All mountain lift assisted riding

Jeez, still the last man standing at night and the first man up the hill? He must be knocking on a bit now. It was 13 years ago when I lived there.

Runs his own Bike School now, don’t know if he always did that. No idea on the nightclub front, I live across the valley!

La Ros or Montchavin/Plagne?

Sainte Foy (moving down to Seez soon though).

Nice. Loved St Foy, great skiing. I imagine we have a few friends in common as still know a few people there. Nothing better than afternoon beers at the Monal. As for Seez, I lived a season there too. I rented a flat from a Scottish Ski instructor who had married a French guy. They both teach in val and still live there. It’s a handy place but very quiet.

Hmmm this is an interesting subject, we regularly drop into the trials in Val Roya (Provence)from the Italain border as well as the trails around the Cote d’azur. We have never been approached by the French authorities…

We are based in Italy so not sure how this would work if they decide to have a chat!!!

As for Italy dont worry, they are a long long way off from doing any qualifications. In Molini where we operate the village gets shed loads of money via our guests (bars, hotels etc..)…ultimately money talks…if I did a catered chalet and took all the money then it might be a different matter… could this be why French authorities are clamping down…sharing the wealth and all that?

They way I understood it was that to guide above 1500m you have to have a specific mountain leadership qualification which involves expensive and largely irrelevant training to mountain biking. It seems that at the moment the type of qualifications a bike guide would get in the uk are not recognised and this is where the just riding round with my mates bit comes in. The problem is going to be if one of your group has a massive stack and needs carting off the mountain and then lets on to his insurance company that he was on a guided mountain bike holiday.

Luffy, was that Elaine?

The one and same! She’s quite the cyclist too these days I see! Annoyingly excellent on both skis and a bike. 🙂 If you see her say hi from me. She’ll know who I am from my forum name.

Try Switzerland with these guys http://www.bikeverbier.com – absolutely superb in every respect.
You’ll not be so bothered about visiting France ever again.

Quick question for Mansell. You say you are trying to get qualified asap. Are you trying to get equivalency of your UK qualifications or sit the new(ish) VTT guiding diploma in France?

Nasher, my understanding is that as long as the ride starts and finishes in Italy, you are fine on the qualifications you are riding on in Italy (though you might want to chat with the French authorities to double check!!) to ride across the border, certainly it’s the technique a lot of Swiss based operations use to guide around Chamonix & Portes du Soleil

Grum p: The main problem is that the french authorities want verified hours of every single bit of mountain biking you have done along with the qualifications. When they train their guides, they put in hundreds of hours over seeing and mentoring them. To take your British Cycling TCL and MBLA quals (even though you should have had your minimum requirement of days before) no body actually accompanies you on these or sometimes even checks. However, if you do not meet the standard you would fail the exams (as you should) and it would be rather evident. At the moment, we are working with british and french authorities to work out some équivalence so that this can all be resolved. Long and Short is trying to do everything we can to get this sorted. Looks like unless you are going to be living in france then it will not be possible though!

I wish you the best in getting it sorted before next summer. Hopefully having the British Cycling also arguing the case will help, BASI succeeded in the end after all!

The current recommended equivalence (I.M.L. and a UK MTB qualification) does seem a ridiculous overkill for 99% of guided riding.

The French diploma system looks like it should produce good guides ( http://www.formation-velo.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=34&Itemid=44 ) but everyone I speak to who has been involved in gaining a French guiding qualification (though not the VTT one) has said that, if you are a none-native French speaker (and this includes Belgians and (eastern)Swiss) then you will struggle.

Will you still be running van uplift next year?

Grum – BASI succeeded by essentially making their qualification process identical to the French one!

I fully agree BTW, IML+MBL is overkill, but until we get a decent MTB qualification in the UK, the French are not going to accept it.

expensive and largely irrelevant training to mountain biking.

Says who? So you think teaching people around trail centres is the same as getting a group along a ridge at several thousand m of altitude?

where the just riding round with my mates bit comes in.

French laws apply, the one with the highest qualification/experience gets responsibility for the accident. And ultimately, the “mate riding” gets discovered. Good luck with that.

if you are a none-native French speaker (and this includes Belgians and (eastern)Swiss) then you will struggle.

you mean, like a non native English speaker will struggle to get a British degree?

How can it be ALL mountain, if you only ride down the way?

I beleive it was Samuel Johnson who said “”Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having ridden up before riding down”

Juan I am only repeating what I have been told by a friend who has managed to guide in the PDS for 15 years and never needed to build a snow cave or do a crevasse rescue. Summer bike guiding surely requires summer mountain skills and generally not higher than 2500m. By the way there is rather more to riding in the uk than trail centers and believe it or not Scotland and even Wales have some mountains.

There isn’t much snow shoeing in your average days MTB guiding, and there isn’t much mountain biking in your average days trekking in the Himalaya. Whilst the I.M.L. qualification is a respected badge to have and shows the holder is very, very competent in the mountains, it isn’t of much relevance to MOST days mtb guiding.

Juan, I apologise. I should have made clear that I was not meaning you should be able to sit the diploma in Franglais. Whilst at university a great number of my fellow students didn’t speak English as a first language. (I’m Scottish, it could be argued I don’t speak it as a first language!) however they got by and allowances were made for how their accent/grammar/use of vocabulary. Friends who have spoken French since childhood, but have the wrong accent, have had some very unpleasant experiences whilst training for both high and middle mountain guide in France. This doesn’t mean it happens to everyone and that it is endemic, but it is the experience they have had.

