Chamonix Bike Blog

Category: Road trip

Hallowed ground

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 you, which you can go and session whilst watching the chosen ones of mountain biking doing the same.

During the official 2 days practice we had the chance to show Greg Minnar and Steve Peat how not to take loose corners, Rene Wildhaber and T-Mo how not to choose a line and watch the Ravanels and Nico Quere show us how not to rail a loamy rut….

It’s particularly useful that the trails are marked out as the official map and guidebook to the area is a bit vague and open to interpretation, leading to disagreement as to what path to follow (seriously, some of these analogies just write themselves). We ended up relying on a combination of the last 3 years worth of race cards, following our noses and, when all else failed, asking people.

This was quite a good technique as not only were there about 500 riders signed up to race, but there were about the same number doing what we were, and at least 1% knew where they were going.

For the first time the race left the hills directly above the beach and headed for the hills and the infamous Nato base freeride trails, so obviously we had to head up there too. The trails are different in nature to those lower down which make extensive use of Roman (or older) paths. Up high the trail builders have been free to do what they want, so nature’s been given a helping hand. A big helping hand.

To get up to the Nato base on race day you were faced with a 20km, 1000+m climb on road. Before the race most folks were shuttling this, unfortunately for us we hadn’t looked at the contour lines and figured it couldn’t be that far up, so we pedalled too. We quickly wised up and spent the next day in and out of cars and joining the traffic. Shuttling is all part of the Finale experience it seems. Part of me was disappointed in messing up the environment for everyone in pursuit of instant(ish) gratification, but then the trails are rreeaallyy good. And I can always do penance in the next life.

Trail building also seems a much bigger part of Finale bike culture than we’re used to in Chamonix, with folk out doing maintenance in the rain just days after the racing. We even bumped into the builder of the epic(ly long) final stage who then berated us all for not trying the hidden northshore road gap after a 45km 1000m+ day.

The 1000m of vertical down to the Med’ shouldn’t have felt too bad to us, it’s only a little more than a lap off Brevent after all, but there’s something about the Finale trails that make you feel like you get way more down for your up. It might be the sustained technical nature, or maybe the lack of fireroad or tarmac linking descents you get in most places, or maybe it’s just some higher power playing with physics.

Heaven, nirvana, paradise? I’m pretty sure Finale features there somewhere.

10/10/2014
Champex Lac: Seasonal discrepancies

Deja vu? After 2 weeks of near constant rain it seemed the Scottish summer was over in Chamonix. One day of sun meant the trails were dry (mostly) and spirits were high (mostly). It also meant everyone had headed out to enjoy the trails.

Eager to ride some fast downhill trails, preferably with well build berms, a trip out of the valley was called for, and where better than Pila?

Turned out plenty of other folk had a similar idea and the queue for the Mont Blanc tunnel was backed up at least 60 minutes, so we headed to Champex Lac instead…..

……I’m starting to think Pila is not for me this summer, and with Meteo France apparently declaring July the dreichest in over 50 years I’m also wondering if summer is not for us this summer.

Anyway, as going somewhere new and little known generally works out, we headed off to Champex Lac in Switzerland. The lift is best known in summer as an access point to the Trient plateau which is used by many guides as acclimatization for parties hoping to climb Mont Blanc. In winter it’s either a tiny family ski area or one of the best tree skiing powder areas going (though shh, it’s a secret) depending on your outlook. We were hoping the mountain biking was going to be a similar epiphany to the skiing.

It wasn’t.

After paying our 25chf for the lift pass and worrying about the unpadded chairlift battering the bikes we headed up the 700m to the top at 2194m.

There are 4 promising looking trails on the map, we started out with the dashed line running under the second, smaller, chairlift line. It started out tech and didn’t let up. Once you start pushing down sections the fight goes out of you and it’s easier to just keep pushing, so we pushed a lot of the line.

Towards the bottom of the hill the riding got better, which was the most frustrating thing about the day, when the riding was good, it was really, really good. It’s just the bits inbetween were really, really not.

