Chamonix Bike Blog

Tag: DH

Public transport: Dorenaz.

Generally when you think of using public transport to ride your bike, it’s looking sheepish as you trail mud through a Scotrail carriage to hook your bike up by the toilet then sit getting cold on the way back home.

Switzerland is a bit different. In Switzerland the topography lends itself more to cable cars than trains so access to many smaller villages is by publicly run telepheriques. Dorenaz is one such place where the local bus driver also sells tickets and presses buttons on a 670m height gain gondola.

As Dorenaz is at only 450m and the hill faces SW, the trails are generally clear of snow most of the year round, but it can still be pretty chilly in winter. No such problems for Spence and I when we headed out of Chamonix for some t-shirt and shorts riding in low 20’s temperatures and clear blue skies.

After hooking our bikes onto the underside of the gondola by their wheels and panicking most of the way up that they were going to clip the hillside and get knocked off, we arrived at the Champex plateau where it’s a short pedal up the tarmac to the start of the marked DH trails.

It being the first proper days riding (or should I say #pre-season training as this year I’ve gone ENDURO so no more riding, only #training or #set up testing for me now…) of the year I’d hoped for some flowing singletrack to get back into the flow of things.

No such luck. From the get-go the trails are steep, fast and rocky. To add to the fun the lack of rain recently has left the track bone dry. Chatting to some locals later in the day we were told that the track runs better in the damp, giving much more friction. This did make us feel a bit better about our riding, but not much.

After a lap of the DH trail and a few minutes at the lift to recover, collect our thoughts and steel ourselves for another lap, one of the other locals (at least, we’re assuming they were locals as they were flipping quick, turned up in a van with “Crossroad Cycles CH” written on the side, and that shop seems to sponsor the trails, I think Mrs Marple would come to the same conclusion….) took pity on us and said he’d show us some of the “easier” trails…

They were “easier” than the official trail, but certainly weren’t easy!

Back up and back on the official track we explored some of the variations marked on the trail map. Apparently these are graded from blue to black, but I’ve no idea how you tell the difference as they all felt just as interesting. Try them all and repeat the bits you like the most would be the recommendation.

It’s not too easy to find information online for Dorenaz, but if you want to head over and give it a go (and you should if you like the Vallorcine DH track, or techier tracks in general) then check out the Dorenaz facebook page and the telepherique website for more info. To get there from Chamonix, head to Martigny, follow the signs through town for Vernayaz, then the signs for Dorenaz once outside Martigny. Or look at a map.

07/04/2014
Pila, Near Perfect

Well, Graham is out of action for now with a thumb injury and currently 72km into his 100km ultra marathon (yeah, sounds no fun to me either), so he asked me (Lorne Cameron) to do a spot of guest blogging of any big biking days for the time being. I’m not as good with the biking words as Graham, but here we go anyway for yesterday’s roadtrip to Pila in the Italy’s Aosta Valley, just 45 minutes’ drive from Chamonix through the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

A few friends here rave about Pila, but Spence and I had never been before and Nina only once or twice. Parking is easiest in Aosta town then access to the main bike trails is by a long gondola, with day passes costing €18 plus €5 refundable deposit for the lift pass card. The cafes up the hill are reportedly pretty good, but being cheapskates we brought sandwiches which we left in the car so that we could just split one backpack between us and make a run down to the car at lunchtime which worked out pretty well.

Things didn’t start off well with Spence somehow coating his rear disc in lube while tending to his chain, but luckily the mechanics at midstation were pretty friendly and gave him free-reign of the tool station to change his pads while coke and window cleaner got the disc cleaned nicely.

Up the main chairlift, we quickly realised what’s so special about this place. Imagine Morzine with less bumps, less crowds, more interesting trails and far more variations on the way down. There was a bit of everything to ride, from tall tight berms, singletrack, gaps, drops, northshore, the works. Rider’s left of the lift line and directly underneath it were pretty manicured trails, while far rider’s right had a much more natural feel but built up just enough to ride smoothly and the odd kicker scattered around and any bigger features very well marked with JUMP or DROP.

The photo of the map above shows the upper mountain trails, but if it included every little variation there would be twice as many lines marked (especially rider’s right), but with everything leading back to the chairlift it was really fun to find our own variations and regroup when the trails merged. We had one run down the IXS Downhill run which is all rideable for mere mortals such as ourselves, but it’s pretty scary to think that racers ride the whole very technical course flat-out without a break!

Laps off the top lift took us about 35-45 minutes depending on which variations we took, so we did 3 run up there before riding down to town for lunch which is an 18km run of not overly built-up trail with a lot of different variations through the wooded sections, excellent stuff. Staying left near the end on Nina’s recommendation gave us the best exit back to town then a 10 minute ride on the road back to the car – best to ride this with someone who knows the way to avoid getting lost.

After lunch, pretty much the same again finding new variations up high and getting to know some sections better so riding them much faster. The first few minutes of the trails rider’s right before everything started splitting were definitely my favourite; technical but flowy, exactly what I like.

