Looking at organising a trip later in the year. Initially was looking at Southern Spain, but the cost of flights once you add bikes almost triples. So looking at France so we can drive down.

Has anyone done a mountain bike trip to an Alpine resort in Mid October? Would the pyrenees be a better option? I guess all the resorts will be very quiet and not really too bothered about that, more worried about finding catered accommodation and what the weather is likely to be like.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

more worried about finding catered accommodation and what the weather is likely to be like.

Most will probably be ghost towns, catered might be hard to find, hotels might be better but lots of placed will just be boarded up, somewhere like Cham which are more real towns might be better though not sure how much up high riding you will get

Its a fantastic time of the year to go to Southern Spain and a rubbish time to be in the Alps. Is the price really that crazy? Pretty standard for the price for sports kit to be expensive but normally the flights are still cheap so over all it isn’t too bad. Or drive to the Alps in the summer. Or do both 🙂

I had a great trip to the Maritime Alps in the Sospel/Moullinet region a couple of years ago. Some great routes, but not resort-style riding so a little more faff and plenty of climbing.

Leogang/Saalbach/Hinterglemm will still be running then, it’s more bike park than Singletrack though.

Few lifts if any run past September in the Alps so you will need to do a lot of climbing. Got caught out a couple of years ago when we turned up for a lift that was supposed to be in its last week but they had closed early due to few customers ( without announcing this of course)

As others have said, Alpine resorts out of high season tend to be bloody depressing ghost towns.

Sospel always looks lovely through the winter.

Go back and look at pics from October at:

https://www.instagram.com/ashingtonio/

Thanks for the recommendations. I’ll have a look.

Drive to southern Spain? Europe is so easy, factor in .cheap hotel of you need to.

I spend a lot of time driving around Europe on adventures. It’s so easy, did the Algarve for Christmas. 18hour drive, but an easy and quiet drive between 2 of us. Soon forgotten…..

I would always Fly to Southern Spain. I’d sod the driving off it’s so boring driving even an hour never mind 26 hours each way.

Jet2.com charge £30 each way for bikes. So  the bike didn’t cause the flight cost to triple. Cost me £240 both ways when I went in Feburary with a Bike and a Suitcase, the Bike only making 25% of the total cost.

I don’t see any advantage of driving at all. I don’t even think it would be cheaper with the amount of fuel that would be required.

Southern Spain is good all year round. There’s a few companies providing mountain bike holiday packages in the area, with accomodation/transfers/uplifts/guiding all included, and endless singletrack descending.

Yep, another vote for southern Spain. Plenty of cheap flights going into Malaga, then you’ve got all of the Sierra Nevada and surround areas to play in (plus guiding companies, if that’s what you want)

I’ve been to Zermatt in early October & the riding was great, the hoards walkers have cleared off & the skiers aren’t there until December.

All the lifts/funiculars are open & have bike racks.

We did find some snow above 8000ft but only in a few areas that got little sun & all rideable.

Temperature was around zero at 0700 but soon gets up to T-shirt & shorts level until after 1700 – this was over 10000ft at 1030

The weather will be your big issue. It can be amazing in October, sunny crisp perfect riding conditions, or it can be snowing to the valley floor. The last few years have been perfect autumns for biking, but that doesn’t meant this year will be.

For lifts, here in Chamonix the Brevent lift is open for the all saint’s holidays. so the last 2 weeks of October and 1st week of November, if you have a car (it’s easiest with a car) then you can combine that with the le Chable-ruinettes lift in Verbier (possibly weekends only by then) and the always open Dorenaz and Saleve lifts to easily get a week of lift accessed riding in.

Accommodation won’t be an issue, loads of airbnb available then. Town will be quiet as that’s when most of Chamonix goes on holiday but it won’t be a ghost town likemost of the alps.

Personally I’d go off to Sospel at that time of year though. Uplift with coolbus, selfguide from transprovence Ash. Sorted! http://ridesospel.com/trails/