the Servoz station 500m up the road.

We were planning on catching the train to save us having to pedal back to Chamonix.

The path over the motorway is hewn from a cliff face and has a fixed rope to help you over.

We weren’t catching the train.

Riding a bike up hill is bound to be good training for something, today it seemed to be good training for being hungry, cold and scared of ice, which pretty much sums up winter climbing for me so that’ll save me having to get the ice axes out the cupboard again. Every cloud has a silver lining etc.

Is this the last ride for the season? Probably not, but if it is chamonixbikeblog will be out of hibernation in the spring.

* If you were into BMX in the early/mid ‘90’s then hopefully this is a hilariously witty play on a tee-shirt design, if not then you missed out on fully rigid bikes that weigh more than a DH rig, and my hilariously witty play on a tee-shirt design.

13/11/2013
Greatest hits

Even if you’re far too core to lower yourself to buying a greatest hits album, I’m sure at Christmas an aunt will have remembered your obsession with Cliff Richard and got you a copy of “The whole story” (I googled it)

Before you got the greatest hits though, you’ll have listened through albums, heard singles on the radio. Over time the songs became kind of familiar, a bit too familiar. They lost the urgency and freshness they once had and worse, you can even grow to hate them.

I end up listening only to a select few tracks, the best of the band, then even they don’t really grab me anymore and I’ll drift away from the band for a bit.

This is where the greatest hits album comes in, because the band has split up, gone to rehab, dropped off the scene, then got a tax bill, reformed and is touring off the back of the greatest hits album, out just in time for Christmas.

The tracks are on the radio again, you remember what was so great about the tunes and get back into the band, just hopefully not to repeat the same cycle again.

Which brings me to riding bikes (yes, eventually, but you try writing semi interesting copy every week…)

Brevent’s been open, and that’s kind of it for uplift here. Despite the weather being generally pretty good, the upper sections of Brevent have been slow to dry or melt when it’s rained/snowed and not much fun on the bike, so every day’s been more laps of the front face trails of the lower gondola.

It’s a fair argument that there’s plenty of other trails about, but that would involve pedalling, like, all the way up. You get lazy when you’re used to lifts, so we mostly rode Brevent.

There’s a huge number of ways you can link the many trails on the close on 1000m drop you get from each lap up the gondola, but after a while you end up on the best 3 or 4 ways down.

You can see where this is going, but with some of the best riding in the world on the door step, I’ve still managed to get a wee bit over it and I’m strangely happy about the lifts closing today meaning any riding will now have to be worked for (well, except for trips to Saleve and Dorenez…) with worsening weather and riding partners getting ready for skiing.

And when you find yourself moaning about getting to lap amazing trails in t-shirt weather with hardly anyone about, you know it’s time for a change! If you’re looking for any info on the trails at Brevent, check through previous posts and/or buy the bike book. Instead of describing them again I’ll just let you look at the photos, all from assorted rides over the last week.

04/11/2013