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Anyone know of Alps holiday package deals in sept/oct where you can get decent bikes for the kids as part of it?
We live in New zealand now so it's not practical to bring our own bikes to the alps, but the kids are really into mtb (10 & 12) and have good bikes. My son races.
Any ideas?
The later you leave it towards October the greater the risk of having crap weather. You may get lucky or you might get snow. At that time of year I’d be looking at Italy rather than France. Finale Ligure is a popular destination and there are a few package companies that operate there. There are uplift services and the trails end on the beach.
Agree with roterstern.
Sep/Oct is a huge time frame, which covers as big a range of conditions as it is possible for a 9 week period to do.
At the beginning you have the days just beyond August when many French resorts start to close even though it may well be still hot and gorgeous.
At the other end you're 6 days away from dates when I've had fabulous skiing in fresh snow in the Alps.
So exactly where in that range you plan to come is very important.
But either way, anything past mid September and I'd be heading to Finale.
PS, did you absolutely mean "package holiday"?
In the UK that kinda means flights, accommodation and transfers rolled into one. Not much use if you're flying from New Zealand.
Off the top of my head Neilson is the main company that does package holiday that "include" mountain biking and they will be mainly beach orientated ( or even closed) at that time of year.
There aren't many options for family activity package holidays in Sep/ Oct precisely because there are no big school holidays in the UK during those dates ( except October half term right at the end)
At the beginning you have the days just beyond August when many French resorts start to close even though it may well be still hot and gorgeous.
My eldest found this out - he planned on staying later, but the Monday after his pals all left he found that lots of resorts were just closing, even if it was lifts being maintained and 'unofficial'.
thanks for all this, still digesting, loads of moving parts but this is great input so thanks.
its narrowing...looking at a range of early-ish to end sept so far.
RE 'package' yeah thats what I meant - we're riding in the UK as well, and even if we did want to go straight to italy or whatever, its more expensive anyway because it would likely be changing in london... so better to just go to london then do returns from there. You guys are more lucky than u realise!
Im still reading and processing whats been written, so thanks again for your help.
Also looking for 1 month-ish decent bike hire in the UK if anyone has ideas, but might post about that seperately.
As others have said I would look further south to Italy or Spain. You probably going to need a trip that does uplift as the big lift networks will be closing
Bike hire?
Not quite the same thing but perhaps worth calling an outfit like cycleexchange.co.uk who have a buy-back guarantee?
Obviously there'll be caveats on condition but worth a try as I can't believe hire isn't going to work out quite expensive anyway and the bikes they have look pretty decent.