Chamonix Bike Blog

Tag: Le Tour

The longest day

Summer solstice. The longest day, shortest night and start of the countdown to winter. Also an excuse (if an excuse was ever needed) to both go in to the hills to do stuff and go out on the town.

After some warm up laps around Les Houches (trails all riding nice, bit of rain would be good to give some more grip though) we headed up the Bellevue gondola and climbed round towards the Col du Mont Lachet.

The trail down from the col is fairly exposed in places, but I think it’s pretty fun. Not everyone else, or possibly anyone else, agreed…..but I was enjoying myself.

With plenty of daylight to play with we had been aiming to get high somewhere in the valley and ride down in the evening light. Unfortunately all the usual supects that face west and would be bathed in dusky evening light are still just a bit too snowy, so we settled on an east facing lap down to Trient instead

With efficiency few locations in the developed world can equal, the last train from Chamonix to Montroc gets you there with enough just time to sprint up the hill and just catch the Le Tour lifts as they are closing. We had an anxious wait at the top of the Autannes chair to see if our bikes had been loaded or if the lifty had clocked off for the day….eventually they climbed into view.

In contrast to last year, the climb up to the Col du Balme only needed a couple of quick snow crossings rather than wanting to have an axe and crampons. The descent on the other hand still has a few snow patches, succesfully negotiated by all bar me. Saved by my bike and Lorne.

The trail to Trient was as good as always, more fast and flowing than the trails earlier in the day, great to ride in a chain of 4, even if being last generally meant choking on the dust from the others.

Although we were on the wrong aspect to get the best light, the later time meant we met no one else on the whole 20 minute descent, only tired arms and overheating brakes gave reasons to slow up or stop.

The tear down the road from Trient to Chatelard wasn’t as good as the tear down the trails, but did prove that tucking works, tucking and drafting works better, and tucking, drafting and running a semi-slick rear tyre works best.

The climb back up to Vallorcine is slow enough that tucking does little to help, though again less tread is better. Either way, it goes easy enough and soon we were looking at the lengthening shadows around the train station and waiting for a helping hand over (or through) the Col du Montets to Montroc where Lorne & I got out for the last few miles down the valley to beers at Rhodedendrons whilst Nina and Spencer put their feet up.

Of course, summer solstice in Chamonix is not complete without the Fete des Musique so a long day still wasn’t finished.

22/06/2014
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
Awesome. Le Tour and more.

I like tea me. There are few things in life better than a cup of tea, but even better are those 10% of cups of tea that just push up to the next level of tea. Awesome.

I like riding bikes me. There are few things…. And this ride was one of those 10%. It’s not as if the average ever drops that low about here, but that combination of some of the best of a good crop of trails, perfect weather, dry ground but only a couple days after a good soaking and a bunch of mates to share it with. Awesome.

It started with the potential to go either way, meeting for the 0925 bike bus up to Le Tour. When they work well the bike bus is amazing, but when the driver seems more keen to load it up with walkers than riders, leaving you at the bus stop, or the UCPA gets there first with 20 odd stormtrooping pupils and you can’t fit your bike in, not so good. Today, it all went smoothly and we were on the lifts for 10.

Looking down from the Autannes Chairlift you could see the new section of trail built into the upper VTT trail. It looks pretty good too, but we had plans on the bigger descents into Switzerland and, as the Vallorcine gondola closes between 1230 and 1345, there was a schedule to keep to.

Unsure if we’d be quick enough on a full Trient lap, we started up with a shorter lap from the Col de Balme to the Catogne chalets and down to Vallorcine. Of course when I say shorter, you still get 1000m vert over 9km of the finest riding in the alps. Alpine pasture, dusty singletrack hugging the side of gorges, some fast fireroad to drift about on and a finish down rock rooty singletrack through pine forests with that dappled light that makes it so infuriating to photograph!

Some time, and much amusement, later, we’re getting back onto the Vallorcine gondola. A short pedal over the Col des Posettes and a blast across the hill and we re-set on the Autannes chair. This time though at the Refuge de Balme we stay in Switzerland and head up towards L’Arolette. There’s still a few patches of snow to negotiate round the back here, no apparently the hill doesn’t know it’s August, but they’re all pretty easy to cross. Except for Luke…

We reached the col by hot o’clock, so stopped to drink water, eat a bit and shoot the breeze. Sated, we dropped into the descent across the bowl. You can see 90% of the trail snaking across the hillside here. The bit you couldn’t see turned out to be another patch of snow across the steepest and rockiest section of the mountain. Everyone stopped in time.

From here the trail just keeps giving. There are better natural trails out there, but not many. Like the Catogne descent that it runs near to there’s every sort of riding covered on your way down. Well, every good sort; I didn’t notice any tussocky grass, brake bumps, motocrosser ruts etc.

Eventually we cruised sweaty and dusty into Trient, another 1000m lower and immeasurably higher. Even better, the trail ends but 20m from a(n ice cold) water fountain. Less good was the switch from trail to road for the next wee while, but even that wasn’t too bad. A fast blast downhill to nearly the border then a 20 minute or so pedal up hill to Vallorcine, with the baking hot sun cooking you from above.