What people are trying to get is an equivalence of qualification that allows guides to work across borders as with, say, UIAGM in the high mountains where holders, irrespective of the country they gained the qualification in, are respected around the world. This may mean the UK has to up the standard, or that other countries may have to change the emphasis, but it would be good if it can happen.

Grum p – IML has become the recognised path for British bike guides only because there is no robust British Bike Guide qualification.

For the French, there are 2 paths to becoming a bike guide – either become an MCF (Cycling Instructor) and specialise in Mountain Biking or become an Accompagnateur en Moyenne Montagne (Mountain Leader) and add a bike-guiding module.*

Ideally, there would be a British Cycling qualification with a similar amount of training and commitment as the MCF. We would then have a direct equivalance and nobody would have to go snowshoeing. As it is, our MTB Leadership schemes are fragmented and lightweight and we therefore have to go for the approach of gaining equivalance to the French Mountain Leaders instead of the French MTB Instructors.

The MCFs do not have to do very much of the mountain safety stuff that the mountain leaders do, they are pure cycling / mountain-biking specialists.

There is, in fact, a small amount of friction between the Accompagnateurs and the MCFs, with one group saying the other is p*sh at riding bikes and one group saying the other couldn’t navigate their way out of a paper bag. That’s another matter and I have no opinion on this! 😉

*This is actually changing at the moment, as I understand it all wannabe sports instructors will now do a common entrance exam and basic training (e.g. in fitness, anatomy, teaching) before going on to specialise in their chosen sports.

There is, in fact, a small amount of friction between the Accompagnateurs and the MCFs, with one group saying the other is p*sh at riding bikes and one group saying the other couldn’t navigate their way out of a paper bag. That’s another matter and I have no opinion on this!

Good to see there is enough local politics to keep you all busy in the off season 😉

Whilst going further and further from the original theme of the thread, it’s very interesting to hear professionals take on the current situation! Cheers Whiteroom, Rivierabike & Mountain Bike Chalet for the insight.
It would seem to be in the interests of all the alpine countries to agree on a common equivilancy. Foreign tourist pennies are the best pennies you can get and foreign guides and holiday companies attract them better than the locals.

Whilst going further and further from the original theme of the thread, it’s very interesting to hear professionals take on the current situation! Cheers Whiteroom, Rivierabike & Mountain Bike Chalet for the insight.
It would seem to be in the interests of all the alpine countries to agree on a common equivilancy. Foreign tourist pennies are the best pennies you can get and foreign guides and holiday companies attract them better than the locals.

Thanks Grum p It’s been great hearing from all these guys actually having to deal with this “problem”. There’s a huge market (foreign and local)in all outdoor/alpine adventures and the sooner they can standardise the required qualifications the sooner the paying customers can book their activities with confidence and the guides/chalets/instructors can look forward to a season of getting on with their jobs instead of looking over their shoulders waiting for “the man” to come and drag them away. Thanks again

Well it is the first time I hear about the frictions between MCF and GMM. I ride with people who own both and I have yet to tell the difference between them, whether it’s in riding or map riding skills.
The MCF has a compulsory module about orientating. And as far as I know, people coming from the GMM route are usually blokes who rode bikes when most MCF where enjoying self pleasuring over the argos underwear pages. I don’t concur with the irrelevance of having a “moyenne montagne” qualification as I had at some point been caught by “unexpected” snow/rain in the middle of a sunny day and I was glad to be with people who knew what to do. One other point that no one seems to mention is that working condition are quite different between the UK and the rest of the EU.

*This is actually changing at the moment, as I understand it all wannabe sports instructors will now do a common entrance exam and basic training (e.g. in fitness, anatomy, teaching) before going on to specialise in their chosen sports.

Well this is a third way to become a cycling instructor. You get your BE. A common block (fitness, anatomy, teaching, law) and then once you got it validated (or get to your thrid year of posrt science Uni) you can get as many specification as you want (each depending to the relevant governing bodies).

Where do you now stand if it really is a group of mates hiring a chalet together and a couple of them have ridden the area before. Do the ones who have been before become ‘guides’ because they know their way round?

Technically yes, unless another one has some specific qualification.

Who would be in charge if no-one had been before and you all have a copy of the same map?

Who would be in charge if no-one had been before and you all have a copy of the same map?

They go through the alphabet. If your name is andrew, you’re probably screwed. 😀
I’ll be avoiding France I think. Plenty of good alternatives popping up.

As a representative of trailAddiction, apologies that it took so long for one of us to get to this thread. We’ve actually been busy sorting this situation out.

I won’t get involved in any discussion, I’m just here to deliver one clear message, for the record:

trailAddiction WILL be offering trail guiding as part of its package(s) in 2013. Every guide which trailAddiction uses will possess a qualification explicitly recognised and accepted by the relevant French authority.

I know Ash I wasn’t talking about you in any way, as I have met your people and I know they have the appropriate qualification. And I know you have been using fully qualified French BE in the past.

Didn’t realise MIAS was covered in france Ash?

Where do you now stand if it really is a group of mates hiring a chalet together and a couple of them have ridden the area before. Do the ones who have been before become ‘guides’ because they know their way round?

You have nothing to worry about. (for this situation) the law in France only covers people that are being paid. You can even buy them lunch!

Although I am qualified in France via the IML route there are many other ways, the problem with the “equivalence” with the UK is the specific MTB qualifications in the UK are just not at the same level as those in France. There is a similar argument with the skiing, in the end BASI gave in and raised the level of their qualifications to match the French. You could say that for the vast majority of ski teaching the level required is completely irrelevant.