France – early September – where to go?

Hi all, be gentle, first post here from long time lurker.

I’m off to the south of France in my camper van for a couple of weeks from late August, and hoping to spend at least a week somewhere with really nice off-road trails. I’m not a DHer, long winding ‘red’ single track is more my thing (and I don’t mind bivvying overnight for the really long ones). I was hoping to try out the best known high altitude places like Morzine or Les Deux Alps, but it seems from the various websites that they more or less shut up at the end of August as the weather gets too bad (or is this just for the higher altitude DH trails?). Ideally, I’d like a place where maybe I could hire a guide for the first day to get some advice about the best trails for my mediocre riding skills, and then just explore myself. And if the area had a few really nice and not too touristy towns and villages to explore, all the better.

Any advice and suggestions welcome….

You should look at Sospel near the south coast. bBeautiful countryside, amazing riding apparently and you have some nice towns nearby such as Antibes/juan les pins/nice. Transprovence do guided tours of the area too..

We are heading over to Corsica for those weeks. Lots of great riding there and beaches you can actually reach and find seclusion

Personally, l do’nt consider Morzine to be in the south of France. Most lifts shut down in september but if your there pendant the first week of the month you should find most of them open.

Vosges, are a good bet – slightly lower than high alpine stuff and more accessible from uk. Some bike parky bits still open (lac blanc, Le bresse,) or at a push metabief. Plenty of signed routes and easily findable trails – stayed at xonrupt-longmer a couple of years ago and had a hoot on a 160mm pitch, riding up and down. Plenty of aires and municipal sites, plus toll free driving if you head through luxembourg – I’d love to go back.

Years ago had a week in mid September mtb-ing in the Pyrenees with Steve and Brenda at Pyractif. It was ace. Maybe one day of rain, and the rest was good weather.

September is probable the best mouth to ride the Pyrénées, if your not a pure DHer.

There is a few pointers for the Pyrenees here

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/holiday-house-rental-in-the-french-pyrenees

@gyatsola, the lifts are open in Chamonix later, check the schedule as they do close down over September. You might like to have a google of Metabief too. These places you could use as a stopover on the way down to the South (the Alps are only half way-ish to the Cote d’Azur). As for the South have a look at Isola 2000, from what I’ve seen online the marked biking trails looked a bit so/so but could be good to have a look at walking paths etc.

Also consider buses, I did a guided holiday where we used buses as the uplift form the valley floor to the resort. In many places the riding down from the resort to valley is better than the rising from the chairlifts down to resort level. This tends to open up other places.

Good luck and welcome to the STW forums.

@gyatsola – lifts shut at end of August as that the end of the school holidays / peak season. There wouldn’t be sufficient customers to justify keeping the chair lifts open at most resorts. It’s not weather related.

Thanks everyone for all for the feedback, Sospel looks like exactly what I’m looking for, I’ll do a search through some of those other suggestions too, especially around the Pyrenees, it all looks great, I can’t wait!

Vosges might be a good bet.

I got home today and Les Deuxs Alpes has cut the number of trails and although the new ‘Super Venosc Enduro’ trail is good – a few pitched stone slab sections – the whole place is brake bumped and rutted. As the Venosc red is softer and shaley, it doesn’t suffer the same erosion. It’s a shame as it used to have long trails eg La Fee area with great trails.

We were at La Bresse – Hohneck yesterday morning. Much better trails, tighter and full on technical, not many blues n greens for me, but good. The Enduro we did E1, had 200m of singletrack in 6.5 km !

vtopo guides are really good and we have no done a banana/lemon route in any of the guides. For Alpes Maritimes and Provence.
http://Www.vtopo.fr

The Pyrenees or the Cevennes would be my first choices at any time of the year. great XC trails all over ’em! 😀

There are FFC makes Vtt trails around the sospel area also try l’escarene/Berre-les-alpes and Luceram and get a vtt IGN map of the area from a bike shop, the gr51/gr52 have good sections but worth buying the map as it will save a lot of time finding what is rideable.

http://www.1001sentiers.fr/en/spots.html the maps are on here also a bit of info

OP, anything Above Avignon is the north?
Plenty to do. Basically anywhere in the 06 or the 83 (departement numbers) will have some good trail near by. Careful though, biking is “forbidden” in national parcs, and plenty of locals départementals parc have restrictions, however is you know some locals you might get away with some of the “forbidden ones but not so”.
IIRC Auron will still be open in september. Roubion sure will be.