It’s that time of year again and I’m dreaming of sun, dusty trails and the annual group holiday in the Alps.
Among the usual suggestions (Cham, Les Arcs,Verbier, and possibly Spain again) someone suggested Tignes. I had a look onlne and so far so good – cheap as self catering chips and plenty of freeride/DH trails.

So I’m asking the collective – any of you been there, if so what’s the verdict? From the maps it looks like there are plenty of fast/jumpy/swoopy trails. Are there any slow/technical/natural(ish) switchbacks too?

Happy either way as we’re definitely on a much tighter budget this year and so far Tignes is ahead by a nose (the resort has an airbag too!!) – just interested in hearing any comments from anyone who has been there before.

So folks – what’s the verdict on the trails and accom in Tignes?

Cheers

Spent a day there, but the only thing that impressed me was the free lifts. I’m sure there’s more to ride somewhere there.

This was a couple of years ago mind.

Hth
Marko

As Marko said…its great for a day or two and you have free lifts. Its a very high resort with little trees so not much good singletrack…but there may be more that we missed, but general concensus by people i know and who have been there is that les arcs (www.trailaddiction.com) just down the road is waaay better….not as cheap….but for a reason

You could stay in tignes and maybe do some day trips to other spots tho..

Thanks Marko & Nasher – Tignes beginning to lose it’s appeal……how easy are the other spots to get to?

les arcs/boursaint mayrice is just down the vallsey les than an hour

Tignes is alright- we spent a pleasant day there on our rest day messing about. Quality of the trails is very variable, but there’s still good stuff. I could spend a couple of days there I reckon.

If it was in the UK, it’d be a big deal, but as it is it’s just up the valley from Les Arcs and St Foy, and just over the hill from La Thuile, all of which leave it for dead. La Thuile especially pretty much blew my mind

La Thuile? Tell me more!

Tignes wasnt bad when we were ther last year, but a lot of the time trails were closed due to high winds. The runs that were open were more dh, but without the complexity-a tad boring. There are some singletrack trails, one going down to les brevieres below the lake, that was up there with the best. Val disere was a little smoother and much longer runs, but not many. La thuile is a lovely resort with a number of excellent single track descents through tight switchbacks in trees and river crossings. Very much more “out there, on your own”. Great scenery! Btw pila a little further down the road in italy knocks the socks of any of them for dh stuff!

Grim was my take on it but only skied there once from Val and on another occasion for a days summer skiing. Trails would have to be pretty damn good to lure me over there on a mtb holiday – there are far better resorts to go to.

Advantage of Tignes is that you can summer ski.

Brunk – Member

La Thuile? Tell me more!

Not far from Tignes, just over the border in Italy. Kinda hard to describe. Sort of downhill for trailbikes. Like innerleithen with dust and rocks and trails that go on forever… Trails felt like they were built with attention and love (unlike Tignes!) Our week with White Room was my best week’s riding so far, and the day at La Thuile was the best day’s riding, put it that way. It had tighty-tight singletrack, big rocks, little rocks, fast bits, nadgery bits, crashy bits… Not much by way of jumps that I saw, but they might be there.

Also maybe it’s just me but the whole package just felt generally nicer and more laid back than the big resorts. I don’t like resort towns much at all, think it’s mostly the ugliness of machine-built pistes, but La Thuile felt more built into the mountain, not smashed into the face of it.

Just checked YouTube for a few vids from LaThuile and they look good.

Northwind – what’s the Whiteroom crowd like? Never stayed with them – how do they compare to TA?

I can’t compare tbh, I’ve only been with Whiteroom and A Quick Release.

I thought they were close to faultless though. Small groups (6 in total, generally split 3 to a guide), excellent local knowledge, and the mix of lifts and bus/landrover uplift meant they could put us exactly where they wanted us (with a third person doing the driving usually). I’ll be going back for sure. The riding suited me perfectly. Great food too from James the chef.

TA and Bikevillage have a great rep too though and I bet I’d have been happy there as well.