Chamonix Bike Blog

Tag: valley trails

An object in motion remains in motion unless…

How’s your memory on high school physics, up to Newton’s first law of motion? I’ll give you a reminder, save you the hassle of dusting off your copy of Principia Mathematica.

First Law: In an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.

Or; stuff stays where you put it unless you give it a prod. Traditionally, giving things a prod then moved you onto Newton’s 2nd law where the object in question would accelerate in the direction it was prodded. Irritatingly some pesky scientists now went and (sort of) made a material with negative mass, so when poked it moves towards you*.

Having crowbared in a current (non political) affairs story, how does this swing round to bikes? Weeel, riders seem to react to their environment. If the local trail push in one direction, the riders tend to go with it, until something changes and then they get pushed in a new direction.

Not sure what I’m on about? If you live somewhere with a chairlift and bike park, you tend to ride a big heavy bike and hit jumps a lot. Live somewhere flat with rolling trails, you probably ride a XC 29’er. Live somewhere flat with no trails at all, you’ve probably bought a shovel and started digging trails (as in the proper definition of trails, jumpy ones). Finally, live somewhere with chairlifts and cracking natural tracks, you probably don’t both much with a shovel. i.e. Live in Chamonix, why bother building trails, there’s so many good ones already.

Only there’s always someone who want to be counter intuitive, to go in the wrong direction when pushed. And in this case, they’re building trails. The someone is really plural, as from Le Planet to Servoz folks are heading out and tweaking, modifying, extending or just straight up creating, trails.

I know who some of trails are made by, others I dunno, so it’s not for me to map out where the building is. But, if you get out a fair bit around Chamonix you should notice the more popular ones. The more hidden ones are an incentive to go and explore more, you never know where you might find the next gem.

I guess it’s also an incentive to go and add to the work that’s being done. Doesn’t need to be much, trail maintenance is as useful as making a new trail. The commune does grand work keeping the marked trails well maintained but there’s plenty of wee unmarked tracks that 5 mins work a ride to move fallen trees, kick clear drainage or push back encroaching shrubberies will make a difference.

And, if you all can do that then I don’t have to do anything and can just leech off everyone else’s hard work.

On the subject of getting something for nothing, the Chamonix lift accessed riding season started last week. Then ended after 1 day following the last minute change of mind by Compagnie du Mont Blanc to NOT keep Flegere running but fire up Brevent instead. Flegere lifties were happy with bikes, Brevent less so. Riding plans changed from lapping the Flegere trails to riding assorted valley trails under summer skies if not always summer temps. The pictures might look like they’re from August, but they were all definitely taken this April. Hence you’re getting a blog post about all the grand trail build work folk have been doing rather than how great it is to be riding off the lifts already.

The sun’s taking a wee break for a few days so I guess I should head off into the woods with a shovel and saw too. You never know, maybe the next post will be directions to the new greatest trail you’ve never ridden.

I wouldn’t get your hopes up but.

*Think how awesome negative mass materials could be in bikes! Tyres that roll uphill, pedals that accelerate away from your feet. It’ll be like an e-bike but without all that pesky attached stigma that you’re not a “real” cyclist just because you’ve got a motor in the downtube.

26/04/2017
Post truth biking

If US president elect went to Chamonix, rode one of its best trails, then talked about it….

Wow, autumn. I am so glad to be back in autumn. The season that has a very, very special place in my heart. I love autumn and together we are going to win the best trails in November.

And the best autumn trails, where are they? They’re here in Chamonix people, right here in Chamonix.

But I have to tell you. I have to tell you people, there’s a problem. The system is corrupt. The officials, the lift company. They have a conspiracy against us. The out of touch media elite won’t tell you about it. Nobody talks about it.

They won’t let us on the trails. July and August, they won’t let us on the trails. Won’t let us on the trails folks. And the Aiguille du Midi lift. Won’t let us on the lift, won’t let us on the lift. It’s terrible, very bad.

So if we can’t ride the trails and we can’t ride the lift, what are we going to do about it?

