French Alps MTB guiding row in the Telegraph

From what I’ve read, it can take up to 5 years to get an IML qualification.

http://www.mountain-training.org/walking/skills-and-awards/international-mountain-leader
5 years? From whats here anyone who is currently guiding bikes in the alps should have the experience, loggable days, skills for most of the course and the right aptitude. Get it done in 12 months easy.

As are Bike Village

You sure? Last I heard Sam was getting his tickets.

Quite a lot about Sam here; http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/guiding-in-france-war-in-the-mountains/

How recent it is, I don’t know.
Mike, I was just going from here;
http://www.ridethealps.com/about/become-a-mountain-bike-guide/

You first need to have a Summer ML award then, proceed to the IML which has both winter and summer training and assessment elements to it. It can take a minimum of 5 years to pass all these different criteria, that’s if you have the time to do it as well as the money and experience and skills it requires and needs.

Dunno if it’s bollocks or not. He could just be bigging it up because he’s got it. According to that site, it’s only Jamie and Chez who are allowed to guide from that company.

It can take a minimum of 5 years to pass all these different criteria,

A statement full off opinion rather than facts.

So what qualification do you need and how can you get them?
If you want to cross a high mountain pass in the UK, not normally covered in snow in summer, with a group of walkers you need a Summer Mountain Walking Leadership (ML) award. To guide the same walkers over a pass in the Alps (and world wide) in summer, so long as you are not crossing ice, steep rock or a glacier etc, you need an International Mountain Leaders (IML) Award. If you happen to have mountain bikes with you then you need another piece of paper which qualifies you as a mountain bike leader as well as your ML (UK) or IML (rest of world). It’s a belt and braces approach, but it satisfies the law and makes insurance possible for the activity that you are being paid to lead.

Though from the same article this is a nice summary.

Wrecker, that’s an article from issue 82, it’s 2 years old.

Worth reading this…

http://singletrackworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/war-in-the-mountains-part-two-summit-offers-hope-of-solution/

Fair enough but slightly besides the point; the MBLA is a higher qualification than the french equivalent (as was found by a neutral board), why should the Brit guides require the IML award but the French don’t? make tham both do it, or none at all. It’s an international qual after all.

Wrecker, that’s an article from issue 82, it’s 2 years old.

In my defence, it’s still on the front page now!

@Dave, looks good hopefully it means people will take on the new BC course when offered and solve all the problems (or carry on with the my bit of paper is as good as your bit of paper thing)
Nice to see BC involved in something that isn’t an Olympic sport too.

Sam at Bike Village is doing the training (I was there last month). He has also employed some French guides so that all groups have a fully qualified guide.

Worth reading this…

Looks like someone has seen sense.

So what if TA wins? Will all guides who followed the law get their cash back for this so called “unnecessary” piece of paper? What about the time spent getting it? Will they be paid 350€ a week time they had to study (plus food and lodge of course) or will they get nothing.
Remind everyone TA how much you’ve spent on accrediting your guides. This enables you to be extremely competitive in a cut throat market.
You’ve spent a whole lot of cash on legal eagles and your world could come crashing down. I hope it doesn’t for your sake but maybe, just maybe you should take a reality check

Edit : by accrediting I mean the french qualifications needed

Whats not particularly clear to me is whether being a VTT guide is officially a regulated profession

Well there is no such thing as ‘vtt guide qualification’ in France.
You either hold a coaching qualification that allows you to take a group up to 12 people on trails to coach them. Or you hold a ‘guide de moyenne montagne’ with a specific qualification in MTBing.

Continually well pointed out Juan,

and to be honest, judging by most UK people’s expectations they want to be shown the trails, not necessarily coached, and maybe not even necessarily ‘guided’ in terms of hand holding and someone being responsible.

Which brings us into a minefield of definitions etc and meaning that the UK clients want 1 thing and the French another, meaning different people get trained and qualified to do different things and yet there is no clear distinction or understanding.

I continue to sit on the fence a bit on this subject. I completley undertand the french point of view, and disaggree that it is protectionism, but at the same time feel the UK guys are in a bit of an awkward unfair position.

I apologise for my spelling. I do not hold relevant qualifications….

Remind everyone TA how much you’ve spent on accrediting your guides. This enables you to be extremely competitive in a cut throat market.
You’ve spent a whole lot of cash on legal eagles and your world could come crashing down. I hope it doesn’t for your sake but maybe, just maybe you should take a reality check

Well done Lolo, commendable posting there, at least from the point of view that you got me to bite!

First of all, we are already operating fully within the law as I keep trying to explain! Don’t you think that I’d be locked up by now, if we weren’t? Its hardly as if we are going under the radar…..

