Anyone know them?

We’re heading down at the weekend, none of us have been the Les Arcs before and have no idea of the ‘lay of the land’ – we’ve spent the last couple of months trying to work out if we were in 1600, 1800, 1950 or 2000 but it seems we’re none of the above and we’re in Vallandry, seems both lifts are open in summer, but any trails near there or head there at the end of the day? I’m seeing noting but ski runs on the maps I have.

Yup, skied there many times. Its a good place for a biking base which is why Trail Addiction use it. You can ride to/from Arc 1800 fairly level and lift up out of main village plus lobster pot buckets. Its where the big link to/from La Plagne runs from

Have a look at this thread Linky

Get on the IGN mapping sites to have a look, geoportal.gouv.fr amongst others plus the links in that thread

You could ride the Enduro2 trails that we raced down the other week. 13 different trails. They are on the Les Arcs Enduro2 trail addiction FB page.

Good info thanks 8)

Can you post link please

P-Jay – Drop me an email (in my profile) and I’ll send you a link. Some great riding all round there.

https://www.strava.com/activities/621588021

That’s at least part of day 2 of Enduro2

If you get back down to BSM you can get the funicular up to Arc 1600 (i think)

I am going there for a weekend soonish, so have been collecting GPX tracks and putting the public ones (strava segments etc) here. The app is really good when you are standing around trying to work out where a trail starts.

http://www.trailforks.com/region/les-arcs-bikepark/

I had some more stuff but they are from people so I am not putting them up without permission.

I also haven’t got around to doing the few trails on the Peisey side of things – mainly because it doesn’t have chairlifts from the valley floor (afaik) and I am not pedaling up any hills 😛 And BSM is like 30 minutes pedal from there.

If you’re staying at the Peisey Vallandry end, there’s a mass of proper riding there on both the Les Arcs and La Plagne sides. Talk to Sam Morris at Bike Village; his business is based at Landry, a pretty village at the floor of that valley. I’d seriously consider seeing if you can join a guided group with him, for the likes of Frozen Heifer or Magic Carpet..

Been speaking to Stevo at the White Room, we’ve got a guide booked, I think… anyway, couple of my mates moaned about paying for a guide, I showed them the trail map, they changed their mind – it’s a BIG old area isn’t it.

+1 for Bike Village, Sam knows his stuff! Magic Carpet is probably my favorite trail, definitely worth the hike a bike to the top!

never understand why people moan about having guides, they are worth their weight in gold for a good weeks biking in the Alps (or elsewhere), trying to “wing it” is a waste of valuable holiday riding time.

We did a holiday there last year, and only did one day guided, well, it was an uplift with the cool bus guys. Would definitely recommend them. In terms of Vallandry location, firstly, you’ve got probably the best bit of bike park in the area in front of you, well, at least the best trail. After a day of backcountry stuff, we would hang out at the bar at the bottom of the lift, and do some runs down Woodstock, really fun trail.

We found loads of the sides off either the furnicular at Bourg. Also, there is the long trail, sketchy descent I think, which is a good one, long, tight, steep switchbacks.

Aside from that, dig out strava and find your own routes, there are so many around there….

I’d ride axe wound all day everyday.

Woodstock was starting to get blown out when we were there a week ago, although it had had enduro2 down its few days beforehand.

No doubt in my mind a fully guided and catered week is great value. I have more mixed feelings about individual days guiding for £200-250, ok if there is a decent size group.

P-Jay I’m sure you’ll have a great day with Stevo, still haven’t ridden with them yet but have dome 2 ski trips and they and their team are always very hospitable

No doubt in my mind a fully guided and catered week is great value. I have more mixed feelings about individual days guiding for £200-250, ok if there is a decent size group.

They offered us guiding at €180 a day, there’s 9 of us so it’s negligible compared to spending a day following our most confident/worst sense of direction mate. He once confidentially ordered us to cross over a fence some MXers had destroyed as it was “clearly” the way on a way-marked trail and the signs were wrong. If we let that happen in Les Arcs lives will be lost – his first 😉

🙂

Post back up what it’s like in your return please. We were booked for the white room on 23rd July but had to cancel it due to my broken ankle. Hoping to get there next year now.

mrhoppy
I’d ride axe wound all day everyday.

My natural fav trail of the week! Love that run 8)

P-J came across this too

Strava: Trans Savoie 2015 Les Arcs / La Plagne

Well I’m back, had a great time on balance, but not without its problems – the following is sort of a review of Les Arcs as a whole and mostly serves to get it off my chest.

