8 days riding in the Ardeche - Get your sunshine pics here :) - Singletrack World Magazine September 16, 2015

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This topic has 25 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 8 years ago by Alex.

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8 days riding in the Ardeche – Get your sunshine pics here :)
Alex
Full Member

Summary: An AMAZING place to ride a mountain bike.

Trails are pretty good

Mostly rocky, some rockier that others!

And steep so lots of climbing to get up there

Views aren’t so shabby from the climbs or the descents tho

Some of it is quite exposed tho: (esp on the off road trip under Mount Ventoux!)

For some tho, that wasn’t quite thrilling enough 😉

And obviously just the occasional beer!

We rode six out of eight days, one rest day planned, one day the weather came in with some venom. Amazing electric storms and what rain! Went from 32 degrees in the valley the day before to about 10 degrees in driving rain on the top of a peak the next.

It’s also a lovely part of France (think southern end of the Rhone-Alps). Food and drink superb. Probably the hardest but most enjoyable sustained riding I’ve ever done. We drove down and it’s a lot easier with a couple of vehicles for uplifts etc. No way you (well not me anyway) could do Ventoux having to ride up it first.

I want to go back next year. In fact I’d like to go back tomorrow!

There are a couple of hundred more here: https://goo.gl/photos/uiW3ZvFyip7TgsfVA

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

Oh here and the bikes we took

Muddy on the last day after the storms. The bikes take a hammering especially wheels. My lovely black carbon rims have been customised by granite and limestone in a ‘attacked by angle grinder’ motif 😉

Posted 8 years ago

doctorgnashoidz
Free Member

Looks as lovely as that Cranfield is slack!

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

Slack you say? 🙂

I thought my Aeris was pretty slack but not compared to that Canfield. One lad was riding a C456 Hardtail. And he was properly quick. I was very happy to have 160mm/150mm of travel thanks very much!

Posted 8 years ago

jambalaya
Free Member

Nice. Any maps / route sources you used ?

Posted 8 years ago

fathomer
Full Member

Looks awesome, not even slightly jealous, honest 😀

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

@jamb – I can send you the GPX’s. Others were navigating! Lots of different routes spread over quite a few locations. Local knowledge from people who’ve ridden there lots was the order of the day, so I didn’t take much notice.

Posted 8 years ago

professor_fate
Free Member

Thanks for sharing the pics of the trip, nice to see a more offbeat area getting some exposure.
Would like to check out more SE France next year,looks like i’ll be IGN’ing the Ardeche…
As you did Ventoux did you cover any of the Luberon at all?

Posted 8 years ago

legolam
Free Member

Those pics look amazing! Would you be able to email me the GPX files too? My parents live in the Ardeche (on the edge of the Cevennes) and I have a bike out there, but I’ve had a bit of trouble finding routes around there.

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

We didn’t see many MTBs (loads of road bikes of course esp climbing Ventoux). The routes tho defintely suit them although many are pretty rugged. Definitely going to be a carry/push somewhere on most routes.

Lots of variation as well. And hundreds of trails to check out, either GR or hunting ones.

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

@lego – sure, email in profile.

Posted 8 years ago

John_Key
Free Member

Nice photos and I was there a couple of weeks ago near Vallon Pont D’Arc and there is some good riding around there. Good on you for going and searching it out.

Rode down the south face of Ventoux a couple of years ago and there is some great single track up there, but just take lots of water!!!

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

We were 5km from Vallon. Lots of great local trails but my favourite was the one we did from Les Vans. Even when we shuttled to the top, we still ended up climbing 1000m in 45km. And descending 2000km 🙂

Posted 8 years ago

cchris2lou
Full Member

For more good riding in the Ardeche, contact Yann from Salamandre bikes. He is a frame builder and I am sure he will show you round.

Posted 8 years ago

Poopscoop
Full Member

Incredible pics. Just for a moment I could almost feel the sun on my face and the dust on my teeth.

Wow!

Posted 8 years ago

charliemort
Full Member

that looks great Alex

My French cousin lives in the Ardeche…..

Posted 8 years ago

MarcSussex
Free Member

It certainly is a lovely area.

We stayed there a few weeks ago and did the full Kayak descent down the river. I took my road bike and it was great for that, but also wished I had my MTB as well.

Is that rock jump the one off the road by the tunnel? It’s gonna hurt unless he closes his arms!

I recognise the bridge with the bikes against the railing as well, isn’t it the one with the dam and the ‘chute’ for the kayak’s?

Posted 8 years ago

squealer
Free Member

3rd pic down you look very precarious al!

I’m not at all gutted that I didn’t come 😥

Posted 8 years ago

jamiesilo
Free Member

Smugness alert, i live there/here
just beside Aubenas.
i’ve got an amazing little network of trails just on my doorstep; never get any further away than that! tho i’m now reminded that i should!

anyone’s coming to the area give me a shout and i’ll take you round.

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

Sorry been working.. the rock jump was a bit further up from the bridge where the old mill is. To be fair we’d depth tested the water. Sort of… The bikes at the railing is on the the bridge as you come into Vallon with the kayak chutes.

@squealer – that was one of my more composed pics! Actually I came to a bit of a hard stop after that. Cez has a pic of me ‘full turtle’ after an over the bars incident that I’m sure will get posted soon.

@jamie – will do we’re already ‘booked in’ for the same time next year. Be interesting if there are trails we’ve missed. Must be, there are so many!

Posted 8 years ago

jamiesilo
Free Member

great alex, do that. i’ve got a 15ish km loop from my house, plenty parking room. aside form that i’d love to get a bit further afeild, but when it comes to it i always opt for what i know cos it’s good!

be great if i could tag along for other rides tho. how did you plan your routes? following gps things?

Posted 8 years ago

groundskeeperwilly
Free Member

Looks great! Visited the area a few years ago and had bikes with us for the Alps part of our trip the next week but never did anything there….Missed out on some good stuff by the sounds of it!

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

@james.. the guys who worked down there know the local routes about salvas etc really well. We also did quite a lot of ‘trail scouting’ based on what we’d seen on maps/google earth. One of those ended up being an 11km ‘deep black’ run dropping about 650m. Others were less good 😉

Sept 17th next year is already in the diary.

I’ll not be doing this one again

[url=https://flic.kr/p/yAgLge]Under Ventoux – scary traverse[/url] by Alex Leigh, on Flickr

Ticked it off, not desperate to go back, here’s why: http://pickled-hedgehog.com/?p=3484

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

Updated the photo album here: https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/115456004740368790827/albums/6195037468601920097

if anyone wants to see a few more ‘can I go back there tomorrow’ shots.

Posted 8 years ago

IHN
Full Member

We spent a week there in June in the campervan, just outside Lamastre. Beautiful, beautiful place.

Posted 8 years ago

Alex
Full Member

I’d move there tomorrow if a) there was any chance of a] gainful employment b) I could actually make a real effort to speak proper french and c) I had a spare liver because the wine is so good 🙂

Posted 8 years ago

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