The Alps, Summer 2014 – Where are you going and why?

Can anyone recommend an uplift service around les arcs/bourg st maurice? We are camping in June so don’t need an all-in holiday, but would really like to find a guide/uplift service before we go. Any thoughts?

La Varda is awesome. I shall be there again in August.

La Varda is indeed ace and has a pub at the end of the trail!

Can anyone recommend an uplift service around les arcs/bourg st maurice? We are camping in June so don’t need an all-in holiday, but would really like to find a guide/uplift service before we go. Any thoughts?

I don’t know of any guides in the LA area, but I do know that much of the best riding is not accessible by road, so if you go in June when the lifts are shut, you may be limited. Hopefully somebody will be able to say something to the contrary!

ChrisE – Member
Has anyone ever though of going to the Alps to do any proper riding, ie not just going up lifts for a week? You could even enjoy the mountains and be on your own for a bit, have some adventure.

Uh huh, take it you’ve not been there then. Big steep mountains that take a couple of hours to get up, or hop on a lift or van to gain the height to allow you to use that time to access the good trails and ride. I’ve met 2 other groups in the 2 weeks we were out, it’s hardly overcrowded.

So who’s off to White Room when? I’m off 19th July.

mrhoppy, you’ll find that Chris has spent more time riding big mountains than most people that frequent this forum.

my local trails are the Bavarian Alps. around here there are not many lifts that will take a bike so almost every ride involves upwards of 1700hm of climbing.

i’ll use the lifts if i’m elsewhere/somewhere new in order to see more, but they are an expensive and lazy option, IMO.

can uderstand the buzz of a bike park, but find that the wow-factor of the landscape you are in is diminished when all you have to do to cover 2000m is buy a ticket.

Well his description is at odds with the riding that most of the companies are offering. It’s not just riding bike park, it’s about using uplift to access the riding and avoiding 1000m of winch up the road, it allows you to access more remote places.

If you go to somewhere without lifts then you ride up but why would you not use them if they’re there.

To be fair it does sound like ChrisE has no clue, but perhaps he does and is just hiding it or something. If you’re anti-lift, do you also insist on riding from the UK to France because planes make it too easy?

For me the entire point of an alpine holiday is the uplift network- it’s not about “riding park” because none of the holidays I’ve done have been like that, it’s all about the ride multiplier- you can do far more descending in a day with a lift than without, and you can’t do that in many places or with a fraction of the variety in the UK.

I can ride up a mountain at home, but if you take every uplifted trail in the UK and combine them together you still end up with less riding than at, say, La Thuile which in itself is a small resort.

I did a week in the Pyrenees riding both up and down, I didn’t gain any more “appreciation for the mountains”, but I did achieve less quality riding in a week than I did with White Rooms in a day. And as for it being lazy, uplifts wear me out far more than normal riding does.

Hmmmm. This makes me rather tempted to just break out the credit card and book in with white room again, despite what I said earlier…

i’ll use the lifts if i’m elsewhere/somewhere new in order to see more, but they are an expensive and lazy option, IMO.

Depends on what you want out of your holiday, I guess.

Personally, I go to cram in as much descending as possible (and I’d say less than 5% is “park”) and there’s no way I’d be able to do 45,000 feet of descending in my fortnight if I had to pedal up as well.

What are the weather conditions like early July in Sainte Foy? We are going with The White Room, and I was wondering what others have experienced temperature wise at that time of year. I’m guessing it’ll be t-shirt weather at all times…….

Grupper205 – Member
What are the weather conditions like early July in Sainte Foy? We are going with The White Room, and I was wondering what others have experienced temperature wise at that time of year. I’m guessing it’ll be t-shirt weather at all times…….

T shirts at all times in the Alps? In the Alps I’ve had snow in August, torrential summer rainstorms, 34 degrees plus cloudless days, killer hail stone storms, dense cold fog. Expect every type of weather in the Alps & always carry a waterproof.

^^^^+1

Last year it rained every evening for two weeks, and some trails in both Les Arcs and La Plagne had lots of snow on them.

Grupper205 – we’d expect to ride in short-sleeves and shorts every day in June, then to chill out in garden in the sunshine in the evenings in June (and throughout our whole summer season!). But, as above, anything can happen!

I’ve seen it snow in every month of the year, but generally the weather in the Tarentaise in the summer is excellent – and noticeably better than in the Morzine area, for example (due to the Mont Blanc and Bauges rain-shadows).

Northwind – Member

Hmmmm. This makes me rather tempted to just break out the credit card and book in with white room again, despite what I said earlier…

I will never have any money 😆 White Rooms it is then. I said last year, that I wouldn’t- it’d be either no alps, or a different alps. But I can’t think of a better way to spend a week, so sod it.

Bike village. 3rd time with them.
Everything I want in bike holiday.

Bregenzerwald, Liechtenstein, somewhere in that area (so could be Austria, German or Switzerland too).
Because it’s in that bit of the Alps east of Morzine that most people forgot about.
On a hardtail, using those turny pedally things to ride up the hill, even if it is “doing it all wrong” and “wasting an Alps trip”.

Also Poland and Czech, but that’s not Alps.

Morzine PdS with the husband and kids. Because husband and I have no sense of direction and the kids hate pedalling uphill (must be those Dutch genes).

Anyone else in morzine with kids. 2-9 august?

Simone

Off to trail addiction, fourth time with them. It was awesome

Just managed to sort an unexpected 10 days in Les Arcs in August. DIY but know my way round.

Whiteroom 21st of June can’t wait!

Any more whiteroomers for the 21st. If you ate bubblegum ice cream at about 3pm today chrism110 I may know you!

Not a classic “alps” trip – but something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, which is riding to the alps and then through them – going to be doing it completely self supported, camping, and at quite a leisurely pace. I aim on ending up in Slovenia after about 20 days and 1100 miles of cycling.

Rough route (if any of you have any pointers/tips or places you think are worth a visit – do say!)

From August 9th to 23 we are off to Les Gets again because we love it there so much. Any one else there at that time fancy some non-DH based riding? To date I’ve never wholly done any of the full-on DH runs like the Pleney or the stuff into Les Gets, we just catch the lift up into the hills and wend our way over to Switzerland or wherever. There is loads to do, I’m finding new stuff every year, from the newly built stuff to the more ‘off-piste’ secretive stuff. The Strava HeatMap gives a few clues.

The network is so immense that you can just spend day after day after day riding new stuff.

I’ve spotted a new descent 1000m descent- but it needs a fair few hundred metres of climbing to get to it. Col du Fornet anyone?

I usually go to Les Arcs or Chamonix but fancied a change this year and went to Portugal – quick right up here but in short, it was amazing! Different to the Alps but just as much fun and about half the price at present. Probably a bit hot in July/Aug but worth a look:

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/wheelers-mtb-holidays-lousa-portugal

Bikevillage, third time.

If you want to ride some really rewarding trails (which involve pedaling up to usually) as opposed to lift and bash type of riding the I’d highly recommend them.

White Room at the end of the week – excited is an understatement. Much component upgrading because “they’re needed” 😉

ChrisI
Much component upgrading because “they’re needed”

Our White Room group started this years component “arms race” way back about last November…….. ;-0

maxtorque – Member
ChrisI
Much component upgrading because “they’re needed”
Our White Room group started this years component “arms race” way back about last November…….. ;-0

And may not finish until the day we leave depending on when the CCDB Inlines land.

The season is upon us. 12 sleeps (and a whole world of work stress) to go!