Me and a few friends are looking at our first alps biking trip this summer and we're wanting to cheap costs dwn so are looking at self guiding. We are looking at a mixture of downhill runs and alpine singletracks and we've heard the area around Bourg St Maurice, Sainte foy and Les Arcs.
Three questions: is this a good area for what we're looking for? Are there any english guidebooks for this area? If there aren't or you don't think this is a good area for us where would you suggest?
There's some amazing riding in that area, a small amount is in the resort bike maps but the majority is natural footpath/singletrack trails that you need to know to find. If you head out with a IGN (os equivalent) map you'll find some good stuff and waste some time. I'd certainly say a guide in that area is worth it, even if only for a day or 2.
The resorts have marked bike trails and maps online and in the resort, that only covers a fraction of available riding though. The area you're looking at has plenty of riding for you. I'd suggest if you are going to self guide you have a GPS with you as insurance
Had a week camping down in the valley at Bourg-St-Maurice and shuttling up the funicular to access the Paradiski area - not much extra dosh than for the Les Arc area but heaps more scope for exploring. I found the free maps do show a couple of ace runs down to Bourg (Black route 8 will give your forks a right workout...), but found some sweet trails in the trees above Nancy-Nancroix and Vallandry - kept coming across the Trail Addiction group so was in the right area! But i agree that you need a guide as i spent a lot of time getting nowhere at times up skiruns looking for tracks.
So are there no guidebooks available like we have available over here? has anyone used the mountain bike europe book
I used that book as a general guide but found it to be of limited use, to be honest. You could ask TrailAddiction if you lot could use their guiding services but stay down in the valley - you camping?
I'm not aware of any detailed guidebooks on a trail by trail basis. The MTB europe book doesn't contain any details of specific trails but is a general guide on places you could ride, resorts etc. Each place gets about 2 pages so has little detail and just gives a brief flavour. For an Alps road trip it was very useful but as a trail guide useless.
Yeah we're camping in Bourg, whats sainte foy like? Is it possible to get there from bourg without a car?
You might be able to find a gpx route for "La Varda" at Les Arcs. supposed to be very good. There's lots of stuff in the tree line there too.
There's a Chamonix guide book written by a guy at Zero G.
That MTB Europe book is pretty much just a coffee table guide to bike parks really.
Try googling "gpx les arc" etc and see what turns up (a lot of it will be in German...)
Probably on the bus, i'd imagine (Bourg is the travel hub for the area). you could get an Ign map of the area from Stanfords to give you more of a feel for the area. I got the impression that the area is huge and you could easily end up in the wrong valley hence get some local knowledge. I ended up in Champagny-en-Vanoise on a long ride and was lucky to catch the last cablecar back over to La Plagne.
I used the campsite on the Route des Arcs and across the road is an ace supermarket, with free internet stations in the cafe/bakery :D. there's a Decathlon too.
http://vtt.librairie.vtopo.fr/vtt.html
The one for bourg st Maurice (in French though) is:
http://vtt.librairie.vtopo.fr/vtt-savoie-tome-2.html
When are you going? Me and some friends are going on 30th june for a week.
I bought this hiking map handy to have on you if you get stuck. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beaufortain-Albertville-Bourg-St-Maurice-carte-randonn%C3%A9es/dp/2841822133/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331031545&sr=8-1
[b]pinchflat[/b]
So are there no guidebooks available like we have available over here? has anyone used the mountain bike europe book
As far as I'm aware the UK guide books just focus on public rights of way which you could plan yourself from OS maps. What's being suggested here is you do the same, use local maps plus information from tourist office / resorts. With a little time you can find plenty of information on online forums (given your area these will be in French but still readily translatable you just need to figure out the right worlds to search for). I had the Topo book for the Portes du Soliel area but I chucked it out as it wasn't much use frankly.
I had the Topo book for the Portes du Soliel area but I chucked it out as it wasn't much use frankly
we had one last year of the Portes du Soliel area and found a kick arse backcountry route back to our chalet from the top of a lift save a 10min pedal up the road 😉
@scottfitz - as far as I could make out the resort maps showed more than the Topo PdS book
@scottfitz - as far as I could make out the resort maps showed more than the Topo PdS book
We stayed in chatel there is only a map of the bike park there, and loads of single track on the topo map on the hills swiss side of town where we were staying.
Did you stay in morzine?