waste of time going during the ban? – july and august from what i can make out mtb are banned from a lot/some of the trails.

it is clear which ones are actually open and are they easy to find or will i spend a whole week wondering if i will be shouted at by militant walkers or the police even?

found some very cheap accommodation for late july and was wondering why it was so cheap….

The majority of the restricted stuff is in and around Chamonix itself, so Le Brevent and La Flegere. The trails at either end of the valley remain open. Whether you’d get a week’s riding without repeating rides I’m not sure.

The tourist office do a biking leaflet which will tell you which trails you can ride. Enough to keep you going for a couple of days, but not all week.
The ban only applies in the valley, so you can go down to Servoz or over the hill to St Gervais or over into Switzerland to get away from it.

i’m planning on going with the missus and not riding every day so maybe not all bad – anyone ridden the ‘not banned’ trails? what are they like? if they are just twin track fireroads and the like then we probably won’t bother

I’m planning on bikepacking the Tour du Mont Blanc late July, any parts of that affected?

Yes its worth going we did. Its not as though the mountIn is covered in trail police. FYI we split our 10 days between Chamonix and Verbeir (1hrs drive away). So perhaps echos comment above that maybe less than a full weeks riding.You need to do some reaearch, buy bike book, study train times etc. We rode Les Houches/St Gervais/Brevant/Vallorcine – some sections of trails (paths) where officially subject to the ban we think, no commensts from anyone and we saw very few other bikes. We decided to ride Chamonix during the ban as thats when the Verbier lifts (inc Savoleyre) are fully open

EDIT: OP was there with non riding wife, Les Houches/St Gervais – Hughes Way / Pipeline is superb. Riding and navigating solo – hum not so sure. The Blue bikempark trail at Les Houches was spicey enough after rain on the woodwork. Being a bit sad I just picked up the carte-IGN I have right here 😳 Also its hard to ride say 1/2 day and then meet the wife as getting to/from the trails takes time too and the rides themselves are quite epic

@happy most of the tour is away from Chamonix area itself, Jedi was doing his Tour during the ban last year (he rode past as we where waiting for train after Hughes Way/Pipeline)

The trails are pretty rocky and technical, some are fairly obvious to find, others slightly less so. There’s some good ones off the top of Le Tour down towards Switzerland.

They are natural trails but there’s a bike park at both Le Tour and Les Houches.

OP if you have a non-riding wife consider the Verbier / Chamonix combination, imo its easier to mix half days ride in Verbier. Chamonix has stunning walking/sightseeing for the wife, imo Verbier better mountain restaurants etc, its very quiet in the summer though. Chamonix has many more tourists, climbers etc

my wife is riding but she’s not keen on the mental launch yourself down a sheer cliff type riding which is fine with me – we want a bit of a holiday which happens to have bikes involved not the other way around – sounds like it might be ok then. we will be driving down in the bus, so travelling about a bit is fine – how far is verbier?
we are also planning to go and see a friend who is near borg st maurice for a couple of days hopefully on the way home.

jamie – Verbier is an hour from Chamonix by car (ok for a day trip) – head to Vallorcine and keep going down to Martigny – you can park in Les Chables lift station or up into Verbier itself, we parked at Savoleyre and they seemed relaxed about not paying for parking there. If you are riding Verbier parking at the bottom is good as the routes down (eg Red enduro 7) are some of the best riding (ok for the wife I’d say, red bike park trails are tricky imho). The riding in both places is pretty full on – Hughes Way/Pipeline (minus one section) is about as easy as it gets in Chamonix for proper trails, you could seek out some of the easier bike book rides like xc-ish loop from the town they have and the “hardtail” suitable Les Houches descent.

Not entirely sure what is included in the bans or not but if you are looking for gentle riding with the wife, the Balcon Nord trail is very easy going and really picturesque by the river and railway, heading back from Le Tour towards Chamonix itself. Like i said, that might be in the ban though.

There are from memory some super trails off the top of the L’Aiguillette des Posettes back to Montroc (access from the Let Tour lifts) or going the opposite direction on the northern flank of the Tete de Balme ending up in Vallorcine. You can also then get the train back in to town with your bike.

jambalaya – email sent to addy in profile