I used to live in Grenoble, spent a few years there studying and moved away only a year ago to start an MTB guiding place in Norway (watch this space), the riding there is indeed awesome and it can usually be pretty warm in September/October. If you want to do it on a budget – Pay for my flight back to Grenoble and i’ll show you all I know for well under £1000! (could probably sort you accommodation too). The riding is indeed awesome! So many good trails accessible from the city which sits at only 200m, you can then access trails up to almost 2000m direct from the city. There are no chairlifts but there are several busses that take you way up the mountains from the city and don’t cost anywhere near as much.

Of course, I wont ‘guide’ you but I could go for a ride and if you choose to follow me, well…

Some examples of the local trails from my old blog:

https://anyexcusetoride.com/2014/08/14/_35-fontanil-cornillon-to-les-bannettes/

https://anyexcusetoride.com/2014/08/21/_36-lans-en-vercors-et-st-nizier/

https://anyexcusetoride.com/2016/11/22/video-dent-de-crolles-descent/

https://anyexcusetoride.com/2015/11/19/dawn-to-dusk-ride-chaine-de-belledonne/

Otherwise if you want to go with a company then I would recommend going to Slovenia! Best riding ever there and it is so cheap, look up ‘Ride Slovenia’ and get in contact with Jon.

I thought about Norway in a Nutshell but the price of it seems daft (disclaimer is i’m, ironically living in Norway, as tight as they get with money), I guess it is convenience for tourists but if you book the separate legs yourself it is probably less than half the price.

Are you talking about the DNT cabins?

Thanks, welcome to come stay if you would like Lorax, could also show you some of the local trails! Same to you Gecko :) This is just over the fjord from me, you can see the house in the background…

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bed0a6LhKhx/

Stevious – Same here!

I recommended my girlfriend’s brother and dad over in Sweden to buy some Hope lights when they were looking for headlamps for XC skiing at Christmas for these reasons!

Hey Gecko,

I’m not saying it is a terrible place, i’m sure there are some great rugged areas of landscape but my Norwegian friends seem to suggest there is ‘not a lot’ between Trondheim and Bødo, as someone else has said the fjords and mountains you see are all between Trondheim and Stavanger. The areas around Tromsø and of course the Lofoten Islands are very cool too!

The Hurtigruten runs from Bergen northwards but i’m sure there are plenty other cruises too that would take you into some of the fjords around Bergen and Alesund. I live not far from Voss on the Hardangerfjord and have several times flown out of Oslo, the train from Voss (or Bergen) to Oslo (right to the airport) passes through some spectacular countryside and I would recommend it! You can get it fairly cheap if you book in advance, as little as £20 ( http://www.nsb.no is train website)

What comes to mind might be to fly to Oslo, train over the Hardangervidda to Bergen, hop on the Hurtigruten to Trondheim, fly home from Trondheim?

I might be able to help you out visiting some areas around Bergen if you like also, we even have a little BnB here if you fancy.

I used to live in Ljubljana for about a year and then worked as an MTB guide for Jon at Ride Slovenia[/url] which is in a tiny village just north east of Kamnik.

I absolutely loved the place and the mountain biking is some of the best i’ve ever done, you’ve probably already guessed i’ve done quite a bit of riding there and would recommend getting in contact with Jon ad Ride Slovenia if you would like a guide, he does single days, a long weekend or a week. We sometimes had guests that stayed with us for the week and rode some days and went touristing others so might be worth asking him about that, although I think that might have been in lower season, worth a try anyway!

Regardless if you get in contact with him or not there are some great spots to visit in the area near Kamnik, Velika Planina has these fantastic old wooden farm huts all over it and great views (quite Lord Of The Ringsy), Logarska Dolina is an incredible lush green valley with a nice waterfall at the head of it and good access to hiking around Grintovec mountain!

In terms of areas to visit as a tourist I would really recommend the So?a valley, driving over the Vrši? pass is awesome and then the colour of the water down the So?a river is incredible and there are cool little gorges here and there, Bovec is a nice town to stop in on the way down. They have just been repairing the ski lifts and reopening the ski station here so it might be in use during the summer now too! Spent some time building this mountain refuge above Bovec two summers ago as well which you could go stay in which is fairly dramatic! There are quite a few of these around the country though. In general as others have said it is not soviet or ‘eastern European’ feeling at all, being bordered by several countries it has quite a lot of influences but the regions I was in felt quite like Austria and Italy and it really feels like everyone takes such good care of their own villages!

