Anybody any experience of biking in this region of the Alps?

Zermatt = superb

Thanks Chunky, nice pic. Is guiding needed or is it pretty self explanatory? I guess there must be local maps and guides showing routes and cable cars etc ??????

I’d use a guide. Part of the reason is that the guides are trying not to pi$$ off the locals, meaning they will take you on routes that welcome bikes – some trails don’t allow bikes. To get the best out of the trails use a guide, Zermatt probably has some of the best lifts in the world (posh resort!). Most lifts are bubbles or big cable cars. You can also get the train up to Gornergrat for a 10,000ft blast back down. I went with these guys http://www.otp.co.uk/mtb/

Try OTB holidays for guiding. We were there for our honeymoon in May 2009…no biking though as there was too much snow still but we found loads of singletrack around the Findeln village area on the Sunnegga side of the resort where we did alot of walking. The Gornergrat area has some superb riding too plus you can use the train as uplift (You can buy a special bike pass for the lifts).The Rothorn and Blauherd area above Sunnega is also good.

It is a very popular resort for walkers so i personally wouldn’t bother going during July or August. We’ll be stopping there for a couple of days to ride the stuff we found in 2009….but not until early September as part of a 3 week Alps road trip.

Chunky: were OTP any good? We’d like to use their services possibly this year.

Yeah OTP were great, we had Stuart and Chris as guides – great guys. You should be able to get a package from them. We had transfers (by train, dead easy from Geneva), Chalet and they organised the lift passes and the guides as part of our deal. Then you can chill in Zermatt in the evenings.

Five of us drove over in Sept 08, rented a chalet & used the Swiss maps to ride trails up & down the Zermatt valley – not difficult to find some superb riding, we found a ‘peakpass’ ticket offered the best value for lift assisted riding but also did some XC between Tasch, Saas Fee & Grachen – I’d love to go back again.
Sponging machine used to live in Zermatt – might be worth giving him a shout.

Thats good…i think i may contact them to see if they might do a guide only option seeing as accomodation will be our van 😀

Thanks for the info and images chaps. Have ridden in Chamonix, Morzine and Les Arcs and this looks as if it might be even better

Here’s a picture of me when I was living in Zermatt:

Happiest time of my life. Tell Foggy from OTP that Big Rich says hello.

Tell Foggy from OTP that Big Rich says hello

He was a great lad to ride with!

He’s quite handy in Winter too.

Sponging-machine:

The lad next to you rubbing his nip (Andy) is one of my oldest friends! Here he is skiing: