What is your favourite trail in the Alps?

I really like Grobag (or maybe Growbag), but that’s a fairly short trail that’s used as the final descent on some of Bike Village’s rides so I’m not sure it’s the sort of thing you’re looking for! It somehow just manages to include a lot of characteristics I like in a trail.

E7, Les Cretes in Meribel. Fantastic views at top. Only short climb up and a very long flowing descent.

Assuming that’s the one that goes all the way along the ridge then yes defo.  Did it with the family and loved it. The other one that drop right early on is shit in comparison.

L’Infernet at Montgrnevre to Briancon is amazeballs. Not quite good enough to make up for the dross that is Montgrnevre bike park, but nearly.

Col de Granon to Briancon is amazing.  The last pitch below the fort is 1) beyond amazing 2) never to be done since it kicks stones, bikes and bodies straight onto the road

Vernier to Martigny had some lovely bits, but truth be told was a bit too spicy for us farther down. The bit I clipped my handlebar on the cliff took four years off my life.

More relevant to your trip, the GR 5 from col d isersan to Val d isere is a bit pants. And definitely not worth riding an enduro bike all the way up in pads and Fullface .  No sir…

L’Infernet at Montgrnevre to Briancon is amazeballs. Not quite good enough to make up for the dross that is Montgrnevre bike park, but nearly.

Seconded. The trails off the back of Serre Che’ alongside the Torrent des Sachas are pretty amazing and fairly chilled out. I’d also say the trail off the back of Puy At Vincent from pre rouge down the Fournel valley is good too.

Top of Rissoul 1850 to the valley floor along the ridge line is pretty special.

Le Saisses enduro down to Albertville is also a spectacular ride.

The mont jovet riding is awesome. But not worth the climb, for me. I died, twice.

The first time I got up there I was done and ended up coming down the easy way. I’ve seen the same thing happen to a few others since then too. However this year in a different part of the Alps I do have to say that I did miss some of the epic big mountain days that I’ve done in the past.?

@thegeneralist

Is this the Verbier – Martigny route? How spicy is too spicy?

https://explore.osmaps.com/route/22516038/the-ultimate-verbier–martigny-2?lat=51.7761&lon=-1.8943&zoom=7&style=Standard&type=2d

How TF do you narrow that down?

The alps has one of the largest trail networks of any mountain range due to the large population and relative accessibility of its mountains….. It’s got everything.

(Finale Ligure is geographically part of the alps, too).

Why not ride a Transalp? North to south, plenty of routes.

Or have a look on Komoot. (old mate of mine Holger S. has loads of routes).

What bike you taking?

this the Verbier – Martigny route? How spicy is too spicy?

That’s the one

Starts off nice.

Then drops off the back

Then gets steep and really good. I enjoyed the next bit but the family were getting a bit psyched out by the exposure ( I think they were 14 and 16 then)

But onc it gets in the woods it just gets a bit silly. Loads of bits where you realise that there’s cliffs just below you with only a bush or two in between. Then bits with proper drops underneath.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not Vertigo by any means. I’d like to do if again in the unlikely event that I ever go back to verbier, but it wasn’t a good ride with that group

Cheers. We’ll see how brave we’re feeling when we get there.

We’ve got plenty of other stuff to ride in Verbier that we did last year guided, would be nice add a couple of things we haven’t done before too.

Just to clarify, it’s not the difficulty, it’s the fact that there’s loads of bits with fairly big drops just beneath you, sometimes difficult to see and sneak up on you.  Easy riding, but with the chance of dying, isn’t my thing.

sometimes I’m happy with the exposure… other times not. Will see how it goes!

I think the best trails I’ve ridden in the Alps were in or around the Sause D’Oulx area.  They were proper ancient stone tracks That were brilliant.  I think they were either part of the Alpi Bike Park or somewhere near there.  It was about 10 or more years ago and I c an’t remember the names. The area was great and I reckon with e-bikes it would be even better nowadays.

It’s such a good area that I believe Sven and Anka Martin decided to make it their home base. Worth doing some research online as when we went there was very little info.

Tried to do Plaine Morte at Crans Montana today, too much snow on the access track so didn’t get to the top. The gondola wasn’t taking bikes either, apparently due to the snow.

