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I'm looking to arrange a holiday for next year with my wee bro and he reckons everything available at Mt Fromme is available in the Alps and we don't have to travel as far. The type of riding I'm looking to do is what is in the link below. I've never been to either but this stuff looks superb. Can someone tell me where I can find this type of riding in the Alps? Thanks.
I've ridden those trails (on Fromme) but it's been a very long time since I've mountain biked in the Alps so can't help you, but I'm interested in others opinions!
Also interested to read the replies, I've ridden the North Shore and I've ridden the Alps and I wouldn't say they're comparable at all.
I'd disagree with your bro to be honest. Having been to the Sea to Sky corridor and ridden most of what it has to offer, I don't think that sort of riding is readily available in the Alps in that sort of variety and concentration. There's something similar it in the forests below most of the Alpine and Pyrenees destinations in that there maybe one or two trails that are like the PNW, but Alps riding and North Shore riding are basically fundamentally different.
If you want Mt Fomme riding, save up and go there.
There's great riding in the Alps, and loads of off piste, but it's nothing like north van. Not to say one is better (I think Canada is, others may differ), but the style of trail is very different
Different ecosystems aren't they? French Alps is Alpine, North Van is temperate rainforest. Gives it the whole dank but vibrant, humid and loamy feel.
Also I think it was availability of windfallen Cedar which sparked all the woodwork and skinnies etc. Is why UK trailcentre woodwork built out of weatherproofed Pine just doesn't look or feel the same
Vancouver - mid latitude coast.... alps, middle of a continent. Geography and geology make a big difference here
You're all echoing what I thought anyway so that's brilliant. Thanks very much. I'm not interested in going to the Alps. I'll go to Canada myself if I have to 😝
Don't miss Squamish and Whistler Valley Trails if you're going that far anyway - equally as good as the shore
There are a few bits squirrelled away in Chatel that are like Froome but IME having ridden both they’re basically different places. Alps are more about the downhill/park than techy slow speed.
Whistler’s pretty similar to a lot of the alpine trails, though.
There are lots of natural technichal trails in the Alps, but rarely in dense woodland like that. It's the dense concentration of big trees and the floor littered with fallen trunks that has encouraged the building of boardwalk in Vancouver and BC. I don't know of any boardwalk like that in the Alps, or even wider Europe.
I don't think there is even much outside North Van that's like 7th Secret! Peter Morin built it donkeys years ago, and over the years has seen so much rock armouring, to the point that it's one of the top ten trails in the world in Trailforks but can be ridden in pretty well any condition. Not to everyone's taste (as soon as you leave Vancouver it's 'sick loamers braaaah') but the builder who's now in his 70's IIRC and still out there digging is a local legend.
Further down the mountain, I'd argue that you can ride similar trails to the current version of Expresso and the Lower Digger rebuild in many other places, other than some of the wood features. They are very much new school 'flow' rather than 'North Shore'.