So, definitely some of my favourite riding I’ve ever had. A very different feel to La Thuile, possibly overall better but unfortunately we didn’t make it to La Thuile this year so it’s hard to compare them directly.

Some sections were quite loose and dusty despite 36 hours of rain finishing two days before we were there, so best to ride Pila in moist conditions if possible with fresh tyres.

It’s pretty amazing that Pila isn’t talked about more or isn’t more popular with tourists – we only had to pass a few people all day and never got overtaken, but it was still easy to watch riders from the lifts including some very good locals. It’s definitely not a beginner-friendly resort though, and I wouldn’t take a hardtail anywhere near it. Some sections had quite bad brake bumps but Nina and I got on fine with 150mm all-mountain bikes; in early-season this wouldn’t be an issue at all.

Unfortunately Pila’s lifts stop running next weekend (8th September) so we might just have to take a return trip next Thursday!

30/08/2013
A Saleve for the uplift blues?

After 2 weeks of pretty poor biking weather (grand for getting the ski season going though) whilst the Brevent lifts were open, the skies have cleared and there’s been wall to wall sunshine.

And frost.

It is November after all.

Unfortunately the Chamonix lifts are closed so, always keen to let someone else do the hard work, we loaded up and headed out of town for some mid November lift access mountain biking. Got to love the alps.

45mins to 1hr from Chamonix and on the outskirts of Geneva is the tourist lift “la Saleve” You can buy a single uplift for about 6euro or for 43euro get a book of 10 passes which you can share amongst a few riders and are valid for 12 months from purchase. Bargain. The front face of Saleve doesn’t look too promising for biking, unless you’re filming for Where the trail ends but there’s a network of trails winding down from the top through some fairly unlikely looking terrain.

When we arrived it was cloudy and freezing cold in the carpark, irritating as it was sunny and freezing cold back in Chamonix, however heading up in the lift we got through a cloud band 1/2 way up and into the sunshine. Still cold though.

Once at the top tracks head off in all directions with several popular XC bike loops around the top. We were here to ride down though, so crossed the road and followed the traverse path for a few minutes to where the proper trails start. Despite looking like unofficial tracks, the trails are marked with little bike symbols. Nevertheless, the turn-off from the road can be easy to miss. It’s about 100m down the tarmac road, on your right and a sharper turn than it first looks. Once onto the trail though, just keep following your nose! There’s a huge number of variations, if you want to get to the best of them, speak to a local (there’s plenty of them about!)

The top half of the main trail is a great example of what good trail building should be. Fast and flowing, despite the damp and slidy conditions, with well constructed jumps which look intimidating but ride smoothly if you commit. It gets pretty tight in places with tree gaps little wider than your bars, but the berms keep you on the right line and in the gaps. The limestone geology also makes a change from Chamonix’s granite with a bit more grip in the wet than we were all used to.

The lower section is very good in the dry… it wasn’t dry today. The claggy mud was sticking to everything it touched, leaving everyone with semi-slick tyres. Low speeds meant none of the many, many crashes were serious and generally it was easier to slide down on, or at least near, the bike than try to walk.

As a contrast to the fast, full-face style tracks that take the more direct line down, there are some enduro-style trails that take a less steep line further east to the village of Monnetier. These don’t get ridden as much, and you can tell. The entrance, roughly 200m down the start of the main trail, which breaks off right was covered in leaves and without Wayne’s local knowledge we’d never have found it. Once on the trail the line was a little more obvious, but still well covered in leaves. Hopefully next time it’ll be easier to see where we’re going as it did mess with the flow a bit! To get back to the lifts, head through the village, cycling uphill (wouldn’t be much fun with a DH rig this bit) for about 10 minutes till you round a left hand hairpin and see the gravel road which you use on the main DH tracks on your right.

The last section back to the gondola is common to most of the tracks. The trail starts as a walking path with singletrack cut-throughs to avoid steps made for walkers. Then you get to a long series of rock stairs cut out of the cliff with a fair sized drop to your right. fine in the dry if there’s no one walking up, but not even the local heros were riding them today! After this the trail gets interesting again, with yet more great trail building work.

After a summer of riding trails in the high alps, Saleve feels almost like going back to the riding in the UK. Lots of trails built by locals with whatever materials are available, damp slidy dirt despite it not having rained for several days, lots of trees, except here you have a gondola to lift you 660 metres rather than a farmers trailer or pedalling.

Cheers to the trail builders for a great days riding.

20/11/2012
Getting cold feet

It certainly ain’t summer any more, but there are still lifts turning and the trails aren’t (always) covered in snow, so there’s still riding getting done.

