I'm looking for inspiration for our summer / early autumn holiday. Prefer natural trails rather than trail centre / bike park stuff. Have spent time in the Porters du Soleil, Beufortaine, and the Ecrin, the last being our favourite. Any suggestions, preferably within a day or two driving from Calais.
I am doing Innsbruck and then Sellaronda (Dolomites) in June.
I am doing Innsbruck and then Sellaronda (Dolomites) in June.
Sella area is a good call, have walked and done VF in that region 😀
I did Basque MTB's High Pyrenees trip in late September last year, but they run it from September to November. Starts in San Sebastian (fantastic town) - about 10-11 hours from Calais.
If I start telling you about the quality of the riding, there's a danger that I might never stop. Suffice to say that the vast majority is on natural trails with even the "built" trails largely having a very natural feel. The only bike park stuff we rode was at Loudenvielle on the last day.
If you weren't keen on doing a guided trip, most of the riding was around Val d’Aran, Benasque, Bielsa and Loudenville. However, they they take a shit-tonne of the logistics off your hands, as regards uplift, transfers, food and accommodation.
It is a stunning, stunning part of the world.
Prefer natural trails rather than trail centre / bike park stuff.
If flying is an option Madeira is hard to beat, you will need a guide/uplifts but its by far the best place I've ever ridden a mountain bike
Tweed Valley enough riding for a holiday destination and huge variety of riding as well. If you want a rest day Edinburgh is not far away either and even has a surf resort for the odd pipeline ride! ( man made waves )
My fav location would be Molini. Plus the food / coffee / beer is better than France.
https://www.molinimtb.com/trips
Come visit us in Norway!
Otherwise, I can absolutely recommend riding in Slovenia! If I wasn't running a business with MTB holidays up here I would probably live in Slovenia. Really nice trails, pretty cheap, fantastic nature and villages/towns. Give Jon a shout at Ride Slovenia
Pod Smrken in Czech is utterly brilliant. Feels like Laggan did years ago, but bigger.
Natural trails over bike park, late summer early autumn and Ecrins being your preference from previous trips? Molini is a very good shout indeed. I'd add the Queyras to that. Probably the best area in the French alps for flowy ribbons of singletrack through green alpages with pointy rocky things in the distance. They're having a bit of a moment just now, but they're still quieter than any of the areas mentioned so far. And there's a few folk running very very good trips to them if you don't want to deal with logistics!
https://emilyhorridgemtb.com/cathedral-of-flow/
https://www.endlesstrailsmtb.com/queyras-mtb-trail-delights
https://www.bikevillage.co.uk/book-mtb-holiday/
Any excuse to ride in Norway with Will ^^. We had a fantastic week there last year. Trails are very natural, extremely rocky, tech and some flow. Lots of steep chutes/rock rolls like what you see in Squamish. Descents are pretty long, not as long as Alps, but long enough. Weather was great for us in early July. Only issue would be cost of drinks being £12/pint if you fancy one at the cafe/bar.
Was going to add Queyras to the list too, but beaten to it - did an Endless Trails trip in September, with Emily H as second guide and it was excellent. Difficult to name a "best trail" after a week's worth of riding, as they were all excellent in different ways.
Ainsa. Bike paradise.
I am doing Innsbruck and then Sellaronda (Dolomites) in June.
Don't bother with the Dolomites IMHO. We were there during a stage of the Enduro world series in the Val di Fassa. I rode a very poor Fassa Bike park. Most the marked trails ended with a dull trundle down the ski slope. Worth a day visit, but thats all. The official trail map routes were mostly just fire roads. There may be hidden secret stuff of course, but a day at the bike park and a day on the official trail map was enough for us. The place where we stayed (Canazie) was rammed and expensive.
Apart from LaThuile, Pila, Garda and Finale I don't think the Italians 'get' Bike parks. I blame the Roadie heritage.
^^ Livigno is awesome, most of the Italians I spoke with rated it as the best park in Italy. Pain to get to but duty free once there.
Livigno was on the list for last year, but after poor weather in Crans Montana and yet again pulling out of a week at Davos (and waving goodbye to the 50 euro deposit on the campsite for the second year running) due to the weather (4C in the resort) we just looked for the sunshine and headed south.
I'm probably still pissed off with the time we went to sample the 'Alpi Bike Parks'. Bigged up as set of linked venues back around 2010(?). Bardonecchia was OK (when fully open) but the rest were either closed or utter garbage. One was a world class example of how not to build a trail. Fun fact: A D9 Caterpillar can't build a bike trail.
Don't go to Aosta. Its rubbish because its totally overloaded with Brits and the natural trails away from the bike park aren't worth bothering with. Guiding available isn't up to much either*
*all of the above may be inaccurate
Another Basque MTB veteran here who comes from a similar position of preferring natural to bike park. All of their trips are fantastic - my favourite is the Back Country (which is in the lower central Pyrenees. Some overlap with the High trip but it doesn't have the hike-a-bikes to the high mountain passes. They're truly spectacular and an awesome experience, but for me the riding above the tree line is a lot less fun than the stuff below it. The riding on the Basque coast (between San Sebastian and France) is superb as well and they've changed up that trip since we last did it so think we'll be doing that next.
If you want to self guide Ainsa (central pyrenees) is great a a base and there are a huge number of marked routes in the wider Zona Zero area. Most of the better riding is actually worth driving away from Ainsa to ride rather than doing the pretty small number of loops that really work from town itself. (search on here for other posts - theres been a load of discussion).
Trailforks is much more useful outside the UK than it is here (because usually the trails are less 'cheeky' than at home). Depending on how long you're going for you can easily break your drive and take in some riding on the way. I'm planning to stop for couple of days to ride around Mazamet this year - the two little clusters of trails to the east and west are a lot of fun and I've rarely seen another rider when I've been on them. If you're doing 500m+ climbs you only need a handful of good descents to make a day out work. As you follow the line of the Montagne Noir east to the coast there are increasingly dry and rocky trail clusters. (I've relatives on the south side so have been exploring these over the years).
Loads of towns in the French Pyrenees have trails - a lot of which have basic marking (which reduces the frequency with which you need to consult your phone, even if you're going down unmarked stuff it makes the fire road climbs easier to navigate). Some are a lot of fireroad, some are well worth checking out.
The drawback of self guiding/relying on trail forks is you don't have the benefit of local knowledge- what's running well, whats' been maintained or cleared, what's got completely blown out and isn't. Checking both comments and trail reports can help a bit but few seem to get many updates - I got to the top of a trail that had a 2 week old report only to find it had been logged, and the lower sections under deep leaves and very hard to follow.