[Closed] Les arcs this weekend

Wanted to go there but all the guided holidays were fully booked - so going to Areches-Beaufort which I believe is the hill next door. Will be def checking our Les Arcs while Im there.

cubemeup
While your there check out Tignes. Its about 30 mins drive but well worth it. Free chairlifts & some really good trails. Have fun!!
BTW you have to do "Black 8" when your in Les Arcs. It starts at Arc 1600 at the top of the Funincular. Its really good fun

we're setting off early hours on Monday 5th august morning for the week. Staying in arc1950.

Looking forward to it, havent got any guiding booked, but will see how it goes and if neccesary see if we can book something

Lucky you! Going back in a couple of weeks. I can't tell you what's good as I was just following Stevo but Black 8 I remember as very nice (also I think we found wild strawberries halfway down, mmmmmmm)

just back actually. stayed in a chalet in Vallandry, in our group of 6, 2 had been 3 times before and one has guide-level-knowledge so we were able to do a lot of the unmarked tracks in the area of which there are about 400km of and they are a lot better than the marked "Bike Parc" trails.

Sure, you can have a lot of fun on Black8 and the Crashette (aka Cachette) but for me the best trails were the Lacs trail, la Varda ridge and the Mont Jolet ride although I crapped myself walking along a ridge with a 40 lbs bullet on my back with 1000's of ft of probably-death-fall on each side. It brought us to Moutiers which required a SNCF train ride to Boug St-Maurice and then a quick ride up the funicular to get home on time. Still to do a lot of the trails on the La Plagne side although we did do the trail locally known as "Premier League" and one of the ones that follows the chair down - both excellent and different in character than the Vallandry/Arcs rides.

if you haven't, should should get a guide for the day - people like Ben Jones MTB Adventures and TrailAddiction have or can recommend "guides" (although, they're not really guides in the sense of French employment rules or something)

TAKE SPARES and dual ply tyres.

I broke a jockey wheel (?), a BB and set brake pads on fire.

Here now and it's pissing it down, all lifts are shut and we're bored t*less, other than that there's some brilliant
riding. 😀

so going to Areches-Beaufort which I believe is the hill next door

La Plagne is the hill next door, Areches is miles away but apparently very good anyway

It is kind of next door, just in a different direction (towards Lac de Roseland).

I'm going to Llandudno in the morning. Whoopee doo

Went there 3 weeks ago - Fab! http://mydogtagadventures.com/les-arcs-mountain-biking-trip-summer-2013

In Val D'sire at the moment, worst day for weather over the last week, lifts are shut today but forcast is good for the rest of the week.

Lifts in Val D'sere and Tignes are free and wirth a trip over.

Bolt

We are going with mountain bike safari boys went last yr and loved it

I'd personally avoid TA guides, one we bumped into this year was the most arrogant pr£&k I've met in a long time and not happy when he saw my map full of highlighted trails

@nthornton - I did Destination X Arcehes-Beaufort last year with TA , really excellent. However, whilst on the map Les Arcs is "close" it's not particularly accessible. You could drive over there on your day off but we were too knackered and just had day in the sun and a swim.

bland any chance of a picture of your map of highlighted trails? I'm not sure yet if I will get out to Les Arcs this year but it would be nice to have it if I do get to go.

[i]I'd personally avoid TA guides, one we bumped into this year was the most arrogant pr£&k I've met in a long time[/i]

Not at all a sweeping generalisation... 🙄

Have a look here [url= http://singletrackmag.com/forum/topic/les-arcs-a-few-qs ]for the link to the over thread[/url] which has some stuff on. Ill be honest, its not an easy place to navigate and we were fortunate to ride with Doug who is a map reading god and has excellent knowledge of the place.

My best suggestion is to buy a map and scour the walkers trails from arcs 1600, 1800, vallandry and try ride them all. You will need to suss out the roads in the resorts to find the starting points and it will be trial and error at times but pretty much all of what is marked up on the IGN map is ace. My map is misleading now to someone who doesnt own it as there is a lot of stuff on that needs removing. Send me a decent pic of the map like what i have on the google pic in the other thread and ill draw some pointer on for you.

Yes it was a sweeping statement but he was an arrogant **** twice to the group

I never really liked Black 8 that much. Sooooo much better stuff round there.

I would highly recommend getting a guide, the best being from TrailAddiction. Apart from Bike Village, they were the first company to be based out there and pain stakingly mapped out and named all the trails you are quoting. In fact I would highly recommend a whole holiday with them as the chalets, food and assistance they give is first class.

The top half of Black 8 is flowing quite nicely this year, but I didn't like the new line they've cut at the bottom.

Only contact I had with a TA guide was a chap helping a fallen rider, one of his group had bust his shoulder on a descent. All seemed to be being dealt with calmly and professionally.

For guiding, Stevo from White Rooms posted up contact details the other details for Yvan Bonin, a former WR guide. He was "my" guide for most of the week and he was absolutely first class. Ever so slightly gnomic, and very french, but ace.

Black 8 is a bit meh. Double Header is a better complete trail imo.

Funny option to black 8 is to go under the water pipe and then dive left down the steep chutes

It is all good out there imo, different strokes for different folks. La Plagne had a couple of nice ones in it too, as does the lower part of Rosiere.