You may not realise that French law IS EU law, and vice versa, e.g. a direct copy paste. This is the whole point, when a corrupt and blatantly racist country wants to throw its weight around, its quite easy for it to ignore its own laws, Yes, even its own Judges will do this. I have no doubt we will be found guilty in French court if it gets that far- but when we win in European appeal, my point will be made.

Why don’t I just do the French quals? Because its a waste of time and money, frankly. I have much more useful and constructive things to do with my time, such as create the first ever lift-accessed multi-day Enduro on the planet (the Trans-Savoie). Incidentally, don’t think for one second that it was easier to get full legal authorisation to take over 300Km of prime French walkers paths for a mountain bike event, than it would be to sit a French guiding qualification!

Why wouldn’t I send all of my guides to retrain in France? Because I believe they will learn much more (that is directly relevant to what we do, at least) when I can train them each in-house for a full season (about 16 weeks which happens to be the same length as the French qual).

To further the point, I’d simply be adding to the corrupt French system of “being on the inside” and keeping everyone else out. I would much prefer to compete for customers based on things that are important, like quality of service, in an open market. We don’t feel the need to hide behind rubber stamps and bits of paper in order to protect our market share. We simply offer the best holiday service we can, invest in developing new trails and new ideas, and then let our customers and reputation do the rest.

For those who would argue that this infers some kind of shortcut / cheapskate stance on things, I would suggest you actually try coming on a trailAddiction holiday before you jump to conclusions.

Every single customer fills in a written 10-point feedback questionnaire at the end of the holiday. (A rating of 5 is Excellent, a rating of 1 is Sub-standard.)

Over 13 years we have now collected feedback from nearly 3000 customers. Our average rating for the specific question about “Standard of Guiding” is currently running at an overall average of 4.9 / 5. And incidentally we have an extremely high returning customer rate too.

Not bad for a bunch of unqualified, cheapskate charlatans, wouldn’t you say?

A key point that for some reason was omitted from the original Telegraph article is that the EU regulations very clearly stipulate that in the event France has reason to believe our UK quals are not up to scratch, they MUST provide a competency test in order for us to be able to prove ourselves. (In the case of skiing this is the famed Eurotest). I really wish that the French would offer an MTB equivalent and then we could get this settled once and for all. Unfortunately for us, no such test exists and therefore we literally have no way to prove our “competence” other than this long and drawn out legal battle.

^^^^^
You posted that late at night during what is no doubt a stressful time, but I don’t think language like “when a corrupt and blatantly racist country wants to throw its weight around” is going to win you many more friends. There are quite a few folk on here that live and work in France as foreigners, yes there is racism in France but there is racism everywhere unfortunately and describing it as being endemic throughout France is neither true or helpful.
And whilst I’m being pedantic, the Tribe 10,000 is a lift accessed multi-day enduro event that predates the Trans-Savoie by over a decade, though I get your point that it really isn’t anything like on the same level of organisation. What happened to the last stage from the Nid d’Aigle last year? Managing to successfully negotiate access to the top for a bike race should make sorting out the european guiding qualification equivalences seem easy!

@ grum – ‘Rainbow Warrior’.

Rainbow warrior wasn’t racist or corrupt, it was just plain wrong. Though how do you feel about the British military helping Pol Pot, or Thatchers friendship with Pinochet, or….

Back on point, if the French system for assessing guides was “corrupt” then there would be no standardised test that everyone who wished to guide in France needed to sit, instead guiding permits would be issued based entirely on who you know and who you paid a random bribe, not what you know assessed by a single course at a single set cost.
Even in the UK there is a myriad of schemes you can sit to get a bit of paper to guide in the hills.
I’m not saying the system is perfect, far from it, but it is not corrupt.
High mountain guides have already been through this process and come out the other side with a system that creates very competent guides able to work across most of the world, I’m sure VTT will manage the same. (or at least, I hope it does)

And afterwards, the pressure on New Zealand and the return of the agents.

@slowoldgit
I’m not in any way trying to defend the French government for what they did in Auckland, but I don’t see a) what relevance it has to the debate about equivalence in mountain bike guiding qualifications or b) how it proves that an entire country of 66 million people is both racist and corrupt.

@slowoldgit
GB sinks the Belgrano
USA downs Iran air flight
Russia Downs Korea Air flight
and countless other examples of things a government has done that does not represent the will/intention/traits of it’s entire population

Calling France racist and corrupt is completely unacceptable and Trail Addiction have now in my eyes passed the boundary of decency. It will do you no good. This is a public forum and not just for Brits. I suggest if you feel like that then you and your business should leave the country. I suggest the mods take a view on whether this thread should be closed to avoid it getting further out of hand.

Grum, have you ever visited France let alone lived or worked there ?

By the way, Bernie Ecclestone wants to borrow your Rose tinted specs, after that it might be a good idea to get them back “Sharpish” because he’s likely to hand them over to FIFA, who knows how long they will have them.