Number one, are you ready? Are you ready?

We will build a great trail in Chamonix.

And the lift company will pay for the trail.

One hundred percent. They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for it. And they’re great people and great leaders but they’re going to pay for the trail. On day one, we will begin working on intangible, physical, tall, powerful, beautiful trail.

I will build a great trail – and nobody builds trails better than me, believe me – and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great, great trail, and I will make the lift company pay for that trail. Mark my words.

But before then. Before the trail is built. Before then, when crooked Compagnie du Mont Blanc closes the lift for November, We can ride then. All we gotta do is walk up. Walk all the way up to the top.

Long way. Very long way. Took us two hours.

Now, just so you understand, the existing trails, who we all respect — say hello to the existing trails. Boy, they don’t get the credit they deserve. I can tell you. They’re great trails.

And bikes. Bikes too. My bikes are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body. Let’s here it for enduro bikes too.

And the existing trails that are already there. Already there. And they’re great. The best. By far. So let’s ride those trails.

We start at 2400m near the Aiguille du Midi lift station. The trail is broken, but we’re going to make the trail great again. Just as soon as we find it. It’s rocky and technical to start, I call it extreme trails right? Extreme trails. I want extreme. It’s going to be so tough, and if somebody comes in to ride that’s fine but they’re going to be good. It’s extreme.

Then things change, we get change. By les Grands Bois the trail gets more flowy. The trail is so beautiful. You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful… I just start skidding on them. It’s like a magnet. I just blow the trail up. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the roots and rip out features you can’t do. You can do anything. I moved on it very heavily in fact I took it out furniture shopping.

But nobody has more respect for the trails than I do.

We descended. 1340m, 1350m, 1360m. Maybe more, I don’t know. The government doesn’t know, they say it’s less, but let me tell you folks, it’s more. We descended so much. And all on dry trails. No need to drain the swamp. The gradient and trees do a great job. Let’s hear it for the topography and flora, lets hear it for the environment folks. No wait…

Yet still the media claim the trail ended. Why should we accept the trails ending? The trail can keep going. Why do riders deny what is going on? So naive. I need to tell you, it’s not pretty, but everyone’s too politically correct to say it. Gravity is rigged. It’s a con. The Chinese and immigrants, you don’t see them stopping descending just because the trail no longer goes downhill. Lets have the courage to stand up to these stupid people, and make trails great again.

Les Grandes Bois descent, straight above Chamonix. A very special trail … I never had a bad second with it, it’s an unbelievable trail …. But would the trail be so good if we took the tram to the top? Is it better because we had to work to ride the trail. And, by the way, I worked very hard, perhaps the hardest. I look very much forward to being here again to ride this trail in autumns to come. Hopefully at the end of two years, three years, four years, or maybe even eight years, you will say that so many of you worked so hard to ride this trail… something that you were very proud to do.

Autumn, it’s a great season.

Most of the words are plagiarised straight out of Trump’s 31/08/16 Arizona immigration speech (hey, don’t knock plagiarism. If it’s good enough for the first lady…) the rest from his victory speech and assorted proclamations during the last 18 months. All photos from 1st November when Lorne rode Les Grandes Bois and I ran about taking photos. Yes, injury has made me this bored.

12/11/2016
An interlude.

It’s December. The day of the longest night to be exact. Eleven days before the end of the year, and we’re riding our bikes.

As a lefty-liberal-pinko-socialist who will talk at you for hours on why capitalism will fail as it doesn’t obey the 1st or 2nd laws of thermodynamics, it’d be expected of me to launch into a rant about global warming and how it’s all our fault here.

But it’s christmas, you’re saved, I’ll be nice and no bother. Anyways, December is often a poor month for snow, often warm, often dry. Mibbies not so often good for biking, I guess this years that’s the silver lining on the cloud. Not that there’s been many clouds.

Still, I’d rather be skiing.

Tree skiing deep fresh snow in the cold of mid-winter is where it’s at for me and right now it’s not looking like a great winter for it. Instead of complaining though, we should be celebrating. This is the 2nd “bad” Christmas in a row. Another couple of these and the ski holiday trade will be scuppered, leaving a handful of operating lifts and hardly anyone able to make a living in the alps. The snow will truly be be ours for the taking, once them pesky locals who’ve grown up here and need us monchus, seasonaires and ski bums to work in their businesses and live in their apartments have had to leave town.

Not quite sure what we’ll do to keep food on the table, but we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

In the absence of good skiing, we’ve been going for some good biking.

On the sunny side of the valley it’s autumn. Hell, on the north facing side it’s pretty much autumn! Either way, as long as you’re not in the shade and below 1600m then you’re safe from ice and snow. By the time you get to Servoz the conditions are perfect.

Dry empty trails, not too warm for the pedal up but not too cold for the ride down. The only complaint would be that the bronze carpet of fallen leaves might look picturesque, but it’s a bugger for knowing where the trail’s going or what might be underneath said foot-deep carpet. It’s about as close as we’re getting to riding pow for the now though.

If that’s not enough for you, Les Gets is putting the bike hooks back on the Mont Cherie lift for this Saturday.

Still not enough? Verbier are giving free guided #enduro rides on the lower section of the Le Chable-Verbier gondola this week.

STILL not enough? Pila are already letting bikes onto the lower gondola. Get your days right and you can ride 3 countries in 3 days…..

Looking into the crystal balls of ECM, GFS & assorted websites I’m going to forecast that there’ll be more riding of bikes had in the next few weeks, but 2016’s a whole new year so let’s see if the predicted wetter & warmer than average plays out.

So, there might be some more posts here this winter, or there might not. I’ll hazard a guess at the next post being 12th March 2016, but don’t hold me to it. Either ways, happy non-denominational winter capitalist fest (hey, I had to get my left wing killjoyism out somewhere) and check out Lorne’s ski blog if you want to see much of the same but on 2 planks not 2 wheels.

21/12/2015
Dear green place

The Chamonix valley. It’s expensive (so move somewhere less dear or quit whining), it rains (well, how else does it stay green) and it’s miles from Glasgow (the original dear green place). But between the winter & summer seasons there’s a lot in common with the Weeg.

The clouds are down in the valley hiding the aiguilles and leaving a view of green, tree covered, hills. None of the lifts are open so we’re pedalling up fire roads to bomb down damp singletrack. And it’s raining, so there’s not too many other folk out and about despite none of the trails being particularly far from town.

Spencer and I felt the need to explore so headed off up towards the Mont Blanc tunnel in the hope of finding some trails to link known favourites across the north facing side of the valley down to Les Houches.

Even a cursory look at a map shows that there’s not too many trails and a lot of rivers in this area, but we didn’t have any better ideas, so figured we’d have a look.

Not far from the tunnel we crossed our first stream, the Torrent de la Crosset. Given it’s one of the main drainages for the Bossons Glacier it was pretty easy, I couldn’t help but wonder how long the snow we ski on the west face of the Midi takes to make it to the stream.

Once over and this (and with dry feet), the trail heads downhill. Fast with greasy rocks and roots, just like Mugdock.

Next challenge, Torrent des Bossons. Again the water is relatively low so crossing is pretty easy, the hack through the deforested area less so. Fortunately we found a manicured garden for a millionaire’s chalet to skip through…..

The hill above Le Mont has some great wee trails accessed off the old green run from when the chairlift was for a ski area. You even get to pedal past Cedric Gracia’s attempt at getting a bike park in Chamonix, also long abandoned.

Fortunately the singletrack is longer lasting and we get another great descent until we find the Torrent de Taconnaz. This time there’s a bridge, so nae danger of wet feet, but the bridge goes nowhere (there used to be one of them in Glasgow too) and we’re left randomly riding about Les Houches trying to find a trail until we get bored and head to Super U for 50 centime cookies.

Doesn’t sound like much, but it was good to be out exploring instead of on the sofa. The elusive trail-to-end-all-trails remains elusive, but at least we know a few more shortcuts….

27/05/2014
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