Chamonix Bike Blog

Category: Chamonix ride

This is mountain biking.

You hear “Epic” describing a lot of things about Chamonix. Surrounded by deeds of derring do from alpinist, skiers, parapontists and such then as a lowly mountainbiker you really have to work to earn the title “epic” for a ride. You could try having horrendous weather to battle through, major mechanicals that required ingenuity & creativity to overcome and make it back. Distance, height gain, length of time riding are options for epic. Injuries can count too because after all, epic doesn’t have to mean good.

So why do I think this ride should count as epic? It wasn’t particularly long (30km) or high (800m up, 2900m down). We were about 7 ½ hours door to door, so not even a full days work. Injuries? Lorne had bleeding shins, but I don’t think I’ve ever been out on the bike with Lorne and he’s not had bleeding shins. Mechanicals? I noticed the dust cap on my pedal was coming loose, stopped, tightened it, and kept going. Not exactly a snapped frame is it. Weather? Well perfect blue sky and t-shirt temps is epicly good I guess….

I’m claiming epic because how often do you reach the top of your climb, step over the crampon and iceaxe adorned rucsacs of climbers 1/3 of the way up the highest mountain in the alps to look down at the ribbon of singletrack you’re about to follow as it winds its way past seracs to a glacial lake 600m below you then disappears into the trees where another 1000m of vertical awaits you before you finish descending. THAT’S epic. Well that and the number of photos we took and I’ll now subject you to.

The plan to ride the trail from the Nid d’Aigle came from Tom who had seen the trail on a training run and realized it needed ridden. He was supposed to be part of the team heading up, but the evening before was attending the Neverest girls charity ball. The 4am message from him confirmed what Lorne & I already suspected, he wasn’t going to be up the hill for an all day ride.

Instead the two of us pedalled down from Chamonix to Les Houches, hopped on the Prarion gondola and cruised across the hill to the Col du Voza where we had to wait 20 minutes for the next tram. It would have been quicker just to start pedalling up towards the Bellevue, but we had a cunning plan of trying to hide our bikes and 6 foot plus frames by the piles of rucsacs and so not have to get out at the Bellevue stop.

It didn’t work, we got out at the Bellvue stop.

Our cunning plans continued as we failed to find the track marked on the map running parallel with the tramlines and instead had to carry over the top of Mont Lachat via the brutally steep and slippy trail straight up from behind the Bellevue lift.

At the top the friendly Swiss/French walkers we were to spend the rest of the morning bumping into explained that the dotted red line on our map that contoured round Mont Lachat to the Col du Mont Lachat was infact a wide easy track. At least we got some good photos.

Descending down to the Col we met the next surprise of the trip, an olde abandonned building. I have no idea what it was in a past life (google reveals it was for testing jet engines), but I really wish I had a proper bashguard on the bike so I could have played on it a bit more.

Inner Chris Akrigg sated, we continued up to where the map once again claimed the footpath ran parallel with the tramline. The tramline was pretty obvious, being hewn from the cliff face, but there wasn’t any sign of a path. After much humming and hawing and a chat with the walkers who had caught us up again, we decided that as everyone’s maps said the trail went this way, we’d just walk up the side of the tracks and hope there was enough space if a tram came down.

This worked fine until we got to the tunnels where we found a perfectly good path hacked out of cliff face around the tunnels, so I guess the trail does actually just go up by the tramlines. The path was well made, but there was plenty of evidence of rockfall down the chute, I put my helmet on and didn’t hang about going through….

Past the rubble chute, we turned the corner and arrived, slightly surprised, at the top of the tramway. We’d kinda expected a bit more climbing, but here we were and with the Aiguille de Bionassay above and umpteen thousand feet of singletrack below us we ignored the view and sat down for some food.

Hunger sated and recovered from our disappointment at not getting to plod uphill any more we dropped saddles and rode for at least 5 metres before having to dismount and carry the bikes over an awkward rock step.

One of the wee problems of BIG scenery rides like this is often the actual riding is a bit of a let-down, you can only hope that the environment, ambience and views around you make up for it. We had all 3 of these in abundance, we just kinda hoped that we were going to get good riding too.

And so it turned out, the trail was technical, but not in any way desperate, for the first few km and although you didn’t want to be falling, you’d have to have been pretty unlucky to get seriously hurt. At the back of our minds though was the section lower down marked “eschelles” (French for “not much fun on a bike”) on the map.