Here’s a couple little videos of some of the trails we rode in the Koroška valley…
https://anyexcusetoride.com/2017/06/28/slovenia-koroska-trails/
https://anyexcusetoride.com/2017/06/23/fresh-autumn-slovenian-singletrack/

BUT! Some of the best trails i’ve ridden in my life were around Ajdovs?ina!!! I’m afraid I don’t have any videos from that but my flippin god the trails there are good!!! If I find anything i’ll post up.

Hope that helps!

The comments section of EToro is just ridiculous, still useful for links to news about things though I suppose

I put a chunk of moneys on XRP via EToro about 2.5 weeks ago and am now about x7 up on what I started on. Lucky that I bought it when it was worth only about $0.50!

dammit, well you can find them all here

https://anyexcusetoride.com/category/gr5

Yeah that would be amazing, I think you might still have quite a bit of snow on some of the cols at the end of May mind. If you can hold your excitement and leave it until a bit later in the year it might be better! Although hotter!

Nice one guys!

Andy you’re never too old!

Hope you get it done again Benji!

if nothing else, the amount of resource and energy that goes in to producing meat is much greater than fruit and veg! The amount of meat that we as a race eat these days isn’t sustainable and everyone should be eating less meat.

Oooo the any excuse to ride stuff if by me and thanks Drnosh ;). If you want, there is a full series of articles here[/url] and the ‘Day 9’ should be up tomorrow!

I’m actually just putting together the last post about that trip today! The last day riding down into Nice, it has taken me an age to write it all and even though it feels like a distant memory sometimes I feel like I have to finish it so the ‘set’ of articles is complete. Anyway!

We only did Briançon to Nice part of the GR5, as far as i’m away the other half, Thonon – Briançon passes through many more ski areas so there would be much more opportunities for lift assisting. I would say just man up though ;) you will appreciate everything soooo much more plus the areas where the mountains have’t been totally destroyed by ski resorts are so much more beautiful.

NorthernTom (and others) – out and about it feels as if Patagonia has filtered down to the masses, as well as their technical kit they make a lot of steetwear, or maybe rather it is cool to be seen wearing their stuff on the street, so they have a big market with that audience too now it seems.

I was also talking about frame, component or accessory brands too! Maybe I didn’t word it so well now i’ve read it back again.

Apart from the random hole I can’t really see what you’re complaining about, all looks pretty neat in your photos. Take some shitter photos so we can get angry like you pls.

Flaperon – who is ‘us’? Which airline?

Gobuchul – good shout it flying is out of the question, had not thought of that!

That duck is hilarious

The dog’s we’re specifically looking at are either rescue dog or a border collie (so he can come on rides with us) that is a big older and is an unused worker dog or a ‘non-worker’ as people seem to call them. Collie breeders seem to sometimes have pups around 6-12 month old that they’ve decided are no good for working so need homed at pets.

Also, never creaked for a looooong time and i didn’t apply any grease on installation. New one creaks like an old mother hubbard … and I greased it big time.

Mondraker Foxy XR for me

Ran the Hope 30mm cranks with the Hope press fit bb for just over 2 yrs. Had to change about a month ago and was forced to choose a random one made by Rotor as was in France and in desperate need before a race. One of those; took the old one out, shit its disintegrated, better find one that fits ASAP! haha

just knit him a little jacket to keep him warm

Ashy – It still made me laugh!

If it is original content you want instead of regurgitated crap then I suppose I could post my own website, most stuff recently has been about a bikepacking trip we did which i’ve also posted to here but there will be plenty other stuff to come. I don’t have the highest post rate though shall we say…

http://anyexcusetoride.com/

Hey, nice film! I’ll watch your other ones as well when I get time, they look good! Where in Norway are you from? I’m living near Voss

This might be a bit of a push to say mountain bike related but we were using it recently on our mountain biking road trip in France/Italy whilst trying to figure out where it wouldn’t be raining or too cold! I was wanting some kind of weather radar site like you get on BBC but for the south of France and my girlfriend ( who drives boats and sails) showed me this site. I think it is such a great site with the full page map and all the different things you can check up, even if it is not sooo accurate it is still fascinating to browse and maybe it helps you with weather forecast for you mtb rides…

https://www.windy.com

Bigdaddy, I would definitely recommend it, plenty of big climbs and techy/scary/incredible descents to keep you happy for years afterwards. Hopefully my maps and photos are a good help for any planning!