In winter on of the best ways to ride Champex is to head along the long traversing green piste then drop into the trees when it looks about right. We tried this for the next 2 laps.

The ratio of riding to swearing was improved, but inbetween the excellent sections it was still either super tech or fireroad. Fortunately the best section of trail was from the refuge low down on the hill and common to all the ways down meaning we always got good trails to finish on.

Feeling fairly disparaged we went up for a final lap on the south eastern aspect of the hill. This trail saved the day for me, but apparently my tastes in technical trails and exposure are not normal, so whilst we all agreed it was the best trail, there was some disagreement on just how good it was.

Either way, starting up high above the trees with some nice narrow straights leading into a long switchback section down a couloir (which saw both Ally & I take accidental shortcuts, Ally’s resulting in him headbutting a fairly pointy rock) it then wound it’s way down through the trees getting gradually more open and flowing as it went. Finally we reached some fast and (relatively) flat tracks with a beautiful layer of loam that brought us down to join the Tour du Mont Blanc and the pedal back into Champex Lac.

There was still plenty of time for some more laps, but we were over it. If we’d known that there were some easy flowy trails to hit then we’d have headed up for more, but there’s only so much riding you can do at the edge of your ability before it starts to get a bit tiring mentally and physically.

In summary, Champex Lac; not worth the effort, but feel free to go and prove me wrong as every penny spent there helps keep the lift turning in winter.

Cheers to Lorne Cameron for many photos, summer and winter.

02/08/2014
Les Contamines, no bad.

After 2 weeks of near constant rain it seemed the Scottish summer was over in Chamonix. Four days of sun meant the trails were dry (mostly) and spirits were high (mostly). It also meant everyone had headed out to enjoy the trails.

Eager to ride some empty downhill trails, preferably with well built berms, a trip out of the valley was called for, and where better than Pila? Spence would even get to take his DH bike, and the rest of us could sit and eat ice cream or drink coffee.

I guess plenty of other folk had had a similar idea and the queue for the Mont Blanc tunnel was backed up at least 45 minutes, so we headed to Les Contamines aiming to meet friends instead.

In an area filled with off the radar bike friendly lifts, Les Contamines is pretty much an unknown. Before the trip I found some info on the sole bike trail down from the top lift at 1850m to the base at 1180m, some second hand information that the riding is”pretty good” and, that’s about it.

Turned out the riding was indeed “pretty good”.

The lift pass for the day is a cheap 12.60euro, though you need to pay 2euro for a magnetic card if you don’t have a spare one already. This gets you 2 lifts, the first a short 300m hop open all day and the longer second stage runs from 1500m to the top but closes 1230-1315.

Spence had swapped bikes back to his normal all mountain bike and it’s as well he did. The single official DH trail is plenty of fun and, with no climbs, easily ridden on a DH bike but you’d be scuppered for all the other trails.

The first lap was on said DH trail. Lots of nice berms, especially through the woods, no real braking bumps and good flow. It could do with some bigger features as we all landed flat from every jump, drop or hip, but I guess they’re catering for a more family market.

After the warm up lap we headed up the hill from the lift towards the Chalets de Roselette, before joining a narrow trace of singletrack through the alpine and down towards the valley floor. The trail was particularly good up high, mixing fast sweeping sections with some tighter rock gardens and gnarled old roots. As we got lower in the direction of Notre Damn de la Gorge the trail got steeper and more technical. Never unridable, but certainly demanding, before easing off for the final blast down to the back of the church and the short coast down the road to the telepherique and lunch.

Some sandwiches in the sun later we headed back up the 1st of the lifts. As the 2nd stage was still closed for lunch we tried a trail running south from the lift through the Bois des Granges.

It began with a lot of promise, very similar to the previous trail. Alas about 1/3 of the way down it flattened off and got rockier and rockier to the point where it was easier just to carry. We were starting to think it was going to be another average trail to chalk up to experience when the rocks finished and we were left with an amazing technical descent down through the woods and back to the road ready for another lap.

A few more goes of the DH trail later (we don’t get to ride well built stuff much in Chamonix ok), where Nina had had a massive superman over the bars and I’d ridden into the wrong end of a see-saw jump, we were ready to try exploring more.

Heading east from the top of the lift we dropped into the grassy expanse of the main ski area. A word of advice, don’t.

Another lap of the DH trail.

With a storm on the way in and warnings from the very friendly lifties that the telepherique may have to close we went for one last long lap. Following our tracks we headed back to the Chalets de Roselette but this time turned right instead of left after entering the woods.

A chat with some locals earlier had confirmed we’d found several of the best trails, and told us that the trail we were aiming for was quite wet and had some tricky root sections. I’d gone selectively deaf when they said it was wet and only heard the bit about roots. I like root sections. In the dry.

Fortunately the muddy sections weren’t too bad and on easy sections of the trail, whilst the roots were great. The track eventually spits you out just above (as in through the garden of) the Nant Borrant refuge, which just happens to serve ice cream, coffee and beer. It wasn’t perhaps the same quality as you’d get in Italy, but we weren’t in Italy and it tasted good enough for us.

All that was left was the cruise down the Roman road back to the car, though calling it a cruise would be a disservice to the track. Rock slabs, drops onto, off and over the trail, wee jumps abound, and you have to stop by the bridge over the stream to check out the rock formations.

Maybe we’re not going to rush back, but I think we’d all go back pretty happily. Certainly worth a stop by on a trip for a day for some chilled out quiet riding. No bad at all.

20/07/2014
La Thuile, not racing.

The world series of who’s best at ‘going out and riding their bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ has come to La Thuile, which I reckoned was probably the best place I’d been for ‘going out and riding a bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ when I first rode there a few years back, so that seems pretty fitting.

As the E.W.S. races are open to everyone I thought it would be good to head through the tunnel and ride against the world’s best. Alas work was less interested in this idea and thought it would be better if I stayed in Chamonix and turned up on the shop floor.

The La Thuile round falls under the organisation of the Italian Superenduro series whose rules allow for 2 days of practice before the race, so instead I went over with Nina (who has no job) to “help” with practice. Which is pretty cool really, its not like you can rock up in Monaco on the GP weekend and take a spin round the track.

The pit set up for the race was huge, not DH world cup level quite yet but the amount of money being poured into enduro racing is considerable. Our pit set up wasn’t quite as impressive.

After a worrying moment at the lift office where they asked for my name to check off on the race list (appointing myself team mechanic surmounted this problem) we headed up to check out the stages.

Stages 3, 5 & 6 all have the same start section, so it made sense to check that out first. The shared section is the trail that I least liked when I rode here before, which is a bit disappointing, but it was more fun than I remember. Fast, rock, some new tech sections at the start. We arrived at the first junction for Nina to get her first flat in 2 years, a rock had sliced the tyre carcass.

Optimistically we thought the sealant had filled the hole, but a bit further down stage 3/5 accepted it hadn’t and put a tube in whilst watching assorted pros barrel past.

For the rest of stage 5 we followed the bike park trail Muret in what turned out to be my favourite stage of the day, mostly as it didn’t involve any pedalling.

Back to the car to stock up on more tubes and we headed down the common trail to the first junction, where Nina had her second flat in 2 years. The rocks up high just seem designed to shred tyres and as we were stopped a steady stream of flat tyres arrived either to be repaired, or ridden on the rim to the mechanic (the bikes hadn’t been marked yet, so you could replace all the broken parts you wanted, or could afford).

Stage 6 this time, which turned out to be pretty physical in the upper sections, not climbing but very flat so very pedally. Lower down it got steeper and techier through the trees and somehow, despite the biblical rain and snow storms this week, we then rode some bone dry loam!

Another trip to the car, this time to put on a spare DH tyre and tube, and back up for the last of the 3 common front face stages. This time, thanks to an extra 1/2 kilo of rotating mass and 35psi, there were no punctures.

Stage 3 links the trails Muret & Garin which are all brilliant bits of riding in their own right, but in linking them there was a nasty sharp climb for a few hundred meters about 3/4’s of the way down the course that was not being appreciated by the racers. Fine if you’ve just turned up to ride though.

Karma almost got me at the end of the trail where I came up short trying to double then triple the 5 pack of jumps on the dual slalom course into the finish paddock and lift line. The fear of going down infront of such a huge crowd was greater than the fear of getting hurt and I managed to suck up the impact and ride out as if I’d meant it like that all along…..

Stage 2 was the only stage of the day not accessed from the lifts. Instead a 600m climb on the opposite side of the valley was needed. With limited time and energy, we skipped it. Instead Nina collared Thomas Lapeyrie as he wandered past our pits and asked him what it was like.

Finally stage 1 & 4, the opening stage for both days, was up. Fred Glo was involved in sorting out the trails for the race, and it wouldn’t be one of his races without some trackless alpine pasture and wide spaced gates. As there isn’t much of that from the top of the lifts, you have to pedal and push for “a cool 40 minutes” (Thomas Lapeyrie), “a hard 1hr 20” (German bloke on a Orange alpine) or a “relaxed 50 minutes” (us) to get to the start on the border between France and Italy.

This stage really showed the difference between something that’s fun to ride, and fun to race. After the open pasture and rock gardens the stage joins “Super Kappa” or “K”, the trail of choice from the last visit. The difference is that the short flat sections you coast along sitting down and chatting are now stood up sprints, and the brief climbs you sat down and span up feel like you’re going to vomit your lungs when racing.

Still, I was here to ride not race so could just enjoy the trail and not worry about it.

I hope the race showcases how incredible the riding is in La Thuile and gets more folk along to pay for lift passes and encourage more trails and more investment. The bike park is so hard to beat for anyone that just wants to have fun thrashing a bike about in the mountains.

As for the race, I predict it will be won by someone with huge levels of fitness, bike handling skills and a solid bike with 2 wheels (that have to be the same size)

12/07/2014
Average.

Average sounds, well, average. Not good, not bad, but not anything memorable. Mediocre even. With hundreds of kilometres of the world’s best trails on the doorstep the ‘average’ bar sits pretty high around Chamonix.

Searching as ever for good, or at least above average, trails we headed out of town and round the corner to Les Contamines. It’s only 15km away in a straight line, but about 30 minutes in a car on account of there being some 4000m high lumps of rock and ice in the way.

The same lumps of rock and ice made a great back drop as we sweated our way up from Les Hoches (not to be confused with Les Houches…) towards Le Plan de la Croix in the sun. Fortunately some clouds came in along with a light breeze so the 700m of spinning up the tarmac and gravel roads went in a fairly easy going hour. So far so good, at least as far as it can for gaining height on a bike.

Alas the cloud didn’t then do the honourable thing and bugger off again once we reached the top of the climb at the Porcherey gite, so greybird it was for the down. At least the trail, once we’d picked which one to follow, looked good, both on the map and infront of us.

Starting through a field on a grassy bobsleigh run before dropping into the trees for some fast and loose corners, all with a banking to catch you if you got too enthusiastic.

It was starting to look like yet another above average trail, when the singletrack ended and we hit a trail you could (just about) get a 4×4 up. Still fast and fun, but not quite the same. With a few washed out sections making the trail more interesting it continued for the next ½ of the descent until we hit the road at Le Carteyron

A dashed line on the map perked us back up with more entertaining singletrack hairpinning the rest of the way down the hill to the car, but not enough to save the trail from being damned with the dreaded ‘OK’.

Despite this, it was good enough for us to talk of a return trip to test out some of the other options on the map in the hope of finding a more consistent descent.

Which just reminds us how lucky we are to get to ride here day in day out, when 700m of easily accessed fun downhill is just average.

Here’s to mediocrity.

01/06/2014