As we approached the ladders, the trail got techier and, more importantly, the consequences of an over the bars, or even a slight slip were increasingly serious, actually about as serious as it can get at points.

The next 15 minutes were a mix of short sections of riding interspaced with pushing or carry the bike through sections either too serious or too difficult for us to ride. Fortunately the marked ladders we’d been concerned about turned out to be metal stairs bolted onto the cliff rather than actual ladders, so not much hassle with the bikes (anyone who’s had to deal with “real” ladders whilst carrying a bike will know how much of a relief this was….).

Once past this section the slope slackened off and the trail opened up. We’d not seen many walkers all day, and those we’d seen were predictably amazed to meet a bike, but down here with more visibility and absolutely no one about it was great to let the bikes run after so much slow technical terrain over the last week or so. The trail kept opening up until we reached the junction with the paths that continue up to the Col du Tricot and back to the Col du Voza, but we chose the middle way, down towards Bionassay.

With over 700m of vertical already desceded we were expecting the track to start dropping in quality but no, once again we were treated to amazing singletrack down through the woods to La Chapiot, finally ending in some warp-speed riding across a meadow where Lorne lawndarted into a bank and tried to imitate a tortoise by pushing his head into his body….

We had a bit of a break whilst Lorne cricked his neck back out and took what would surely be the final section of singletrack and onto the 4×4 trail to Bionassay.

Again we were wrong, though this time by accident, as we followed a path marker off the road through the village and found ourselves fleeing down a rolling path clinging to the side of a riverbank. We didn’t really know where we were heading at this point, but the trail was fun and there was a signpost, so what could go wrong?

Fortunately we lucked out and although the trail abruptly stopped going downhill at a bridge, a short push up a hill later we were on a fireroad heading rapidly to Le Champel. Hitting the road at the village there was 1 more trail we could have taken, but time was ticking for the last tram back up the hill and we were keen for an ice cream stop in St Gervais so instead we got our aero-tuck on an proceeded at speed.

We probably had time to have ice cream AND ride the pipeline trail down to Le Fayet to get the tram from there, but it was sunny out and we didn’t feel like rushing. Besides, as ever with the tramway, you still get another 800m of vert to ride once back up to the Chamonix side so we could forego the trail, fun as it is.

Back up to Bellevue we decided that there just hadn’t been enough vertical meters of singletrack logged today, and dropped into one of the more hidden lines from back when the Les Houches bike trails ran from the top of the Bellevue lift. It’s not getting the traffic it used to, but it still made for some entertaining riding to finish the day (I’m pretty sure whoever made it rode a proper DH bike…) and it’s always good to make down to Les Houches village without having to ride on a road.

Can I call it an epic ride? I don’t know, it was good but.

26/09/2013
Last chance to ride ___________

Normally “where shall we ride today?” is a tricky question, but for the last week it’s been a bit easier to get an answer.”We’ll ride wherever the lifts are about to close”. So that’s Brevent, Flegere and Le Tour, in that order.

An alternative answer has also been “I’m not going out in that, it’s snowing”. Which is true, winter made its first appearance of the autumn resulting in a fair bit of snow down to 1700m or so and some purty looking north faces once the clouds finally lifted. It didn’t do the biking communities enthusiasm to ride any good though.

For now autumn is back in control so there’s been some great riding under crisp blue skies on quiet trails. Except perhaps the official bike trails at Le Tour which, as one of the only well know places left in this end of the alps with uplift, have been hoaching with bikes.

Brevent & Flegere were the first to close this week, so last weekend was a tech-fest of rocks and roots and steep switchbacks. It also turned into a bit of a puncture-fest. Lorne & Spence managing 5 between them. Tubeless, DH inner tubes, normal inner tubes, it didn’t seem to matter, the puncture gods were out and they wanted some sacrifices.

There’s not much more I can say about the front face Brevent and Flegere trails, I think they’re great, not everyone agrees. I did try exploring a bit more at Flegere in the hope of finding that mystical lost trail that no one has ridden before and can become an instant classic that no walker wants to wander up. Instead I found some great bits of trail interspaced with cliffs and mud shoots, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. Apparently.

With those closed, focus shifted to Le Tour. The Vallorcine lift closed at the start of the month and the train still isn’t running between Argentiere and Vallorcine (next year, probably) so big laps off the back into Switzerland were out.

