Hi all.

After a successful and hugely enjoyable/painful five-day tour across the Swiss and Italian Alps last October, a few friends and myself had been planning on doing another trans-Alp this year. One of our group has just found out he’s unlikely to be able to take any time off work until mid-late October, however, meaning that any route in the Alps is likely to be under snow.

I was therefore wondering if anyone on here had any suggestions for other places we might consider? We’re looking to cover around 500km over the five days, with as little on-road riding as possible. We’re also ideally looking for it to be a tour, rather than being based in the same place for a week, and to be within a day or two’s travel from London. (Last year we took the ferry from Dover and drove from Calais to Chur in Switzerland, but we’re open to flying if necessary.)

We were maybe thinking that the Sierra Nevada mountains in southern Spain would be worth looking at, but would these also be under snow in late October / early November? Any other suggestions?

Thanks!

Atlas Mountains, Morocco. Not totally sure on the route as the one I did was nowhere near 500km. It would be much more of an adventure than Europe.

Depends how ‘alpine’ you want, but the south of France between the Queyras park and the Haute Provence region has some great riding and is usually / mainly snow-fee in Mid Oct. Done a few bivi trips in the Verdon in late sept / early oct – cold at night higher up, but still not that high (<2000m) and can be stunningly clear, plus the autumn colours are lovely. Trails can be at least as rugged as the high Alps, sometimes looser and tougher going, but there’s some gems in there as well as plenty of dirt roads. 500km of that in 5 days would be tough though, as well as hard to piece together. MIP if you need more info on the area from a few rides I’ve done, others on here have done similar rides too.
Got some good hints on here for the next trans-alp ride but mainly Austrian/Italian areas so no good mid-Oct.

edit to add, Morroco would be good, or Turkey or Greece – heard good things about all 3.

Odds are that trails in the Alps would be passable with snow at altitude for “interest”.

We were still riding at 2500m+ at the end of November last year, although that’s pretty unusual.

Usually in October, you get some wet weather and some snow, but it doesn’t really start to stick until mid-November.

Atlas Mountains, Morocco. Not totally sure on the route as the one I did was nowhere near 500km. It would be much more of an adventure than Europe.

I remember reading an article on mountain biking in the Atlas Mountains – looked pretty amazing. How was it? Easy to find places to stay, etc?

We were still riding at 2500m+ at the end of November last year, although that’s pretty unusual.

Really? Where about?

We were around Chur/Davos/Livigno in the first week of October last year. Had glorious sunshine for the entire week, then it started snowing literally as soon as we stopped on the final day. Woke up the next morning to a foot of snow.

Just thought it might be safer to head further south, like the south of Spain…

The Alps is really only do-able form mid Jun to mid Sept if you plan on going above about 2300m Staying overnight above about 1700m outside that period could be quite embarssing waking up under snow (whether in a tent or a hut). Hut dates are on hutten.be or on the CAF site.

I’d start planning now for next year and make a better trip then. Loads of routes on the web and some gems here on STW. Ask around and some people will give you a route-on-a-plate but planning and researching a route is part of the skill and pleasure

C

There’s a new MTB route around Sierra Nevada, called Transnevada. It’s a loop, 450km long. It’s mostly off road but not too technical (riding on singletrack is banned in the National Park and parts of the Natural Park).
I have not ridden it myself, but apparently is very well signposted. The area is really nice, and very different from the Alps and Pyrenees.

Official information here, but in Spanish.

The weather in October is usually nice, there shouldn’t much snow, but you’ll be riding above 1500 metres all the time, so be prepared.

We were still riding at 2500m+ at the end of November last year, although that’s pretty unusual.

Really? Where about?

Tarentaise Valley. Memorably, I was up at 2,500m in La Plagne on 30 November. Completely green. Lots of people on ski forums doing the usual speculation on whether or not it was skiable yet, “oh, the snow cannons will have been working hard, and it must have snowed by now”, all that kind of chat. My photos did put a bit of a damper on that particular thread…

I expect to be able to ride fun trails well into November, but what you have to be aware of is that it can snow down to 1,500m or even to valley level on basically any day from mid-September onwards. September weather is usually great and any snow is not likely to last more than 24 hours, but October can be anything from 20°C and sunny to -10°C and snowing! I would expect any pass below 2,000m to remain passable until late October. Higher than that would be completely weather-dependent.

All huts will be closed for the season by the end of September by the latest, so roughing it in winter rooms is the only the option. Had a cracking stay in the refuge Robert Blanc (2750m) in late October a couple of years ago.

When I was in Morocco, it was a mountain biking trip with Freeride Morocco. A van took our gear to each nights accommodation for us. Each village seemed to have somewhere to stay, although these were mostly gites, so you’d need a sleeping bag. Some would be difficult to find, I’m guessing they must be somewhere that lists them all? We passed a few nicer places, I don’t know if you had to book or could just turn up though. A little bit of French would go a long way too. If you want to see some pictures of the trip we did, look up Barry Godin on Deviant Art…he was on the trip taking photos for an exhibition he was doing.