Chamonix Bike Blog

Author: chamonixbikeblog

Awesome. Le Tour and more.

I like tea me. There are few things in life better than a cup of tea, but even better are those 10% of cups of tea that just push up to the next level of tea. Awesome.

I like riding bikes me. There are few things…. And this ride was one of those 10%. It’s not as if the average ever drops that low about here, but that combination of some of the best of a good crop of trails, perfect weather, dry ground but only a couple days after a good soaking and a bunch of mates to share it with. Awesome.

It started with the potential to go either way, meeting for the 0925 bike bus up to Le Tour. When they work well the bike bus is amazing, but when the driver seems more keen to load it up with walkers than riders, leaving you at the bus stop, or the UCPA gets there first with 20 odd stormtrooping pupils and you can’t fit your bike in, not so good. Today, it all went smoothly and we were on the lifts for 10.

Looking down from the Autannes Chairlift you could see the new section of trail built into the upper VTT trail. It looks pretty good too, but we had plans on the bigger descents into Switzerland and, as the Vallorcine gondola closes between 1230 and 1345, there was a schedule to keep to.

Unsure if we’d be quick enough on a full Trient lap, we started up with a shorter lap from the Col de Balme to the Catogne chalets and down to Vallorcine. Of course when I say shorter, you still get 1000m vert over 9km of the finest riding in the alps. Alpine pasture, dusty singletrack hugging the side of gorges, some fast fireroad to drift about on and a finish down rock rooty singletrack through pine forests with that dappled light that makes it so infuriating to photograph!

Some time, and much amusement, later, we’re getting back onto the Vallorcine gondola. A short pedal over the Col des Posettes and a blast across the hill and we re-set on the Autannes chair. This time though at the Refuge de Balme we stay in Switzerland and head up towards L’Arolette. There’s still a few patches of snow to negotiate round the back here, no apparently the hill doesn’t know it’s August, but they’re all pretty easy to cross. Except for Luke…

We reached the col by hot o’clock, so stopped to drink water, eat a bit and shoot the breeze. Sated, we dropped into the descent across the bowl. You can see 90% of the trail snaking across the hillside here. The bit you couldn’t see turned out to be another patch of snow across the steepest and rockiest section of the mountain. Everyone stopped in time.

From here the trail just keeps giving. There are better natural trails out there, but not many. Like the Catogne descent that it runs near to there’s every sort of riding covered on your way down. Well, every good sort; I didn’t notice any tussocky grass, brake bumps, motocrosser ruts etc.

Eventually we cruised sweaty and dusty into Trient, another 1000m lower and immeasurably higher. Even better, the trail ends but 20m from a(n ice cold) water fountain. Less good was the switch from trail to road for the next wee while, but even that wasn’t too bad. A fast blast downhill to nearly the border then a 20 minute or so pedal up hill to Vallorcine, with the baking hot sun cooking you from above.

Once again we head up the Vallorcine gondola, up to the col and across the mountain, but this time we keep heading down on the ever excellent lower Le Tour DH track. The construction of the new upper section’s obviously taken a fair bit of the shapers time as the trail was running quite loose, you can complain, or you can get on with it and learn to drift. Or your bike can have a tantrum like Ally’s did. It started with a quick stop to fix a puncture (not mine for once, and the only one of the day). Then the fixed wheel couldn’t go back in the frame. Closer inspection revealed that the disk brake return springs were performing more of a braking duty than the pads. Undeterred by the lack of material, Ally affected repairs, and we got going again, headed for Petite Balcon Nord.

PBN doesn’t get ridden at this end of the valley anything like as much as it does lower down, which is strange as it’s my new favourite section of the petite balcons. Not going to complain mind, we all had a blast down to Argentiere and the Grand Montets lift.

Josh had to keep going for home here, so it was only 5 of us that boarded, probably just as well given how grumpy the other passengers were at our presence, ho hum. Another quick break to drink and eat and we were off on the last descent of the day into the Lavancher bowl and then on to Le Bois. This is another anomaly of the Chamonix bike ban, being a totally natural trail, fairly tech in places, reasonably popular with walkers, and yet we’re encouraged to use it. Not going to complain mind, it’s a grand way down the hill. Once in the trees the light was useless for taking photos, so the camera afflicted amongst us were able to just keep going and going and going, as was everyone else having been freed from “wait there a second” “ok, ride now” “can you go up again, I missed it”…. Though the flip side is that it’s a very long way down and you better have strong fore arms if your brake fingers are going to survive.

Eventually, 5 riders rolled into Le Bois and collapsed by the water fountain. These granite and wood vats of ice cold drinking water are up there with tea and bikes in my “things that are great” list, and the Le Bois one is definitely in the upper 10%, especially on a day like this.

Sunshine, friends and over 4km vertical of dusty alpine descending. Awesome.