Firstly, the weather, one of the selling points of Les Arcs is the weather is less changeable and generally terrible as PDS, but my luck being what it is… it was glorious in the weeks before I arrived, and glorious the day I left – in between, well, I got caught in a snow storm in July… and it was a bog further down the mountain most of the time.

Vallandry – it’s a pretty little place that moves at a snail’s pace, 1 small supermarket, like a posh Spar (it’s got a deli counter) but it’s ruinly expensive and not really big enough to make Vallandry a self-catering option unless you fancy driving down to Bourg for shopping, which we did. A couple of restaurants and cafes that sell beer and stuff, but not really any ‘bars’ Mojo was sold as being the ‘place to be’ for a night out, but despite opening for the Euros technically before the season started, it stayed resolutely closed the whole time we were there. No major drama, but if you want a ‘night out’ on your riding Hols, there’s wasn’t much to do. There’s not really any Bike Shops in Val, just a corner of the local InterSport subbed out to a one-man-band rental place – the rest of the shop is mothballed ski and snow boarding stuff. Really if you need anything you need to go to Bourg which is a 30 min drive or an hour ride on the way-marked trails if you’re efficient with the lifts. Bourg itself is a fairly run of the mill French town, the not an obviously touristy place like Morzine or Les Gets and quite industrial.

The important bit, the riding.

Before we left the ‘word on the street’ was the you really need a guide to get the best out of Les Arcs, we found one, a great bloke he was too, even when I text him drunk asking if he knew where we could buy weed (yeah sorry about that) – the way-marked stuff is easy to follow and fun to ride and you can cover a lot of ground fairly quickly using the lifts – it’s not a big as area of say PDS and if anything lacks the steepness of Morzine, but it’s all pretty good – not as busy, but don’t been fooled by anyone who says you don’t get braking bumps in Les Arcs, Woodstock which seems to be the most ‘motorway’ of trails there looked like it had come under sustained mortar fire on a dry day after 3 wet ones, but not as bad as say the Plenny mid-season.
So there’s little point a guide showing you that, so he took us on all the backcountry stuff, which really isn’t my thing, very technical, very steep, very slippery and a lot of the time, the penalty for a mistake is very severe – there are sections when falling the wrong way meant instadeath, you’ll fall so far you’d have time to phone your loved ones before you hit the bottom. I have to admit, I pretty much hated it, well actually, when we started I hated it, then I started to enjoy it, then after about 15 crashes between 8 of my mates I saved a what would have been a horrible, face-full-of-rocks OTB by hitting a tree instead and lost my bottle and really hated it so didn’t bother joining in with the other guiding days.

Personally I was looking for something like PDS, but different (been going there since ’07) ideally with more reliable weather (so much for that) and less braking bumps (which is true for the most part) and I was able to have all that I wanted on the way-marked stuff, the trails are mostly lovely, not as manicured as a UK trail centre, lots of rock and roots, but very fun and very long, some of my mates were looking for something a bit more challenging and enjoyed the guiding time, despite the cracked helmets, steristrips and bruises.

I’ll probably go again next year, not sure if I’d change my plans much, stock up in Bourg on the way through perhaps, I wouldn’t have another guide, the back country stuff is not for me, but I’m sure most of my group would. I’d pack a baselayer as it’s bloody cold up top and be happy pottering around the way-marked trails – I really want a proper couple of goes at Yellowstone – I only got one run due to the snow/fog and a lot of it is blind so it was a sighting run really.

Sounds like you had “Fun” at least some of the time!

Next year, get a week booked with The White Room!

With two uplift trailers they are not fixed to the lifts,and so can deliver EXACTLY the sort of riding YOU want, every day! With trips out to La Thuile, Pila, up to Tignes all on the cards there’s no need to ride trails you don’t like!

And yes,there is a lot of steep, tight, techy natural stuff on the side of the mountain, and whilst there is some exposure, a lot of it is actually reasonably safe because it’s generally pretty slow. Sure, you can/will come off on a tight hairpin, but usually just roll off down the hill at bit doing a “scooby do” trying to get back to the trail!!

If you want more bike park stuff, then the higher slopes at La Thuile (from the second lift down), at Tignes, and actually the runs down off ARC2000 are pretty fun and flowy. Best day out would be at Pila, with amazing, smooth and fast bike park up top, and a stunning 11km run back down into Aosta at the bottom!

