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Just after a little advice please on a trip to Chamonix in July. Were climbing down there but there is 48 pass between planned climbing where I can squeese some riding in. The lift from Les Houches looks like there is some good riding from. can anyone else add a bit more advise please. Passes look to be around 20 Euros for a day so fingers crossed some dusty fun can be had.
Have a trawl on here;
Have ridden some great trails in Chamonix Valley up at Le Tour and off Grand Montets in the summer but this was before a lot of the trail bans came in to effect so suspect most of them are off limits now during the peak summer months, which is a shame (as they were great). Sure someone with more recent knowledge will be along soon though.
I spent a good couple of days just riding the trails from the top of the lift back down to the bottom in this summer just gone. The trails were great and definitely worth a day or two. I'd come from a week or so in the PdS area and these felt a bit more "raw" which was good. Seem to recall a couple of sections being pretty tricky and certainly steep enough to keep things exciting.
Les Houches is ok. Most of the bike park stuff off the Prarion lift is pretty ropey but there's some good off piste bits off the red (if memory serves me correctly).
I'd imagine there's some more off piste in the area but we didn't find much.
We didn't find anything off the Bellevue lift so came down a footpath which wasn't great. So I'd avoid that side.
However... the pass covers one ride on the Mont Blanc train and the trail down to Saint Gervais is exceptional.
I've heard many Cham trails are closed off now.
LeTour at the valley head will still run, I guess, but it's not my fave. Over the back from the top of LeTour and down the DH track to Vallorcines a possibility. Larey though. Cable back up.
One of my pals recommended Belle le Chat (spelling may be wrong) a LOT of switchbacks.
Les Houches is my favourite area. Tend to stay there too.
I'm not sure if their bike park has reopened (it was at the top of the Bellevue lift).
Anyhoo, I reckon use the Prarion Les Houches (pod) lift rather than Bellevue (big cabin like a railcar) lift - try the ride down the back of the mountain via the Thermal park to StGervais, where you can either get the regular train back to Les Houches / Cham or get the cog railway back up to the lift station. Yeah better check it's currently OK to ride those paths and about taking bikes on train / cog railway.
ZeroG bikeshop Chamonix are very helpful, Tom there wrote a book on Cham area trails a while back, good luck trying to follow his "down to St Gervais" instructions though.
https://www.chamonix.net/english/maps/mountain-biking
Cheers Mudfish that looks more than usful its only for a day before we head off to Grand Paradiso.
On the back of this, I'm off to Chamonix end of June. Does anybody have a copy of the Chamonix bike book they no longer need? I've seem to have lost mine.
If you've got 48h in July then a day up at the Le Tour / Vallorcine end of the valley and a day at the Les Houches end will see you grand.
Up at Le Tour / Vallorcine the new Le Tour lift should be much easier to fit bikes in. Ignore any of the bike park trails on the Le Tour side. Also ignore any of the not bike park trails as July/August are the bike ban months and all of the trails there are off limits. The exception to this is the new Posettes trail which, whilst not quite as good as using the walking path all the way (you can still do that in June and September before anyone asks), at least uses a fair chunk of the walkers path and, more importantly, is not off limits in July and August. Round the back nearer the Vallorcine lift is a different commune, so no bike ban, less walkers, more fun. The Black DH track is great if you are happy on DH tracks, no obligatory wheels off ground. The new red is a very darkly shaded in red, but it's a cracking trail and a great bit of building. Then there's the classics down to Chatelard and Trient.
At Les Houches the bikepark has been on the Prarion side for about a decade now. We are in the process of rebuilding some of the old trails on the Bellevue side, but it's complex with the nature of the terrain there so it'll probably still be work in progress in July. There's several great trails over on that side, but they tend to be more technical. The area under Prarion is now a bit of a maze of unofficial trails, think Pleney but a little less obvious as usually you need to leave the official trail to get to the trail heads. The trails off the back to St Gervais have been impacted by forestry work on the upper sections but tracks have been made through the debris and you should be able to follow the new lines easy enough. Tom's "Hugh's Way" is probably the mellowest way down to St Gervais, and as mentioned, hard to follow. Doing a lap to St Gervais is definitely worth it however, check out Jack Moir's youtube channel for when he visited. Les Houches is the busiest area in the valley for riding, not that it's ever that busy, and usually there'll be someone to ask about the trails.
Saying all that, if you're off to Grand Paradiso, just go a day early and ride Pila off piste instead. It's what most of us Chamonix locals do on a day off. Hope you get some good climbing in!
Brilliant thanks for that, I will have a googlefoo and see whats what 🙂