Chamonix Bike Blog

Category: Trail conditions

The end is nigh. Repent.

The weather has, at times, been a bit biblical recently. Given Mount Ararat is 5137m high even Mont Blanc at 4810 ain’t going to save us. All we can do is head out in the rain and enjoy the biking whilst we still can.

The Chamonix trails, being generally steep and rocky, deal with the rain fairly well and drain pretty quick. Only Les Houches turns into a true quagmire and even there it’s possible to avoid the worst of it (which is generally the last 1/3 of the DH trail and all of the old DH trails from the Bellevue). Certainly it’s not as bad as the Portes du Soleil or Grand Massif which reportedly resemble Glastonbury on a bad year at the moment. That’s the mud, not the huge numbers of people, bands, inappropriate clothing for the weather etc.

Keeping to trails above the tree line and exposed to the wind also help you stay dry(ish) and less muddy, though not perhaps as warm.

Anyway, riding mud is like riding powder whilst it’s dumping. You have to head out when the weather’s worst, you WILL get cold and wet, and it’s not easy. The flip side is that it’s so much more rewarding. Why ski down a well groomed piste when you can leave your own trace through the forest? If it’s too hard, you’re just not good enough.

Summer, or what’s passing for it, might still have another month or so to run but that doesn’t mean the lifts do. Shut down in Chamonix starts at the end of the month and it’s the same for most of the other hills.

Here’s the list you don’t want to see:

Vallorcine 31st August

Grand Montets 7th September

Brevent 14th September (re-opens 25th October to 2nd November)

Flegere 14th September

Prarion 14th September

Tramway du Mont Blanc 14th September

Le Tour 21st September

Bellevue 28th September

And futher afield

Grand Massif 31st Aug: http://ete.grand-massif.com/ouverture

La Thuile 31st Aug : http://www.lathuile.it/datapage.asp?id=211&l=1&s=E

Portes du Mont Blanc 7th Sept http://www.combloux.com/en/activities/summer/pass.html

Tignes / Val d’Isere 31st Aug (still FREE up till then) http://www.tignes.net/en/summer-sports/free-and-a-la-carte-activities-252.html

Pila 8th Sept: http://www.pila.it/en/holidays/tariffe/tessere-a-punti/

Portes du Soleil starts closing the weekend of 31st August and is mostly closed by the 9th, except Champery which keeps going to 26th Oct: http://en.portesdusoleil.com/summer-lifts.html

Verbier 22nd September then weekends only until 26th Oct (if weather’s ok): http://www.verbierbikepark.ch/horaires_fr.php

Fingers crossed the sun comes out to play for a few weeks and we can start to complain that it’s too hot and the trails too dusty for a bit instead.

09/08/2014
Bikes on a train, and other forms of mechanical uplift.

Lifts are open, no more pretending that pedalling uphill is worthy and good.

An opening party was being held at Le Tour with demo bikes, drinks and rumours of new trails, so we headed in the opposite direction to Les Houches.

It seemed a fairly popular choice and it was surprising to see just how much the main DH track wore in over the course of the day.

Not having big bikes in addition to our normal bikes with their mere 160mm of travel, slack angles and huge brakes, Lorne & I rode a few laps of the Prarion front face away from the official DH track before dropping down ‘Who’s way‘ to St Gervais followed by a lap of the Pipeline trail and icecream whilst waiting for the Tramway back up to the Bellevue stop.

The 40 minute ride back up gives you plenty time to recover, so after heading down on the GR5 trail back to Les Houches it was back to quick laps on the Prarion front face again.

All the trails were riding well, though a bit of traffic to clean the loose stones and twigs will help. The official bike trails have had a bit of maintenance and, although there are no new sectors, the long muddy section low on the trail has had a wooden boardwalk put down to save you from the worst of the clart.

Tomorrow, more of the same I think. In the words of Adrian Moffat, it’s the first big weekend of the summer (though I don’t think he ever had riding bikes down hills in France in mind)

15/06/2014
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
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