P-Jay – Im glad you almost enjoyed it in the end!! One of our group hated La Varda for the same reasons you state above.

I guess because the Alps is a big step up in technicality from most uk riding, the weather makes even harder if you are unlucky. Ive had 3 long weekends in the Alps, and not had a rainy day yet!!

One thing I found in Les Arcs was the red/black official trails weren’t really much harder than the blues, as long as you were willing to avoid the odd gap/drop of doom. They also didn’t cut up as badly. My favourite 2 marked trails were the red & black enduro trails.

We must have left just as you arrived, and the bars/restaurants in Vallandry were open every night, and we watched the Euro16 final in Mojo!!

ps -short sleeved T shirt all week, even over the back of transarc going off-piste! I had a jacket in my pack, but my biggest issue was sunburn!!!

Just got back from les arc. Stayed in a mates chalet. Drove down in the bus. Got a mate who lives locally to do some guiding. Ate in nice restaurants. Got sunburn. Cannot wait to go again!

Im also sure there “MUST” be some less lethal back-country riding out there?

Hi Paul, glad you mostly-sort-of enjoyed it. Conditions were super-tough (snow in July is very-much not normal…) which meant the trails were riding a lot “harder” than usual. For that reason (and you might be surprised by this!) what we rode was actually some of the more mellow “off piste” stuff. We also really didn’t ride anything I’d consider even slightly exposed.

It’s all a different ball-game when you come out to the Alps as either the hill-side or the trails (or both) are going to be much steeper than what you’re used to and it’s easy, especially in difficult riding conditions, to get a bit overwhelmed by it all. I’m pretty sure you’d have been smashing those trails in more normal conditions!

FYI, they’ve actually completely re-dug the bottom half of Woodstock in the last week or so to get rid of a lot of the bumpy/rooty/blow-out corners which were starting to appear down there.

P-Jay – Im glad you almost enjoyed it in the end!! One of our group hated La Varda for the same reasons you state above.

Looking back my post looks very negative, but I actually had a very good time, bar the second half of our guiding day which really knocked my confidence, but I got over it. A poster above wanted a report when I got back and I always try to be balanced.

dantsw13 – Member

Im also sure there “MUST” be some less lethal back-country riding out there?

Probably, 50% of the **** ME! Parts would have been fun in the dry, but it was ark building weather that day, perhaps the other stuff would have been challenging and not terrifying (to me) if it was dry and we hadn’t crashed so much early on. I’m not trying to make excuses, but I usually a very cauious rider and only tend to really let fly when I know a trail, I don’t think we rode the same thing twice.

Another part of the ‘problem’ is that this backcountry stuff is ‘natural’ so there’s fun bits in it where you can let off the brakes, and get some speed up, but you have to cross very technical bits to get to it.

Oh and full disclosure, I’ve got 2 damaged arms, nerve damage and joint pain, so long periods of on the brakes slow riding is quite painful for me.

I spent a week at BV a few years back (actually quite a few years back !) – as a xc mincer on spd’s I managed to ride most stuff , the range of trails was fantastic – as said before magic carpet was supreme. So there’s riding in there, just unlucky I guess.

stevomcd – Member

Hi Paul, glad you mostly-sort-of enjoyed it. Conditions were super-tough (snow in July is very-much not normal…) which meant the trails were riding a lot “harder” than usual. For that reason (and you might be surprised by this!) what we rode was actually some of the more mellow “off piste” stuff. We also really didn’t ride anything I’d consider even slightly exposed.

It’s all a different ball-game when you come out to the Alps as either the hill-side or the trails (or both) are going to be much steeper than what you’re used to and it’s easy, especially in difficult riding conditions, to get a bit overwhelmed by it all. I’m pretty sure you’d have been smashing those trails in more normal conditions!

FYI, they’ve actually completely re-dug the bottom half of Woodstock in the last week or so to get rid of a lot of the bumpy/rooty/blow-out corners which were starting to appear down there.

Hi Stevo, I did enjoy it for the most part, the guy who came with you Thursday really loved the other side of the valley – I hope I didn’t sound like I was being negative about the guiding, I didn’t mean to be! You’re very good company!

Good point on the Woodstock resurface, it’s more than fair to say that the trail maintence guys in Les Arcs are very busy, as you say they re-cut a lot of berms, reshaped the jumps and at one point had a JCB-thing in cleaning up the top, that’s most maintenance in one day than I’ve seen in 10 years on/off of visiting the Alps.