Instead we’ve been exploring the variations on the Posettes trails and those off the Autannes chairlift as well as hitting a few laps of the actual bike trails. The new variation on the upper green trail is (was) O.K. but it ain’t Whistler, the lower DH track remains (remained) cracking.

The riding off the back at Le Tour and off the Posettes is so good I’ve never really explored the trails on the front face. Lorne, Robbie & I did our best to redress that omission by systematically ticking off every ribbon of single track we could find.

New trail of the day probably goes to the climb and traverse from the top of the chair to the Albert Premier refuge trail and the descent of it back to the mid station. The traverse across looks like it should be a sweaty climb, yet you coast along barely pedalling. Just how all climbs should be! The descent is nothing too technical, but meanders nicely across the hill and over the top of the Vormaine couloirs with grand views down the valley.

All the other trails are worth doing as a distraction, but beware of drainage bars and cows.

So there it goes, another summer riding the lifts almost over. Next week, we shall mostly be riding…..Les Houches.

23/09/2013
3.10 is the magic number

And why is it the magic number? Because that’s when the last tram leaves Le Fayet for Bellevue, but I’m getting ahead of myself, back to the start.

Every spring I start with the intention of riding all 10 bike friendly lifts on the Chamonix lift pass in a day, and every autumn arrives without me having done so. It’s a trickier challenge to complete than it first appears as the window to get it done is pretty small. Most of the good riding from the lifts is on trails off limits during the July & August bike ban, and with a challenge like this, you DO want to do it on good trails….

All 10 lifts are only open at the same time for a few days either side of the bike ban, so by the time you factor in work, weather, injuries, visiting friends and in the case of this year, broken lifts and winter not finishing until part way through summer, you can see how easy it is for things not to happen.With the window missed yet again this year, I still felt like having a bit of a challenge, so what the heck, lets try the 7 lifts still running, and just to make it more interesting, we’ll do it by the techiest trails off each one. One further, crucial, complication. The last tram back from Le Fayet is now at 1510, not 1740.

Let the games commence.

An early start was vital to our plans. I don’t do early starts and Lorne had to go to the post office so we were fairly impressed that we were only 30 minutes behind schedule and 1st ‘bin at Le Tour. The meteo had said that the overnight rain would clear early and the clouds would part giving a good sunny day, which combined with a moderate to strong wind we hoped would dry off the trails nicely leaving hero traction in the dirt and great backdrops of the Chamonix Aiguilles with fresh autumn snow. Unfortunately the weather was also a bit behind schedule and we ascended in the cloud to the top of Le Tour.

Traversing to the Col du Posettes the weather failed to lift and I’ll be honest, stoke was low and we were pretty chilly. The descent from the Aiguillette des Posettes is back in season again though and we hoped that by the time we’d knocked off the climb we’d be a bit warmer and the sun would have come out.

One out of 2 would have to do. As is the rule when it’s damp and cloudy, I then got a puncture. If anyone’s interested, tubeless sealant in a slightly leaky tyre with an inner tube still gets punctured more easily than a full tubeless set up. Whilst I was busy sorting that out, Lorne had time to have his first crash of the day resulting in some fairly impressive cuts to the arms, shoulders and back.

As the trail dropped into the trees there was less wet rock to contend with, but rather more wet roots. This seemed most amusing to all the French walkers we passed who without fail would stop to see how badly it could go wrong…

We survived with no further damage to bikes, bodies or egos and cruised down the hill towards Argentiere. The original plan had been to continue on Petite Balcon Sud (Grand Montets having closed a few days earlier) however to try and get back on schedule we battered on down the promenade des Arve trails instead and rolled into the Flegere lift station at about 1130.

All my favourite Flegere tracks head back east towards La Joux. For our purposes today though, we needed to keep going west. Fortunately second best is still pretty good at Flegere, so we dropped into the initial section of the old “Elfe Secret” DH trail (which is holding up just, with 1 of the 2 north shore sections having been repaired by the trail elfs, the other now missing completely) before joining the root covered switchback-fest of the trail down to the Floria buvette. I’d run this trail a little over a week before as the final stage of the CCC, and it was amazing to see how much damage the weekends rain had done to it since then. Still an awesome wee descent though.

We pushed the bikes through the grounds of the buvette, then headed down on fireroad towards our next lift. Brevent.

