Chamonix Bike Blog

Blog

Mixed conditions

It’s not been a great few days on the bike, but what’s the saying, “a bad day on the bike is better than a good day in the office”? Something like that.

First off, Robbie, Lorne & I headed up to the Chalet du Glacier des Bossons for one of my favourite wee tracks in the valley which, for one reason and another, I’d not had a chance to ride this year.

Arriving at the top of the chairlift, having been enthusing about the descent all way up the road and firetrack climb, there was a “Danger” sign and a fence blocking the path, which didn’t bode well. After once again failing to ride the super-tech entrance we discovered why.

The track had been well and truly hammered by the spring Fohen storm and there were trees down all over. At first I thought it could make a nice project and a few days work with a saw could clear it into a cracking VTT track hidden from walkers, but by about 1/2 way down there’s just too much damage.

To finish it off, the final section now has logging work! The riding between fallen trees was still good, but not worth the hassle. to cap it off I had a comedy over the bars in thick leaves at the end of the trail which left me undamaged but with some expensive dings on the bike. Ho hum.

Brevent re-opened on Saturday, which is good news for encouraging laziness, unfortunately winter also made an appearance and by Saturday evening the snow was lying on the ground in town.

Still keen to get out and do something, I went for a short spin in the snow. The loop up on forestry roads by the Mont Blanc tunnel access road and down past the Cascade du Dard is one of the great little loops around Chamonix perfect for when you’ve only got an hour or so, or just don’t want your toes to get too cold (does anyone make a weatherproof pair of skate shoes?).

I always find the worst part of going riding in less than perfect weather is actually getting out the door, and sure enough 5 minutes in I’d got used to the temperature and was enjoying spinning along without overheating and looking about at the valley in it’s first snows for the winter.

The forestry roads which let you avoid the main road up to the Mont Blanc tunnel aren’t continuous but even with a few short sprachels between paths you can ride almost all the way up, keeping the feet out of the snow!

As for the descent, apart from one short section after the bridge at the top, it’s a pretty mellow bit of singletrack without too much rock or root tech. Helpful with an inch or 2 of snow on the ground. Bit of a lack of photos as it was a little chilly to be hanging using the self timer, and it was nice just to be out in the peace and quiet that comes with a covering of snow.

The forecast is for warmer temps during the week, so there should be a return to normal service soon.

28/10/2012
Heads up to head up

After 3 weeks away from Chamonix and off the bike, it’s good to be back. To celebrate*, Compagnie du Mont-Blanc are opening up the Brevent gondola for 2 weeks from Saturday 27th October to Sunday 11th November, so get up there whilst you can as it’s pretty much the last chance on this side of the Alps to get some lift accessed riding done till the snow melts.

Of course, there’s still plenty of riding to do in and around Chamonix whether there’s lifts running or not, and till the snows properly arrive (and possibly even after) the trails will still be getting ridden.

*It’s possible the French half term holidays may have more to do with the opening than my return.

24/10/2012
Loriaz

It’s inter-season now in Chamonix, which means as well as the lifts closing, the shops are starting to cut back their opening hours, and town empties as everyone heads off on holiday. Wanting to get a classic ride in before packing the bike up for my holidays, I thought the Loriaz chalets loop would do the job nicely.

It’s one of the absolute best non-lift accessed loops in and around Chamonix, but being a little out of the valley doesn’t see quite as much traffic as some of the other non-lift accessed loops.

Most years the train can make life easier, getting you to Buet and from Vallorcine without any effort, but not this year. Despite this, it’s popularity is definitely increasing and there’s more tyre tracks on the route these days than when I was first shown the route a few years ago.

The ascent from Buet was as painful as ever, possibly more so with Paul “the machine” tearing up ahead of us, despite just finishing a quick 3 day Tour du Mont Blanc (check out his write up here for inspiration) but a little over an hour after leaving Buet we were at the cross, looking at the falling snowline and dropping our saddles.

If the climb was as painful as normal, the descent was as good as normal, starting above the trees in surprisingly Scottish terrain before dropping into the forest.

All too soon you’re back in Vallorcine for a short pedal back to Buet, or back over the Col du Montets if you’ve got the legs for it.

01/10/2012
Velo Ferrata

Most people imagine life as a Chamonix bike bum as a daily routine of getting up, selecting a bike from a quiver of top end steeds, being carried to the top of the hill by train/tram/chairlift/gondola or helicopter before ripping down on the finest rocky/rooty/buffed trails known to man then finishing the day quaffing fine wine with nubile bike groupies. Alas the truth couldn’t be more different.

Sometimes we have to pedal up the hill first.

Then there’s also the exploratory rides, where we go looking for the mythical perfect trail…. Acting on a couple of tip offs and a promising looking squiggly line on the map, Tom suggested we head down the valley to St Martin sur Arve to take a look at a loop below the “Tete du Colonney” cliffs. If you check it out on the map you’ll see that most of the 900m height gain can be done on a tarmacked road before moving to the 4×4 track to the Chalet du Meyrieu, leaving only about 250m to be done whilst pushing. Unfortunately what we didn’t notice was the gradient of some of the tarmac and 4×4 track. None of this slowed Twix the dog down any, but if you’re wanting to drive up to the car park, probably best to take something with some ground clearance and a fairly low 1^st gear.

Eventually pushing up the 4×4 track gave way to pushing up singletrack, which at least was a change of scenery. The French IGN maps use a selection of colours and lines to give you a clue about what to expect on the trail. We knew that up ahead there was a section of red dots. This could mean that the trail got narrow but still rideable, or it could mean you have a full on climb with fixed ropes and cut foot holds. We were hoping for the former, it turned out to be the latter. To be fair, having seen the size of the waterfalls and gullies that cut through the cliffs here, we could probably have guessed this, but it’s amazing what optimism does for you.