Has anyone else made the mistake of doing the blue enduro route in Les Arcs (Route 66)?

10km of really nice fun singletrack followed by 20km of fireroad and tarmac down to BSM. Big step up to the red Enduro route which is rough, steep and fun.

We did all 3 enduro trails, and enjoyed them all differently. R66 certainly isn’t 33km of singletrack, but the bottom section was still a fun day out in the hills in the sunshine.

The Black Enduro trail was easier than the red IMHO.

Some useful posts above, as always thanks to Stevo

P-Jay I suffer from vertigo which means many Alps trails are real heart stoppers for me. This is especially true in what I would say are real steep big mountain terrain like around Les Arcs. The trails where created for walking up and down often as routes for goods. As such very much not for bikes. This is another reason wjy the guided holdiays are so good as they have scoped trails and can adjust accordingly – when you DIY you are riding blind. On my last guided trip the guide knew what I could not handle and either I would go a different way (it was very hard for me to talk him into this but I wished to be treated as an adult) or I would skip certain trails all togther.

For the resotrts I have got to know well like Les Gets/Morzine and Verbier I know what I can ride an of course the bike park style trails generally don’t have fatal exposure. Even there I have sections I walk as a fall is likely to have a very high penalty tarif.

10km of really nice fun singletrack followed by 20km of fireroad and tarmac down to BSM.

It’s pretty fun down to Arc 1950. You can follow it to avoid driving all the way into Bourg if you’re coming in for a day’s riding from the Tignes side too.

And… check out the IGN map, other good options to reach the valley floor on that side are available 🙂

I was there last week as well, weather was certainly a mixed bag, first two days above 30 left me struggling for breath at the end of every section, then some rainy and cold (snow) days destroyed the grip and made almost everything lethal, final day was just right though 😕

I was glad of the guides we had, on the first wet day picked some routes that were largely not too rooty the middle wet day was a rest day anyway but I got some bike park runs in, and on the thurs after crashing onto a rib I already suspected was cracked, I decided to have a few bikepark runs by myself.

What can really be said about the weather? It didn’t ruin my week, but it would have been better at a nice constant 25. But its the mountains, shitty weather happens.

I think if you want a bike park type place as an alternative to Morzine then deux alpes is the best of the rest I have tried, but nowhere offers anywhere near the scale of the PdS region.

I’m fairly crap but I like the bourg area (apart from la Thuile). What you have to get your head round is that you can be doing 5km+ descending/day and the ‘best’ bits feature some techy sections. If you have to walk them there’s always more of the same later and you’ll get to some more good stuff in a minute. It’s not like the UK where you’ve bust your hump to earn the descent (which is probably fairly short) and you feel you have to ride stuff.

If you learn how to do this let me know as I still get frustrated with myself at times.

It’s also worth treating it as a whole not individual ‘resorts’.

Very, very unlucky weather wise. I think Thursday in particular was hilariously cold. Last week was exceptional and was the worst I’d seen in ten summer weeks over the years. Just a blip though and this week is scorchio!

There is no doubt the Alps are challenging and there are bits that are almost even unwalkable with a bike sometimes especially in 510’s ! More than once for me its been a slide and realisation it was probably easier to ride it !

That’s true for me too! 😆

I guess it comes down to what you want to ride. For me, Les Arcs provides some of the best ‘natural’ riding I’ve experienced. I’m not really interested in smooth bike park riding, but then having broken my arm and smashed myself up pretty badly at speed, I prefer slower (although not slow) trails. To make them interesting for me, they need to be technical and the tarentaise provides that in spades. Still plenty of options for flow but not tables and gaps on groomed trails.
I’ve been out in Les Arcs for the last 1.5 weeks. The weather last week made everything a real challenge (not least needing 6 layers and winter gloves); I can understand how wet off-camber roots on ‘consequency’ trails can make it unenjoyable and I did my fair share of walking last week. As said above its a bit of a blip, but that’s mountain weather. If you like natural riding and all that that encompasses, Les Arcs should certainly be on your bucket list. If you prefer groomed bike park, it’s probably worth giving it a miss.

Went to Bourg last summer, it rained for 2 days, so we bailed for the much warmer and drier Digne les Bains. Great riding

John fell free to start a thread and share more 8)

No uplift though ?