Les Arcs – Full Face Helmet?

Tying to figure out what to bring for the weekend. Riding stuff liek La Varda – full face or XC lid? Body armour, or just knees & elbows?

personal choice.

I took both to a week with trail addiction, and never wore my full face… other people on the same rides rode their full faces every day.

partly my decision was biased by the fact that my full face is a cheap and nasty 661 job that is really unpleasant to be stuck inside of.

Dave

edit: I wore knees and elbows every day… and I wore armoured shorts (I always wear these on uplift rides since I broke my pelvis).

I took mine to Spain, on the one hand its hot, on the other hand another guy ended up with a bloody face in a crash I probably repeated four or five times without injury.

I wouldn’t. Normal lid will be fine. Just take some knee and elbow armour.

Enjoy La Varda – its ace! 😀

given the lack of pedalling required, you might as well wear full face & all your armour. That’s what most guides wear as well.

Full face for me. Goggles to the back of the head if it gets a bit hot. Knees and elbows should be fine, particularly if you’re doing a lot of pushing-up. La Varda is in my top 5 runs. Watch out for the mountain dog. Enjoy!

If you own a full-face and aren’t planning on riding well within your capabilities, I’d say wear it. There’s little pedalling required and it’s easily rocky enough to hurt you. The descents are also long, so fatigue may well play a part.

I didnt take a full face, but would next time as its rocky and the descents are long and can catch you out, worth the extra security.

I did TA this summer and despite most of their pictures on the web site depicting half lids, 90% of the riders had big travel bikes full face, flat pedals, leg,and arm armour/pads.
It was a very wet and slippery this year.
Needless to say I rode/minced down all of it kitted out for XC.
As the other posters mention above you will hurt your self if you come off.

I don’t get this, the Alps are not a million miles different to riding here, just longer descents in general – if you ride stuff here that makes you want a full face take a full face there, if you won’t ride the tough stuff take your XC lid. I’ve done both, I prefer the full face but I don’t remember riding any differently the times I took the XC lid. But I have done Les Arcs on bikes from 75mm elastomer sprung hardtails to 6 inch coil oil bikes and while I preferred the big bounce, it was still great fun on the clunker.

I never wear armour though, just too damn uncomfy. Personal choice eh!

CK
In the UK you generally have to ride up rahte rthan lifts, so would get too hot in a FF and the sheer downhill distance covered would suggest that, even before fatigue comes into play, a fast fall is more likely than on an all day UK ride (or several for that matter)

Not really important to me – if you’re going to plod up a hill slow enough to get hot (I do at times) and yours is so badly vented it doesn’t stay cool then take the FF off on the way up. I don’t think quantity of DH is really relevant – I ride 100x more downhill in the UK each year but don’t wear a FF. Do I become less likely to crash in the same distance of DH in the UK than Alps? Sure fatigue on a long run makes some difference to likelyhood of falling but I’m not sure a) the fall would be any worse than in the UK or any more likely per mile travelled.

We took Casco Viper helmets to Les Arcs this year. Very lightweight full face with removable chin guard. Comfy things really and nicer looking and more substantial looking than the Met parachute

We all wore elbow and knee pads and some wore full robo cop armour btw.

Not been to Les Arcs but with a full face you’ll probably have more fun on big descents not worrying about whether you’re gonna fall off and have a hefty dentists bill! May ride a bit better/faster as well as there’ll be more confidence.

Oh and a full face makes you look more radcore rather than some xc mincemonger, and that’s the most important thing.

XC Lid, XC Bike, XC Pads, as I’m pretty sure you’ll be doing a little climbing as the lifts aren’t open. You might need some spare brake pads tho!