The Alps, Summer 2015 – where are you going and why?

My ski season is over. No point in pining over snow forecasts. Time to look ahead now to the summer. Trouble is it’s all I can think about.

Last year I had a great week with White Room, hopefully to be repeated this summer. The plan is to stay on in Les Arcs for a second week on our own (that was the plan last year, but it was sadly scuppered by a broken spouse – hopefully he’ll fair better this year!).

I love Les Arcs. This will be our fourth year and I’m still not bored of it. This is helped by the fact that there are lots of other fantastic riding locations nearby, but I’m so looking forward to hearing those dulcet northern tones of “nooooo smoooking on t’ funiculerr” 😆

So come on – share your plans, thoughts, questions and tell me all about what you’ll be getting up to!

Interesting thread. Walked in the Alps many times but this will be our first mtb trip and working out where to go etc…

Morzine. Again.
When a group of us talked about doing the Alps a few months ago, 2 of the 5 were adamant they didn’t want to go anywhere else as they’d only done that and loved it. After making enquiries and firming up dates it turns out those 2 numpties aren’t coming anymore! Just 2 of us now but he’s an Alps virgin, plus I haven’t been for 8 years so PDS area will have a familiarity but feel new and brill as it’s been so long, and my mate will love it!

Hoping to go to Les Arcs also. Have done the Les Gets thing and want somewhere a bit less downhill focussed. Seems a good base and we should have a couple of vans; might venture out to Pila perhaps. Also aiming to do some Via Ferrata. Roll on summer 🙂

Maritime Alps to signpost the Mavic®TransProvence 🙂

Two weeks with Bike Verbier. This will be our twelfth year with them. Each year gets better and they always have new epic rides to surprise us with. Then thinking of travelling from there down to Finale and the Med for something new and different

Whiteroom in June 2nd year,can’t wait

Whiteroom in August for the 5th time. Will be awesome as always.

Booking up a long weekend with ride Slovenia this week. Not going until September, so some time to wait 🙁

First time in a few years i’ve not booked anything ;-(

I’m hoping that Stevo & Iona at T-W-R will have some last minute availability (people almost always break themselves before their trip…..)

Come up to Scotland instead maxtorque. Me and Baynton are going up to do some big wild rides.

Heading to destination x (areche) with Trail Addiction again. Went last year and had a fantastic weeks riding on a variety of singletrack. Might head from there to Saalbach in Austria for a normal holiday but hope to sneak in the 5 lift day trip they have.

Nothing booked but probably morzine again. 7th time in 11 years. Loads of great riding. Lots of different terrain. Lots of other stuff to do in a nice town and area. Perfect for our mixed group. Have ridden a few other places but this is the one we come back to.

Whiteroom 8-15TH 8)

Saalbach in Austria for us. Love Austria anyway and the free lifts with the Joker card are a bonus. On previous holidays, I’ve always pedalled the ups so using lifts and doing some proper riding will be great!
Family trip so looking forward to an active break with some hiking etc.

Off to Saalbach Hinterglemm for the 3rd time in August.

It’s the only time I do the ‘uplift’ thing. Will stop in Holland again on the way home for some flat riding on proper cycleways as well.

Bike verbier for us. We were going to go to whiteroom again but the week we wanted was fully booked. Had a great time there and last year with riviera bike in Italy. Heard good things about bike verbier so off we go, hoping it will be similar riding to the other 2 but in a new to us part of the Alps

I’m intrigued about Saalbach. We skied there at Christmas and thought it was a fantastic place but haven’t worked out what the riding is like yet.

I’m off to Bike Village again because they are lovely people, the trails are amazing and the food is brilliant. I’ve been a few times before, but as I bought a new bike last year couldn’t afford a holiday as well. Can’t wait.

Semmering as often as I can

Did PDS last year and it was real good but busy and fairly wet. There was 11of us in 1 minibus, 2 transits and 1 zafira. We stayed at more mountains place in the town on the main drag.

The whole 5 days were better than I expected .morzine being quite a nice place even when busy. We didn’t really ride all the passports as our day to do the official ride was Sunday and it was properly wet and storms where crashing all around.
We just went over to super morzine and did chatel for a whole day.
Even though it was waterlogged, raining hard and torn up pretty bad we had a great time.

