Does anyone know what the situation is with guides in les arc (and the rest of France for that matter)? I remember reading on here about the mountain bike chalet getting British cycling involved and no longer offering guided rides.

I notice their website isn’t up anymore as well

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In late October we found out that the French authorities are not going to recognise our British Cycling MBLA qualifications. Needless to say this has come as a blow to us all The Mountain Bike Chalet.

Our guides have all invested a lot of time and money in gaining what we believed was an internationally recognised qualification as well as a large amount of time learning the best trails for appropriate groups around the area.

British Cycling have stepped up to the plate and are looking into legal avenues to ensure that the MBLA qualification is once again recognised.

The penalties for guiding without recognised qualifications are potentially severe, with hefty fines and even court cases being threatened. For this reason we are regretfully having to withdraw the guiding element from our holidays in the short term. We will keep you all posted as the situation develops.

For the time being then our holidays will be offered as a fully catered holidays in our luxury chalet and in addition, this year we will have an “on call” mechanic ready to assist you on mountain or off and as always we will hold a supply of common spares to purchase if you need them to help keep your bikes on the trails.

They’re doing the same with ski guiding.

The last thread had a detailed response from Stevo at White Room, but it could be boiled down to “We have the french qualis, so no fuss, we rule!”. And they do. Though, tbf we didn’t spend much time at Les Arcs because there’s so much great riding elsewhere in the area.

I notice trail addiction haven’t changed any info on their website about guiding

I’d be asking for a money back guarantee if I was paying for guiding this summer 🙂

To be fair this shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. It’s been 4 years since I was living out there and even then people in groups regularly got stopped by the gendarme’s checking on qualifications.

And, like with skiing/snowboarding, the simple way round it is to get the French qualification.