Author Archives: chamonixbikeblog

Blausasc, Coupe du France #1

Posted on 13th May 2015
It's not all rocks and roots, you get some slick village centre limestone slabs here too.

It must be summer, we’re going racing, and like last year the Coupe du France enduro series opened in the heat of the Alpes-Maritimes coast at Blausasc.

Unlike last year’s races though, Spencer was injured and Nina racing DH in Sweden so Sandy had the honour of co-piloting for the relaxing short drive down to Nice, through Nice, out of Nice, round random villages trying to find where we were, back into Nice then on to Barre des Alpes, the closest place we could find cheap digs.

When organising ourselves back in winter we’d anticipated the usual Chamonix spring of … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged

Saleve: The trail strikes back

Posted on 4th May 2015
It could have been worse. We could still be there.

Saleve is not that well known for it’s biking, but on the off chance you meet someone who’s ridden there one of the things they’ll tell you is it’s a bad choice in the wet. Slick and slippy mud coating roots and smooth limestone with steep gradients to maximise your travel from the trail and bike if/when you fall.

It’s wet just now, but Sandy and I figured it couldn’t be more wet than Chamonix where May started with the average monthly rainfall dropping on the 1st, then the 2nd and 3rd not being much drier. As a … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

Encore une fois, Lift openings 2015

Posted on 20th April 2015
A brief image interlude. remember summer?

It’s great that bikes have pedals for, like, pedalling and stuff, but we’d rather sit on our arses and let something else do the work. Preferably whilst belching CO2, cos that’s more like a 2 stroke crosser, and we all just wish we could ride motocross don’t we.

So, opening dates for Chamonix lifts, and the surrounding area. Boom, voila and here you go (and a bit of music to listen to whilst you read):

Chamonix (usual CdMB caveats apply)

Bellevue: 13th June – 27th September

Le Tour: 13th June – 20th September

Flegere: 13th June – … [Read full post]

Posted in Trail conditions , tagged

Verbier. Open for business

Posted on 8th April 2015
Shot possibly used in umpteen bike magazines over the years.....

Miss us?

Winter has been. Maybe not quite gone, but certainly been. Spring is here with her promises of skiing in the morning and biking in the afternoon. Of course it rarely works quite that perfectly, but it’s still been good to get either a good ski and a short ride, or a short ski and a good ride in. Tuesday was the latter, a short ski in the morning followed by loading up the car with Spencer and Nina for the first road trip of the year. To……………

Verbier. But then you probably guessed that, what with the blog … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip, Trail conditions , tagged

A night at the opera

Posted on 11th December 2014
When you resort to riding on your own. At night. With some snow. You should probably accept it's time to quit for a bit.

The fat lady is singing and Chamonix Bike Blog is getting put to bed for the winter.

Granted it’s still not proper winter in the valley, but it’s near enough so the bike’s been cleaned and put away for a while. Words and pictures will probably start to re-appear February or March(ish) with some sunny warm dusty trail riding. Or mud. Check out Lorne Cameron ski blog if you want to see what most of the fictional characters on here get up to during the winter.

Merry christmas, bonne fete, happy hogmanay and aa that.

… [Read full post]

Posted in Trail conditions , tagged ,

The last big weekend of the summer

Posted on 30th November 2014
Shredding the orange pow. That sounds wrong.

End of summer? Ok so it might be the end of meteorological autumn, but outside it’s double digit temperatures, with a warm drying wind rolling over from the south, so for us lot, it feels more like the end of summer.

And what do we do in summer? Ride bikes.

The Loriaz chalet loop is one of the first of the higher trails we ride each year, it’s altitude and aspect ensuring snow free trails that bit sooner than other points around the valley. That and the only way up is under your own steam, so there’s no point putting … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride, Trail conditions , tagged

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Posted on 23rd November 2014
Rider's head partially cropped, blurry background, partially focussed, photographer about to be hit by bike. It can only be a MBUK cover from the early 90's

Forgive me if my memory is a little hazy, I’m casting my mind back 20 odd years here, but I think the first bike magazine I bought was some long bust title called MTBtrail or MTB rider or such. I forget exactly, but the title’s not important.

The contents included an article on converting your bike from 3×6 to 3×7 (and whether you needed 7 gears at the back and perhaps that it might cause the bike to be too fragile and anyway you certainly don’t need 8 gears, that would be crazy). There were some words on rides you … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged

black and white

Posted on 2nd November 2014
It's not winter yet dammit.

10 minutes from the front door is one of the only bike friendly uplifts running in the alps and from the top of the Brevent gondola an embarrassingly large number of trails work their way down the sunny side of the Chamonix valley.

So obviously we dingied that and went and pedalled up a hill for 1200 meters.

Last summer I injured my thumb and couldn’t ride. Instead I had to run about trails with a branch in my hands making bike noises. One of the trails I found looked like it would make a grand wee ride, if a … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged

Hallowed ground

Posted on 10th October 2014
Sandy heading for the sea.

Every game has its Mecca. A site that unless you visit you can’t call your self a true believer. For Elvis fans it’s Graceland, gamblers have Las Vegas, alpinists Chamonix, Muslims err Mecca. For #enduroist (or mountain bikers as we were known before the number symbol was misappropriated) it’s Finale

And just like Mecca at hajj, mountain bikers must go Finale for the superenduro/EWS finals.

So we did. And lo, it was good.

The reason to head at EWS finals time (apart from Nina racing in it) is that a bunch of new trails get made and marked out for … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged ,

Link up

Posted on 28th September 2014
There was a lot of spot the rider shots from today.

Want to know what the next big thing’s going to be in mountain biking? Look at other mountain sports; skiing, snowboarding, mountaineering, fell running. Trail centres are a bike only thing? Snowboarding went crazy for snowparks in the mid 90’s. These newfangled “enduro” bikes that are fairly light up hill but a virtually DH bikes on the down? Skiing’s been doing the fat touring ski and DIN 16 touring binding for ages*. Big days out linking your favourite trails….

OK, so we’ve been doing that for a while too, but mountaineers got there first. With the concentration of hardcore climbers … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged , ,