Doing the Megavalanche next year with a few mates and looking at accommodation.

Any recommendations? Will need to be somewhere with bike storage and in Alpe D’Huez but aside from that we’re open to suggestions. Oh, apart from……definitely NOT camping! 🙂

TIA Paul

Ignoring what you said 😜

We always camp down in allemont, bit of a hassle on race day: someone has to drive you to adh early

BUT. the minute you finish the race you can hit the beers & spend the rest of the day partying in the sun, while everyone queues for the bus back up the hill.

+1 for Kimbers. Camping le grand calme for the win.  Free bus up to Oz which gives easy access to the quali route or head over to AdH.

Finish each day with the best section of riding, then straight on the beers as you clean/fix your bike up.

My mates want to try AdH for the nightlife, however I’m not sure where all the young single women will be that have a peculiar taste in older men will be that they insist must be up there are 🙂

+1 what Kimbers said.

Hoping to be there again next year.

Night life is loads of wild 20 Something’s out for a full night on the beer, with some 40 somethings in the corner having a laugh till they realise “we’re riding tomorrow, time to get some kip” (of which I’m one).

It’s full of people who are there to ride bikes and have fun, for some that may mean hooking up, for most it’s riding bikes.

Pierre et Vacances L’Ours Blanc we normally stay at, functional but not luxurious.

Cheers! Will look that one up.

Stayed at both places, both have their good sides. Just remember 4 person accomodation in L’ours Blanc and I suspect most other cheaper ski places is more suitable for two. Good crack riding from the very top, into the carpark, into the lift, down the corridor and into the room.

I camped under the main lift my first year. Would never do it again, much warmer in Alamont. Except 2014, we don’t talk about 2014.

We stayed in Pierre et Vacances Les Bergers, which was fine, just a little cramped for 3 (and I think it was supposed to be an apartment for 4? **** that.), with the “bunk bed in a corridor” thing that ski resort blocks seem to love, and a folding bed in the living room.

Very quiet, which suited me as I’m old, but easy walk into the heart of the resort if you want to, and some good food options just over the road. Bikes in the flat no bother and there were no obvious screams when we filled the place with mud.

Only real downside was that it was a bit of a slog up the road to the DMC lift every day, really not what I needed at like 6am on race day. But otherwise I was really happy with it and I’d stay there again.

I didn’t take to Alpe d’Huez as a location though. Didn’t like the town, and the riding’s pretty limited, plus some of the best stuff isn’t that easy to access (the excellent trails in the woods have only a shuttle bus, and other bits are dependent on the pretty slow telecabine from vaujany. It’s a crying shame that there’s no fast way out of Allemond tbh- it cut right into the practice I’d have done, never mind the time I’d have liked to have spent in the other woods trails, it’d totally change the way the resort worked for me.

We split our holiday with Les 2 Alps, which is pretty conveniently close and has a lot more charm and for me a lot more interest in the riding. Which made it only the second worst place I’ve done a foreign riding holiday, with Huez the worst.

If I was to do the whole “drive down/longer stay” thing again, which I definitely would like to if I was to do the race again, there’s no chance I’d spend more of it in that area than I had to (call it 5 days absolute tops for practice, quali and race days with a rest). Not when Pila, La Thuile, and the savoie and beaufortain aren’t much further away and are light years better. Or maybe other people would say Chamonix or Morzine, but the main point is, somewhere else.

Or put it another way, I don’t think Alpe d’Huez would figure in the uk riders’ brain at all if it wasn’t for the race, whereas there’s loads of other locations that succeed on the strength of the riding not a legendary event. Like seriously, does anyone from the UK go there for a riding holiday other than for the Mega?

Don’t get me wrong, they’re certainly not awful, they’re just less good than other places. I would go often if they were in the uk, but there’s only a couple of trails you could convince me to ride to the top of if they were in Scotland.

Cheers for the reply’s!

We rented a chalet in Oz station, short ride to the lift that takes you to DMC & a nice decent back at the end of the day.