By not faffing with mechanicals or photos on the last stage we’d made up plenty time and got on the first stage of the gondola a little after midday. Not everyone was on message though, and the second stage of the lift didn’t share our urgency, it was almost 1245 by the time we got out. Still quicker than riding up mind.

The initial descent from the Brevent towards the Aiguilette des Houches can only really be described as rocky. Or perhaps tech and rocky, but you’d really struggle to communicate the nature of the riding without using the word “rocky”. I quite like riding rocks, but ain’t such a fan of falling on them. Lorne seems of a similar mind so we took it fairly slowly on the way across. Still a whole lot of fun, and we provided the usual levels of entertainment to the walkers.

After the photogenic fun of the descent came the short push up to the Aiguilette des Houches itself. From the 2285m peak you get an amazing view of the ridge line, the drop down to Servoz and, for us, the full height of the descent to Le Fayet station at 580m. 1705m of descending without any real ups!

There can’t be many trails that look better than the start of the ridgeline, it’s an absolute classic alpine MTB shot. Shame that the trail doesn’t ride as well as it looks, not that it’s a bad trail, just compared to other stuff about here it lacks flow and some of the sections of trail suddenly get overgrown in low scrub & heather.

Somewhere near the tree line Lorne decided to get a closer view of aforementioned scrub. He’d already stubbed his toe earlier in the day, but this crash seemed to have done something a bit more serious. Walking was pretty painful but fortunately he seemed to be able to stand on the pedals without too much problem, so with what later turns out to probably be a broken big toe, we keep going.

The trail never really relents until you get to Montvauthier (or at least, not on the line we took) and conscious of the ticking clock, our riding was getting more and more speed based, carrying over trialsy sections of the trail when on a more relaxed day we might have stopped, scoped out a line, then probably carried over the trialsy section of trail. With 30 minutes till the last tram left, we slid down the last steep section onto the Montvauthier road.

Of course we could have called it a day here and just got the train from Servoz, but where would the fun be in that? From here the trails are fast and open all the way to Le Fayet, we might just still make it.

And we probably would have, but less than a kilometre from the station we start seeing diversion signs. Normally not something you need to worry about on a bike, but even pedestrians were diverted from the straight line around the houses, Arve, railway line and back again. At 1512 we stopped at the tramway station.

There was still plan b fortunately, the 1606 train back into town. The game was over for another season but we’d given it a pretty good go, just under 50km of riding and just under 5000m descended in just under 6hrs, if just not quite enough under 6hrs…..time for a coffee.

13/09/2013
Who’s way?

Five weeks is a loooong time to be off your bike in a Chamonix summer! In the past bikes have given me plenty of broken bones (which did generally heal) and scars (that chicks were disappointingly uninterested in) that have kept me away from sports for longer, but 5 weeks with what is basically a sore thumb has been pretty annoying. Still, thanks to the excellent work of the consultants and surgeons at Chamonix & Annemasse’s hospitals, and the brilliant physio from Neil at Clinique du Sport (what percentage of Chamonix residents go through their doors every year?) I can ride again.

Every cloud has a silver lining. recently that’s been that as trail running is the only sport I’ve been able to do, I’ve had a chance to explore lots of trails I’ve seen on maps and in photos and wondered if they’d work out for the bike, without the worry of having to carry a bike for a vertical km back up a hill if they don’t.

Previously Hugh’s way from the top of the Prarion lift to St Gervais has been our agreed best way down off the back of Les Houches, but from my running I now had a new idea, and despite having been on exploratory rides with me before, Lorne & Robbie thought they’d come along for the ride too….

The lifts are starting to close around the alps just now, but the Prarion’s running for another week yet, and the Tramway du Mont-Blanc is going until the end of the month. Of some concern to the hordes of DH riders milling about the base of the lift was the news that the new DH tracks are currently closed, though no information was forthcoming on why or how seriously the closure is being taken. Not an issue for us though as, following a scenic pee stop, we were dropping down towards Le Fayet.

After not being eaten alive by the dogs that guard the livestock around this area of the hill, we took the hidden entrance to the singletrack. I’m going to be really irritating and not tell you where it is, or give you any GPS traces (though it tells me we started riding at 1842m and finished at 587m, with 61m of climbing along the way), but if you look at a map (IGN or Google), and have a wee think, you should be able to work out where it is. And it IS worth the effort having a look.

The trail starts off not too steep and a really nice mix of loamy ground, roots and rocks. Unfortunately the roots and rocks were still a bit slick from last night’s rain, and Robbie took a wee tumble. With two 1^st aid kits between 3 of us though, his main danger was overtreatment rather than bleeding to death.

After the initial warm up, you get a brief respite traversing north on a fire road trail before diving off into the woods again on a very easy to miss bit of singletrack. I’ve not ridden in BC, but I’m pretty sure it’s similar to this next section. Wet but grippy, vibrant greens and deep brown hues all around and flowing singletrack but with drops and root gaps that you need fluent body English to negotiate without losing momentum.

Again, this eventually comes to an end and you have another short fireroad section. Good to give the mind a rest and a chance for a chat though, it’s not a race.

The final section came from Tom of Chamonix Bike Book fame. Leaving Montfort you turn right off the main track on to an uninspiring looking track through a field. Very quickly you’re back in the trees though, and for the next 450 vertical meters or so you’re transported back to the best trails from the UK. Steep and fast singletrack though dead leaves and natural berms, with enough root sections to snap one of Lorne’s spokes and knock the chain out of his chain device.

Before you know it you’re on the main road between Le Fayet and St Gervais. We could have just headed down on the tarmac for a fast burn back to the tramway station, or pedalled up the road to St Gervais and then taken pipeline back to Le Fayet. Instead we took the 650b choice and pedalled 5 minutes up the hill to join a trail down to Le Fayet by the tramway tracks. It’s not the highlight of the day and with more time I’d pedal for 10 minutes more and hit pipeline, but it’s still fairly nice riding and got us into Le Fayet with 5 minutes to spare before the tram departed, so pretty much perfect really.

As ever with the tramway, the days riding’s not over with the trundle back up as you still have about 700m to drop from the Bellevue station back down to Les Houches. With the old DH trails from the Bellevue lift station now had over 2 years without maintenance, they’re getting harder and harder to ride, so we opted for our usual choice of starting on the old DH track then leaving it after the berm section to join what is allegedly Cedric Gracia’s favourite Chamonix trail back to the centre of Les Houches.

It’s good to be back.

07/09/2013
Last minute panic lift riding/local races for local people

“The nights are fair drawing in” I’ve heard no-one say recently, but it doesn’t change that at the end of the month, most of the alps’ lift operators start to stop putting the 50 centime pieces in the chairlift machines and going down needs you to consider getting up first.

Here’s a list of the closing dates for our nearby lifts, along with a couple of beacons of hope for us:

Chamonix

VALLORCINE: 1st Sept

GRANDS MONTETS: 8^th Sept

PRARION: 15th Sept

BREVENT: 15^th Sept (then Oct 19^th to Nov 3rd)

FLEGERE: 15^th Sept

LE TOUR GONDOLA & CHAIRLIFT: 22nd Sept

BELLEVUE: Never really opened…

TRAMWAY DU MONT BLANC: 29th Sept

Nearby

Grand Massif, started closing on the 25th, all done by 31^st Aug

La Thuile, 1st Sept

Portes du Mont Blanc, 8th Sept

Tignes / val d’isere 1st Sept (still FREE up till then!)

Pila, 8^th Sept

Portes du Soliel starts closing the weekend of 1st September and is mostly closed by the 9^th, except Champery which keeps going to 6^th Oct

Verbier, 27th Oct (if weather’s ok, and sometimes only at weekends)

And have a google for

St Luc, Dorinaz, La Saleve, Aosta Valley Freeride….

The eagle eyed amongst you may have noticed that the pictures here have absolutely nothing to do with lift accessed riding. This is because I stretched the ulnar collateral ligament of metacarpophalangeal joint (or hurt my thumb as I previously knew it) a few weeks ago and am in a cast for another few weeks yet. So instead of riding my bike, I helped out Chamonix Bike Rentals in the latest of their Tuesday evening mates races.

The courses are generally downhill oriented XC in style, though I’m hoping to be back on the bike for a pump track challenge evening, and your 5 euro entry gets you a beer in the Pub afterwards and a random chance to win a prize for the shops shelves, Nukeproof bars, grips, energy gels and body armour all featuring in the after-race giveaway. Give Spencer a shout in the shop or visit the website for more, contrary to the post title, you don’t need 6 toes on each foot to enter. Congratulations also to Nina from the shop who took part in her first “real” race at the weekend there, the Les Menuires Enduro, and came second!

21/08/2013