This bloke is living through something we are merely commenting on and in good old STW fashion everyone’s right and he’s wrong. It makes me laugh !

I don’t know this bloke from Adam but admire his balls and the way he’s stood up for what he thinks is right. On foreign soil standing on the edge of the unknown !
I wouldn’t think twice about booking a week away with TA and riding with his guides.

And as for dragging his business acumin through the dirt on a Forum, who’s daftest him for paying it or them for doing it?

If I was in my early 20’s I’d be over there myself guiding, the last thing on my mind would be scrimping together a deposit for a mortgage, I’d be getting pissed every night and trying to snake into as many chalet girls as was humanly possible. It’s hardly something that is going to support a wife and kids back home so I dare say a majority of the folk out there are doing it because they want to not because they have to ?

So it’s just me and the bloke from TA who think that the French are corrupt and Racist then ?

discoduck – Member
So it’s just me and the bloke from TA who think that the French are corrupt and Racist then ?

So it’s OK to make sweeping generalisations about an entire nation?

Yep, pretty much !

Sweeping statements are exactly that, it’s a bit like saying ALL murderers are Guilty ! Then realising some of them haven’t been caught ?

Who gets to judge them or make sweeping statements ?

My sweeping statements are based purely on my own experience, others no doubt have theirs. I like to base my thought process on life itself and not what it says in the good book,

If your going to get hung for a sheep might as well get hung for lamb as well.

Trail addiction, a quick google by the french lawyers against you will bring up this thread.
Following your last few comments I bid you good luck in court.
Ps maybe you should talk to your legal team about damage limitation.

Hi Disco duck

I’ve lived in Chamonix (not France socially I’ll accept, but geographically) for over 4 years, and have dotted about France for longer. I work with French people in a French business on the French system. I would like to become a MTB guide, but have been put off by the VTT qualifications and, like TA, consider the UK system to be more relevant for actual guiding (if not for running a guiding business) so am following this with considerable interest.
My wife is a solicitor who specialised in European competition law, so I feel all in all I have a fairly good insight into whether or not France as an entity is corrupt and/ or racist.

Grum, I wished I’d have known last week that your wife was a solicitor, that way I wouldn’t have had to give my last €65 to the Corrupt copper who stopped me for speeding on my way back to Calais.

Of course, him being part of the French Legal System is NOT corrupt he is merely doing his Job, conducting his daily routine and earning a crust ! Who am I to cast aspertians. After all it was my fault I was breaking the speed limit.

As for becoming a trail guide, I wish you luck. I already have the relevant UK quals, I have no desire to live or work in France I did them through work. I do hope that TA’s bravado stance comes off that way you will not have to do the VTT and you and many others will benefit from somene who has the minerals to stand up for what they believe in.

My wife is a surgeon, I tend to stay away from slicing open peoples stomachs though because unlike you I have no insight what so ever into my wife’s chosen specialist proffesion.

As a French guy living in the UK I find the above comments very nasty and uncalled for. Yes I agree with TA that the french guides are trying to protect their interests but that is the same everywhere. Live with it or do something else.

I worked alongside French folk offshore and liked them. I have doubts about their level of self-interest, both corporate and national.

As to the Belgrano: I have some experience. Before the Falklands kicked off, that ship threatened to open fire on the drillship that I was working on. Which was under contract to YPF, the argie national oil co. First and only time I’ve seen four gun turrets pointed in my direction. I have a photo, somewhere. I smile when the name is mentioned.

So based on that slowoldgit do you reckon the whole of Argentina has it in for you?

Grum, I wished I’d have known last week that your wife was a solicitor, that way I wouldn’t have had to give my last €65 to the Corrupt copper who stopped me for speeding on my way back to Calais.

So were you fined for speeding or did you bribe an official?

The level of racism that has appeared down here is both uncalled for and poor form.

Cchris, did you actually think about wht you were tapping away at there ?

If it was the same everywhere how did you manage to slip under the net and end up living and working in the UK ?

Or was it a sweeping statement ?

Yes mike it was entirely my fault that the official asked me for €100 !
But ended up settling for the last of my notes, he refused my shackles though which assisted me in buying a crap cup of coffee at Mcd’s

Or maybe I made the effort to learn the language and took several qualifications.

discoduck it might help if you started your posts with
“I’m not racist but…”

So it is the same everywhere then ? You don’t have to learn the language ? Where does it say that, and I take it the Qualifications that you had from studying in France were not transferable in the Economic Union ?

I’m not Racist BUT I don’t like it when I am exploited in a foreign Country !

There, is that better ? Can I leave the rose tinted goggles on or can I now take them off ?

I am not Racist BUT I feel like I should be able to travel freely inside the Economic Union and set up my stall to conduct a business with qualifications that should be recognised inside the EU without prejudice.

Which is basically what we are discussing here, we also have a freedom of speech and now I’ve become racist ?