We are going back this year, 10 of us and staying with more mountain again but this year we will be there 2 weeks after PDS. Can’t wait

We are thinking a week in Les Gets followed by a week down south. Possibly Val d’allos. Les Gets as we had a first mtb holiday there and loved it. Val d’allos as we just want some nice weather.

White Room 4th -11th July.. our 2nd visit 😀

The White Room 11th-18th July. Second time out there after barely scratching the surface last year. Should be superb again. Don’t make a mess Cardo! 🙂

Will leave some beer in the fridge and the local bar at the end of the road for you andy.

Cheers. Hoping for better weather this year. Pouring down most of the week last year. Had to head over the col to Italy to escape it.

I’m hoping/fingers crossed for the weather I got last Aug/Sep again. Was superb.

Im with Hicksy on this one. Been to Bike Village a few times and going back again this year. Couldnt meet a better group of folk and the food is amazing. Riding is tailored to what you want to do too.

2 weeks in Morzine in July. 4th time for me. I’m sure better riding is available elsewhere but the size of the PDS is hard to beat and it ticks all the boxes for us.

Morzine.
cos one in our group hasn’t been.
be more XC than DH (2 of us on hardtails, maybe 3).

I’m going to have to try to fit in something else though, at least for a long weekend, but that’ll be at the Austrian end, and very much “big day out”, rather than sick to the power of rad jumping and stuff.

No Alps trips for me since parenthood in 2013. Prior to that there were one or two a year.

🙁

Favourite places are Cham (although it’s busier and more restricted there now) and the Italian Alps. Didn’t really get on with Morzine bikepark stuff, but would like the opportunity to explore more of the backcountry stuff.

Driven through the Slovenian Alps, ironically after riding in the Austrian Alps – it’s the next planned destination in that part of the world, and I’m properly excited by the idea.

First week of August, I cant wait

Chamonix

Morzine for the PDS weekend as a friend has a house nearby.
Middle aged blokes leave their families for a few days to ride bikes and drink beer shocker.

Nothing booked yet, took some work with the Wife to get a pass and my mates are being non-committal.

Been to Morzine / PDS almost every summer since 2007, it’s always a good laugh but every year we look forward to finding new stuff in the bike parks or whatever else and I’m thinking a completely different venue would be better.

Any suggestions? We like lifts, gravity trails and little pedalling – we’re after Morzine, but not Morzine. I’ve looked at Verbier and Chamonix but they both some more XC focused.

First week of August, I cant wait

Chamonix

I could be wrong @Lakes_Puma, but I believe a lot of the techier footpath stuff is technically closed then? Still, SS are there and I’ve not been since 2007, so I’d go on their judgement rather than mine. 😉

Just been looking over their website. Pretty sure I’ve ridden Root of all Evil – amazing trail. Oddly enough I didn’t get anywhere near cleaning it. If you can’t ride steep switchbacks now, you will by the end of your holiday.

The ‘world cup style downhill’ is at Vallorcine. I rode it when it was just a footpath in ’03 and then as a DH track in ’07 – it’s good fun: https://www.flickr.com/photos/pimpmasterjazz/sets/72157601538524736/

Reading all that is making me feel rather jealous. 👿 Lucky beggar! 😀

Any suggestions? We like lifts, gravity trails and little pedalling – we’re after Morzine, but not Morzine. I’ve looked at Verbier and Chamonix but they both some more XC focused.

BPW? Or Whistler? 😉

Pimpmaster Jazz – Member

Any suggestions? We like lifts, gravity trails and little pedalling – we’re after Morzine, but not Morzine. I’ve looked at Verbier and Chamonix but they both some more XC focused.

BPW? Or Whistler?

Well… I live in Cardiff so BPW, as great as it is, isn’t really a holiday – have you been speaking to my Wife? 😉

I’d love to go to Whistler again, but last time it managed to cost £3k+ and, well it’s not THAT much better than Morzine.

have you been speaking to my Wife?

😆

we’re after Morzine, but not Morzine.

I know what you mean. We’ve looked many others and been to a few of them and the best alternative we have come up with is…. Morzine. Just be a bit more adventurous out there. Using gpx files, strava and following our nose we’ve found some great ‘new’ trails.

Switzerland for us in September around val d’anniviers. This will be our third time in three years and still finding new stuff. The buzz from researching and self-guiding your own rides is incredible.