Folk have mostly been taking advantage of the Brevent lift being open for two weeks. However with the snow line going up and down from somewhere near the top of the lift at 2000m to just above town, the trails around Servoz and down to Le Fayet have also been getting hit, especially since a group of local riders have started work on an excellent new freeride trail near Lac Vert. The mix of rain and snow has put an end to the wonderful dry trails of the last few months, but away from the rockier trails (such as, err, Brevent) the dirt is pretty grippy and the mud washes off! This hasn’t stopped local riders looking further afield to find dust, with groups heading off to Aosta for van shuttle riding and others even off to Morocco.

I’ve had a few runs on Brevent since the last update, including checking out Sentier des Gardes which, as Oliver said, is now much improved with only about 5 trees still down and once again worth the effort. There was also first tracks in a few inches of snow on Le Charlanon and watching the scariest crash of the season when Lorne went over the edge on Plan des Chablettes and ragdolled down the hill for 25 meters…

With the local meteo forecasting as much as 50cm of snow at 2500m overnight and frequent snow showers during Sunday, Jan, Robbie & I headed up Brevent for what we figured would be the last time today. First lap we dropped down the 4×4 track into the main Brevent couloir and discovered that the rocks were pretty slippy and a river was running down large sections of the track. Not wanting to finish the season with injury, we walked a couple of sections that are normally ridden. Before long we were at the junction choosing whether to ride Sentier des Gardes or Plan des Chablettes when, mid photograph, we heard a jet plane pass overhead. Only, it didn’t sound quite right and looking up towards ENSA couloir saw a plume of rising dust. At first it looked like a small snow avalanche, however as the sound of falling rocks got louder, we decided to scarper fast into the safety of the trees on Plan des Chablettes. Looking back we could see and hear rocks bouncing down the main funnel line over the path to Sentier des Gardes and towards town. A rude reminder that in Chamonix, even the biking has objective danger!

The rest of the trail went without incident, though also a bit slippier than usual which kept speeds down a bit till we got back to the lift station. With the PGHM helicopter now circling the Brevent couloir we decided to give that a miss and went up for a lap of Le Charlanon instead. The initial technical singletrack traverse looked fairly clear of snow, but we still decided that it would be a better idea to descend on the 4×4 tracks towards Col Cornu and then push (or ride in Jan’s case) back up to the start of the descent.

This route was livened up by some off piste excursions off the 4×4 track and into the snow, culminating in a megavalanche stylee blat straight down the hill, ensuring fun, swearing and baltic feet & shins for all.

Once onto the trail the snow had pretty much melted away and it seemed as good a track as any to end the summers uplift before the winter. If you’ve not ridden it, make the effort next year, it’s a great ride.

Eventually we ended up in Le Praz at the old north shore trails behind the Rabbit on the Roof workshop. The north shore’s been dismantled but the dirt jumps still remain which gave a last bit of variety to the day, though I doubt any of us will be entering crankworx at L2A next year.

So, an eventful but good day to finish the big descents on for the season, hopefully with more to do lower down. We’ll see.

10/11/2012
Brevent

This weeks riding has been brought to you by the word Brevent!

First off, if you don’t live in the valley and are looking for a wee conditions update to decide whether to make the drive over or not, check the webcams. The snow line is wandering up and down the mountain and, if the forecast is correct, will continue to do so for the next few days.

How’s the riding been the last few days? After the snow down to the valley last weekend, it took a few days for it to be worth heading up with a bike, but my Tuesday the skies were blue, the temperature crisp, and tracks were appearing on the ground again.

Umpteen laps of the main descent down the fall-line (Plan des Chablettes) have been logged. Unfortunately my preferred entry where you ride up the hill for a couple of hundred meters from the lift station, past the parapont take off field and drop in on excellent techy singletrack is still a bit too snowy to be worthwhile. Instead better to descend under the gondola station and beneath the gondola cables onto the 4×4 track which, though boring, clears of snow much quicker and gets you onto the amazing lower half.

There’s been some small landslips on the lower section, but it’s still 100% rideable if you’ve got the confidence, and once in the trees the riding is some of Chamonix’s finest. I even finally plucked up the courage to air the rock drop just after the start of the trees, the rock lip giving more “kick” than I thought, and Lorne too, hence the missing head!

Generally the paths have been clearing on most aspects, but even down to village height snow has been hanging on in shady N.E. aspects and ice forming near streams, so watch out when exploring….

After Oliver commented on a previous post about the Sentier des Gardes path now being clear again, I headed up on Thursday to check it out. Unfortunately as I went up, the snow started coming down and by the time I got out the lift station conditions were pretty grim.

Instead I decided to loose height quickly on the 4×4 path down past the Col Cornu chairlift and onto the home run. A couple of switchbacks down you’ll see a wee path diving off to the right, and it’s definitely worth following! There’s a few short sections where it’s easier to get off and carry round rocks and trees, but mostly it’s fast flowing singletrack all the way back to the Brevent base station. The trees were holding back the worst of the snow, and the extra moisture on the ground gave the trail amazing grip in the corners. what’s more the miserable weather seemed to be dissuading folk from going for a walk, so there was no-one else to slow up for. It really can be worth heading up, no matter the weather.

02/11/2012