02/08/2013
Proper planning prevents (long climbs). Grand Massif

Half way between Chamonix and the Portes du Soleill sits the Grand Massif ski area, and it’s sort of ½ and ½ PDS & Chamonix in the riding too, with Chamonix’s queues and busyness combined with the PDS’s rolling terrain and bike friendly attitude.

After scratching the surface there last year I was keen to return and explore more, with the descent from the top of the Flaine lifts at 2480m down to Sixt at about 750m being top of the to do list. Arriving in Les Carroz a quick look in the direction of Flaine was enough to guess that there is still, at the end of July, too much snow. Maybe next month.

Instead our plan became to hit the Les Carroz bike park for a few laps before riding over to Samoens whilst the lifts were closed for lunch, lap Samoens & Morillon for a bit then head back to the car. Sorted.

The Les Carroz bike park hadn’t changed much from last year. Some maintenance keeping it in order, a bit more signage, a few new features, but still the same trails and still fun.

With the lifts closing for lunch we started the trek over. Armed with no maps, a reasonable sense of direction and a mix of bikes ranging from superlight enduro race rig to DH monster bike, we figured to begin with “up” and see how it worked out.

The previous year we’d ridden the “La Vieille” trail for part of the way over, which was good but unfinished. This year we managed to find it again, and it was finished. Unfortunately it involved a fair bit of contouring, but no complaining from Richie & Alex on the big bikes.

Eventually we made it round to the Samoens trails and let gravity do the hard work again. There’s a maze of trails coming off the main Grand Massif Express lift here, both official and locals. We managed to avoid repeating anything from last year and found some amazing riding, a day could easy be spent on this one lift without getting bored.

My afternoon started to get a bit worse at this point, with the discovery that my shiny new Spicy 516 had been spec’d with cheap inner tubes too small for the tyres. After 2 punctures, 1 of which happened when the bike was lying on its side, I was getting quite grumpy.

The mood wasn’t improved with discovering that the second Samoens lift, the Chariande Express wasn’t running. This was the lift we needed to get back to Les Carroz. And the car. No problem, we can use the Morillon lifts for only a bit more effort. They weren’t running either. Moral of the story, check the Grand Massif website to see which lifts are running on which days before making the trip.

As we were armed with the pedalable bikes, Lorne & I set of to ride back over the hills to the car, whilst Alex & Richie grabbed some more laps of the Samoens trails. It wasn’t the worst riding back over, but in the humid afternoon it would have been nicer to be sitting on a chairlift with a gentle breeze.

Next time, proper planning and no snow.

30/07/2013
Les Houches, So hot right now…

You might have noticed a bit of a love/hate relationship between residents of the Chamonix valley and the Compagnie du Mont-Blanc. When it involves bikes and the trails for them, then it’s often not their fault, CdMB is just the entity with a name that can be blamed for the myriad land owners barring access for tracks and other interested parties wanting to sell more of their “VTT interdit” signs.

Other times, they could probably try harder.

Well, today CdMB is in my good books. And why is that? Well readers, it’s because the long awaited replacement bike trails from Prarion have started to open. And they’re great!

Currently it’s just the blue run, and even that still has a few sections that are being worked on, however you can see the harder detours have had work put into them and based on how well the blue trail flows, I’m confident they’ll work too.

The trail’s not particularly well signposted from the top of Prarion. Actually, it’s not signposted at all really. There’s a vauge VTT/Pietons shared path sign pointing you onto the downhill trending 4×4 track. Follow this, through the tunnel and on for a another few hundred meters and there’s the start.

$Angus about 300m after crashing and fracturing his scaphoid. The track's so good he just kept going.$

From here it’s lots and lots of nice berms, rollers, tabletops, doubles, roots and loam. Lots and lots of loam. This does meant that if it’s wet it’ll be pretty muddy, and the track will probably cut up a fair bit, but for now its dusty, loose, fast fun.

You have to stay on your toes, there are some awkward ditches that need a quick manual to save your forks and some of the corners are sharper than you expect, but the berms catch you well. It only takes a couple of laps to learn the quirks.

The track certainly isn’t a secret and was getting hit by a lot of riders, probably as many as I’ve seen on one hill in Chamonix. This makes it sociable, yet because the Prarion lift takes 2 bike in each gondola, the laps were still pretty quick.

If pictures aren’t enough, then there’ll be some video footage soon from Chamonix Bike Rental.

16/07/2013
Les Gets. Fast food riding

I’ve got a bit of an embarrassing admission to make. I first raced MTB’s 20 years ago, I’ve ridden them on 3 continents, hit some of the finest areas and trails on earth. I’ve never been to Les Gets. Or Morzine. Or any of the other Portes du Soleil resorts.

And it’s not that I’ve had any eliteist hangups about going there, I’ve ridden at Glentress out of choice before and everything.