Once again we head up the Vallorcine gondola, up to the col and across the mountain, but this time we keep heading down on the ever excellent lower Le Tour DH track. The construction of the new upper section’s obviously taken a fair bit of the shapers time as the trail was running quite loose, you can complain, or you can get on with it and learn to drift. Or your bike can have a tantrum like Ally’s did. It started with a quick stop to fix a puncture (not mine for once, and the only one of the day). Then the fixed wheel couldn’t go back in the frame. Closer inspection revealed that the disk brake return springs were performing more of a braking duty than the pads. Undeterred by the lack of material, Ally affected repairs, and we got going again, headed for Petite Balcon Nord.

PBN doesn’t get ridden at this end of the valley anything like as much as it does lower down, which is strange as it’s my new favourite section of the petite balcons. Not going to complain mind, we all had a blast down to Argentiere and the Grand Montets lift.

Josh had to keep going for home here, so it was only 5 of us that boarded, probably just as well given how grumpy the other passengers were at our presence, ho hum. Another quick break to drink and eat and we were off on the last descent of the day into the Lavancher bowl and then on to Le Bois. This is another anomaly of the Chamonix bike ban, being a totally natural trail, fairly tech in places, reasonably popular with walkers, and yet we’re encouraged to use it. Not going to complain mind, it’s a grand way down the hill. Once in the trees the light was useless for taking photos, so the camera afflicted amongst us were able to just keep going and going and going, as was everyone else having been freed from “wait there a second” “ok, ride now” “can you go up again, I missed it”…. Though the flip side is that it’s a very long way down and you better have strong fore arms if your brake fingers are going to survive.

Eventually, 5 riders rolled into Le Bois and collapsed by the water fountain. These granite and wood vats of ice cold drinking water are up there with tea and bikes in my “things that are great” list, and the Le Bois one is definitely in the upper 10%, especially on a day like this.

Sunshine, friends and over 4km vertical of dusty alpine descending. Awesome.

02/08/2013
To the ends of the valley

OK, it can get a bit insular here in Chamonix. The steep valley walls cut off any sight of the outside world and, as long as you’re only paying attention to mountain sports, then everything you want is on your doorstep. It’s a bit of a change to look out of the valley occasional and be reminded that the outside world exists, but to do it twice in less than a week, madness.

To cut a long intro short, the bike ban’s started, so most natural trails are now out of bounds thanks to Arrête Municipale (n° 124/2004) which prohibits bikes from all trails other than those listed on it. You can get round this a few ways (click on the “bike ban” tag to see other posts) but pretty much the easiest, most sure fire way is just to leave the Chamonix commune and hit some other trails, hence the trips to Les Houches and Le Tour.

Les Houches was wet, and as a result, so were we. The trails down at this end of the valley are particularly clay like and things get pretty slippy pretty quickly when it rains. This wasn’t putting us or a couple of Welsh lads on holiday with big Lapierre DH rigs off, you just need to blink a bit more often to get the mud out your eyes.

After a few front face laps group-think decided we should drop off the back and down to St Gervais on one of the longer “enduro” style runs. Great for us locals on our “enduro” style bikes, but hard work on a DH bike. Lorne & I had ridden “Hugh’s Way” last summer, getting lost near the top but finding the lower section fine. This time we found the upper trails (see photo above, it’s very easy to miss) but completely failed to get the turn off we’d managed fine last time. Go figure. Either way, it’s a good trail down to St Gervais and great to see some different scenery on the way down.

With 30 minutes to kill in St Gervais before the last tram we went to hit the skate park. If you’re in a similar situation here’s a top tip. Don’t bother. It’s surfaced with a frictionless surface and bikes are apparently not allowed.

With the Bellevue lift not running this summer due to cable damage the tramway is the easiest way to get up to that side of the Les Houches hill where the old DH trails started from. They’re in a fairly bad way now, but still worth the blast if you’re up that way. The new trails should be open in a week or so though. Hopefully.

Fast forward a few days and Lorne & I are up at Le Tour. The weather is hot and sunny, the trails are dusty. All in all a pleasant change. We head up the gondola & chair, traverse round past the Col de Balme refuge to the Tete de Balme chairlift and are in Switzerland, neutral in the face of war, gold and bike bans.

The Catogne descent which drops down from here is one of my favourites, even more so at the moment as so much of the riding this summer has been deep in the trees, the alpine riding only recently escaping from the snow.

The pictures do the talking again here, narrow singletrack through open alpine terrain, before plunging into the trees. What’s not to like? Well if I’m being picky I’d say the Vallorcine DH track being closed, along with most of the land under the Vallorcine gondola, for the whole summer whilst work is done and that once back up on the Vallorcine gondola and having pedalled up to the Col de Posettes you can’t ride the Aiguillette de Posettes trail due to the bike ban. But that’s just me being picky.

Instead the Le Tour DH track under the gondola is a reasonable substitute. It’s had some work done on it which has baked in well and it’s riding very well at the moment, definitely worth hitting for a few laps, just watch out for the livestock…

Finally, the bike bus has started back up for July & August, so if you want to save driving up to Le Tour, or just want to be able to ride back down at the end of the day, details are here.

What next to escape the clutches of the gendarmerie? I feel a road trip coming on.

09/07/2013