Will have to try again sometime.

It’s such a good area that I believe Sven and Anka Martin decided to make it their home base. 

I thought he was in Molini, Liguria, after having previously been in France…. He talks about it on the Downtime podcast.

I could be wrong, I regularly am.

The descent from the gondola station back down to Aosta, at Pila

Having been a few weeks ago, that is indeed pretty vague :) the worst trails were the bike park stuff – venture a few hundred metres from those though and just, fkn, wow!

The Pila to Aosta freeride (that must be what was meant) is still amazing, but you have to cut down to start it, the top section is closed.

But yeah, the footpaths slightly further out are incredible.

Saw footage of a pro riding 21b(?) the other day and it took me right back.

We did 21b I think it was on the last morning and it was a relentless roller coaster of amazing, rock infested, warp speed riding with a great mix of “this is f**king amazing”  screaming and “oh s**t I’m going to die as this is way to fast me/the bike/the terrain” stuff!

I’d also say the trail off the back of Puy At Vincent from pre rouge down the Fournel valley is good too.

Is that this one from Les Tetes? @mrhoppy

https://www.trailforks.com/trails/bois-de-la-pignee/

One of my favourite routes in that area is pedal/lift from Vallouise to PSV, down into Fournel, climb to Col des Lauzes, down to Fressinieres, then drop down from Pallon to Roche-de-Rame and catch a lift home from the lake with the family.

Heading back next week. Sounds like I should do l’infernet.

After watching the Galibier stage of the TDF I got chatting to a couple of eccentric yanks (one might have been Canadian) with mountain bikes, one lived in La Grave and told me I simply had to ride there. Next morning I rode Avag One followed by Cote Fine and would say they were both the best trails I’ve ever ridden but also the hardest. On the second run my hands were so sore I had to stop every twenty seconds to rest. I was definitely under biked on the brake front with XTR Race levers and 180mm rotors!

The spectacular backdrop of Le Meije helps with the ambience too if course.

Heading back next week. Sounds like I should do l’infernet.

We got the guy with a huge pickup  at the hire shop in Serre Che to uplift us to Montgrnevre. So much better than the shit taxi service with a brand new shit bike rack that swivelled on every corner and looked like it would fall off at any minute.

Full details on the briancon thread if you do a search.

one lived in La Grave and told me I simply had to ride there. Next morning I rode Avag One followed by Cote Fine and would say they were both the best trails I’ve ever ridden but also the hardest.

Could you describe them a bit more please?

Really interested in checking this spot out next year.

@chapaking: The gondola takes you up to the first station at 2416m more than 1000m above the base station, most of the trails start from here. You can go up to the top station at 3211m and there is a trail that picks its way down from there, if there’s not snow up there of course. The hillside that the lower trails goes down is very steep (staircase angle) and the six trails really embrace the angle. There are some nice swoopy sections but skinny rocky handbuilt singletrack is the default setting with really challenging features coming at you with little respite. I thought their builders had managed to get proper flow into the trails even at the crawling speed I was going down them. I did however ride almost all the sections until the last optional pair of drops down to the side valley river crossing (I dubbed them the “Drop of Death” and the “Drop of double Death”…I wonder if I’m the first person to manage to bail out half way down the LH one and manage to down climb it with my bike without wiping out? I just felt I didn’t have enough upper body strength to keep the bike on the line if I went for it fully).

@thegeneralist

We went up to the beginning of the Pierre Avoi hike a bike today to recce it for tomorrow and decide if we thought we could get e-bikes up there. Then seeing as we were there anyway decided just to go for it.

I see what you mean about the exposure, I spent alot of time not looking down to the right :D

Cheers for the info, a great way to spend an afternoon.

Cool. How did the group rate it?  Would you go back, did you push much?

Best of all you get to ride the gondola that looks like it should be in the museum

Awesome ?

Group was just the 2 of us.

Highly recommended on the epic “I got to ride all the way down the mountain to the valley floor” scale.

You’re right about the overall difficulty not being too bad but there were a couple of short features I pushed past, ones that I’d probably have a go at riding if there wasn’t a vertical forest on my right hand side!

The push up to the top wasn’t too bad with the eebs either and we timed the train back to perfection.