Anyway, a roadtrip out of town was needed and as the braking bumps were only going to get worse, we thought we’d eschew the draw of Italian coffee in Pila and loaded up the car to hit Les Gets. A quick google for biking at Les Gets gets you pleney of forum posts about “off piste” “locals” and “hidden” trails. But being based out of Chamonix we’re pretty sorted for all that, so just wanted to ride super easy access bermed, jumpy tracks with no stress and hopefully no walkers. I guess even when you get to eat at the best restaurants, you sometimes just want a big mac.

So we unloaded at Les Gets, marvelled at the number of riders, paid our 23euros for a day pass and joined the queue. The actual queue! We don’t have that here (well, not for bikes anyway) We hooked our bikes over the back of the Chavannes Express (brilliant carrying system, don’t have that in Chamonix either) and once at the top dropped into the main line straight back down. Here we discovered something else that we don’t have in Chamonix. Braking bumps.

Only Angus had been over before out of our group, and he was the one most disappointed when I informed everyone that due to some car issues, only light bikes with small downtubes could make the trip, meaning his 224 DH rig would have to stay behind. After the 1^st couple of berms we could understand why! It’s a shame, but by taking super high lines through the corners, or entering and exiting early you can avoid the worst of them. Or just man up, speed up and get loose….

Having neglected to pick up any form of trail map we spent the rest of the day following our noses around Les Gets and Morzine. I’ve no idea if we hit the best trails, but we had fun. Nina consistently out-aired everyone, especially on the jump park under the Nauchets express chair. We all thought the trails under the chairlift after the Super Morzine gondola out of Morzine was the best trail of the day, and that the run under the Super Morzine was the worst (locals were downloading on the gondola, I can see why) and nobody and no bikes got hurt.

Fast, easy, enjoyable. But we went home feeling a little empty, though wanting more….

14/07/2013
To the ends of the valley

OK, it can get a bit insular here in Chamonix. The steep valley walls cut off any sight of the outside world and, as long as you’re only paying attention to mountain sports, then everything you want is on your doorstep. It’s a bit of a change to look out of the valley occasional and be reminded that the outside world exists, but to do it twice in less than a week, madness.

To cut a long intro short, the bike ban’s started, so most natural trails are now out of bounds thanks to Arrête Municipale (n° 124/2004) which prohibits bikes from all trails other than those listed on it. You can get round this a few ways (click on the “bike ban” tag to see other posts) but pretty much the easiest, most sure fire way is just to leave the Chamonix commune and hit some other trails, hence the trips to Les Houches and Le Tour.

Les Houches was wet, and as a result, so were we. The trails down at this end of the valley are particularly clay like and things get pretty slippy pretty quickly when it rains. This wasn’t putting us or a couple of Welsh lads on holiday with big Lapierre DH rigs off, you just need to blink a bit more often to get the mud out your eyes.

After a few front face laps group-think decided we should drop off the back and down to St Gervais on one of the longer “enduro” style runs. Great for us locals on our “enduro” style bikes, but hard work on a DH bike. Lorne & I had ridden “Hugh’s Way” last summer, getting lost near the top but finding the lower section fine. This time we found the upper trails (see photo above, it’s very easy to miss) but completely failed to get the turn off we’d managed fine last time. Go figure. Either way, it’s a good trail down to St Gervais and great to see some different scenery on the way down.

With 30 minutes to kill in St Gervais before the last tram we went to hit the skate park. If you’re in a similar situation here’s a top tip. Don’t bother. It’s surfaced with a frictionless surface and bikes are apparently not allowed.

With the Bellevue lift not running this summer due to cable damage the tramway is the easiest way to get up to that side of the Les Houches hill where the old DH trails started from. They’re in a fairly bad way now, but still worth the blast if you’re up that way. The new trails should be open in a week or so though. Hopefully.

Fast forward a few days and Lorne & I are up at Le Tour. The weather is hot and sunny, the trails are dusty. All in all a pleasant change. We head up the gondola & chair, traverse round past the Col de Balme refuge to the Tete de Balme chairlift and are in Switzerland, neutral in the face of war, gold and bike bans.

The Catogne descent which drops down from here is one of my favourites, even more so at the moment as so much of the riding this summer has been deep in the trees, the alpine riding only recently escaping from the snow.

The pictures do the talking again here, narrow singletrack through open alpine terrain, before plunging into the trees. What’s not to like? Well if I’m being picky I’d say the Vallorcine DH track being closed, along with most of the land under the Vallorcine gondola, for the whole summer whilst work is done and that once back up on the Vallorcine gondola and having pedalled up to the Col de Posettes you can’t ride the Aiguillette de Posettes trail due to the bike ban. But that’s just me being picky.

Instead the Le Tour DH track under the gondola is a reasonable substitute. It’s had some work done on it which has baked in well and it’s riding very well at the moment, definitely worth hitting for a few laps, just watch out for the livestock…

Finally, the bike bus has started back up for July & August, so if you want to save driving up to Le Tour, or just want to be able to ride back down at the end of the day, details are here.

What next to escape the clutches of the gendarmerie? I feel a road trip coming on.

09/07/2013