Through some stroke of luck the trails into each of these sections were rideable (sometimes easier to ride than walk!) which meant we just had to shoulder the bikes for the climbs out. This did leave us with one hand holding the bikes, one hand holding the wire, and no hands to spare for making upward progress, but we got there in the end. Twix was having no problems, despite her lack of opposable thumbs

Eventually we reached L’Achat d’en Bas at 1482 which meant the good stuff should start. Shouldn’t it?

It did, at first at least. The trail down to Chavan was fast and flowing. Tom was destroying it on his shiny new 29’er with Twix not far behind. I kept being drawn to the views of the Arve valley far, far below, and as a consequence kept spotting the drainage ditches at the last minute! The trail then gave way to some fairly hardcore 4×4 track then, at a very easy to miss junction, we turned off right to contour back round to the inspiration for the ride, the switch back squiggles leading down to Besseray

After a few interestingly narrow sections getting over, the switchback started off promisingly. Not too steep to be worrying, but steep enough to be challenging and with the option of blatting straight down the middle if your ethics allow. Then it got steeper. And tighter. If you can’t rolling endo round corners, you’re really going to struggle on this trail. After a while we gave up, some corners the consequences of a near inevitable fall were just too much.

Even once the corners opened up again, there were some pretty gnarly outlooks, with a not-quite-as-high-as-I’d-like fence between the trail and a very long but very fast approach to St Martin sur Arve.

As ever, Twix couldn’t see what our problem was and bounded back and forth with the enthusiasm of an animal that hasn’t been told how long it is till the next nap. Once out of the switchbacks our enthusiasm returned too. If that section had been designed to be as unsuitable as possible for bikes, then next was the opposite. Given some of the banking of corners, presence of little rock lips and use of the terrain, I’m almost sure it WAS made for bikes. Either way, an absolute corker of a singletrack blast to finish the ride off.

Some rides are instant classics, some you know you’ll come back to with more skills (or failing that, more travel) and others, well, you’re not going back. I’m not in any rush to ride the trail again and I can’t see Tom putting it in a guidebook anytime soon, but there’s plenty of other tracks down there which look like they could do with some exploration, so maybe that mythical ultimate trails IS waiting down there somewhere.

Anyway, time to get back up to Chamonix, there’s some fine wine and bike groupies waiting….

27/09/2012
Tricot treat

There’s definitely an autumn feeling in the air. Meeting in town at 09.30 we were all wearing jackets and looking for the sun. Our ride for the day was more of an autumn objective too, less about maximum vertical on the lifts and more about getting out into them thar hills. As Jan said, it felt more like going ski touring than biking. After a tip off from Tom that the trail down from the Col de Tricot was every bit as good, if not better, than the map suggested, we thought we’d give it a go before the weather got much colder.

A spin down to Les Houches and we were up the Bellevue gondola, now the only bike friendly uplift in the valley, by back of ten ready for the “Glacier Trail” down to the foot of the Bionassey glacier. It’s a harsh way to wake up; the fast fire road becomes fast singletrack becomes super rocky trails with wires to hold onto in no time at all, which if you’ve not been paying attention can be a bit of a surprise! After some entertaining can we/can’t we ride it sections with Jan getting to grips with a non DH bike and Lorne sending a techy drop to first bail of the day we past the glacial lake, complete with mini icebergs, and arrived at the wire bridge to start our climb. The bridge looks rideable, but regrettably the builders weren’t thinking of future MTB handlebar width standards when they designed it, and it’s just too narrow for 760mm. Didn’t stop all of us trying, failing, and getting off to wheelie the bikes over through.

The climb up to the Col de Tricot goes easily enough, a few rideable sections, but mostly we pushed and got to the manicured putting green that is the col at midday, just the right time for lunch. There’s a bit of every sort of descending I can think of in this ride, and you get a great view of the upper steep & rocky section from here.

A fresh (very fresh, it wasn’t there when Tom came through the week before) landslip meant we had to get off the bikes for 20 meters or so, but otherwise it’s a great start to the main descent. Extra points go to Lorne for riding it almost clean without a back brake!

Before reaching the Chalets du Miage, a trail cuts off up and to the right. This was where the descent became something special.

For over 3km the trail contours round and down the hill. There’re a few short climbs, but nothing unrideable and the flow is just incredible. Photos would do more justice than words, but no one was stopping when each section lead so well into the next.

After reaching the hamlet of Le Champel the only trail type we hadn’t dropped down was eye watering fast fire road. Fortunately help was at hand and we plummeted down to La Villette, paused to let Jan have a puncture fixed by Wayne, then continued on fire road and tarmac to St Gervais.

We could have stopped here to get the tramway back up to the top of the Les Houches area, but it was early yet so continued past the St Gervais lift station to ride the Pipeline trail down into Le Fayet, over 1500m lower than the Col de Tricot and downhill pretty much the whole way.

As luck would have it, we arrived at the same time as a tram so, after fluttering our eyes as best we could at the ticket desk girl, we were allowed onto the nearly empty tram to trundle back up to the Bellevue stop where we’d started the day for a quick lap of the front face trails and a ride back up to Chamonix in time for tea and medals.

A cracking day out, exacltly what riding in the mountains can be: friends, scenery & ridiculously good riding without seeing any other cyclists, or even that many people, all day.

17/09/2012