I would order uberbike ones anyway, much better quality than the superstar ones in my opinion

Thanks Matt!

p.s. trying to tidy up my website so it is a bit easier to navigate and some of the broken things are fixed and most of all so it is a bit faster!

If anyone has any experience with WordPress or websites and can provide advice on why the site might be so slow or even just point me in the direction of some reading I would love to hear it!

Evans by St. Pauls is still going!

Ha you’ve been looking forward for quite some time then Oliver! I’ll definitely be a lot quicker getting Part 9 out, although that is the final part :(. No more stories about the GR5! Although i’ve got plenty to write about from Norway and we are about to van life it down to the south of France and Italy so i’m sure we’ll have same pics from there to share!

Hey, didn’t see the replies to this! maybe it is too late and you’ll never see this again buuuut…

I just had a look on the moveyouralps site and I would say the times are quite correct if you are the faffy type, otherwise you’ll move a bit quicker than that if you’re efficient (just checked some of the stuff around Grenoble where I used to live and had a decent idea of the trail type).

When we did the GR5 we just got the train from Nice to Briançon, then rode back to Nice, dead easy with bikes on the train but I think we had to book and pay for them :(.

Tonto – we were pretty lazy in the morning and often wouldn’t get riding until 11am or so, then we would ride until probably around 6-7pm, maybe a little later. We had a lunch stop and a decent coffee and cake stop each day too so we weren’t exactly in a hurry!

I’m getting around to posting the last days of my trip! Maybe in the next couple of weeks! I’ve moved to Norway now and already building up loads of cool articles and videos to post!

Cheers Chris and Khani!

Khani – how would the water being in the fluid cause them to expand so much when heated? I’ve just had a mate over from Germany staying who has these brakes, using water as the brake fluid! Musn’t heat up that much surely?

Brake Force One[/url]

If you have a look through my website [/url] i’ve posted plenty up about the GR5 if that is any help to you. I’ve still got the last two days to write up actually, but i’ve just been very lazy and not done it yet.. maybe i’ll do it next week! The 2nd last day (part of the area you’re looking) was the best as well!

Thanks for the replies, turns out it was a 22mm so 7/8” of an inch? Got it all sorted now!

I kind of did as you explained, taken it back as far as i could but given that the house is old and there is not a huge amount of plumbing means that taking it back as far as i could was not far. The whole plumbing system for the house is – In pipe from well -> new pump to pressurise system from 1bar – 3bar -> directly to cold tap in kitchen and cold supply in bathroom (splits into three in bathroom for toilet, shower and tap), and directly into hot water tank (big old constantly on type beast, nice and inefficient) -> from hot water tank to kitchen tap and also to hot tap and shower in the bathroom. And that is the whole system, it is only the things around the hot water tank that seem to be weird sizes, or maybe it isn’t that weird and i just didn’t realise that there were pipe sizes in mm instead of inches, all the bathroom stuff and the cold water tap seem to be nice new inch sizes.

The reason we are changing everything is that we have just moved into a new rented property which is supplied via a well (+stream into the well) which apparently dries out sometimes when there is little rain. So as part of the rental agreement the plan is to fix the issue (to the landlords cost :) ), first thing is to change everything to more efficient and water saving appliances in the house and then we are going to move on to expanding the well or looking at rain water harvesting to increase the water storage size. So expect some threads about rain water harvesting in the future!

So far i’ve managed to swap the shower, the kitchen tap and bathroom tap and now we’re gonna tackle changing the toilet today after having never done any plumbing in my life before! Just learning as we go which is kind of fun/sometimes frustrating.

Darrell, where do you live?

Pipmaster Jazz, i’m setting up a place in Norway as we speak… give me a shout next summer you might be able to come stay on my farm and I might be able to show you some trails ;)

I would say that the best riding i’ve done has got to be in the French riviera and alpes maritimes and then also in Slovenia. My riding type is probably best described as hike-a-bike back country type stuff though, I don’t mind not getting a lift and getting the map out to explore myself. There are SO SO many trails in the SE of France, it would take you years to do them all! I lived in Slovenia for a while and there I made friends with a lot of locals who are incredibly nice and friendly and showed me all sorts of fantastic trails and it is such a cheap place, it would be hard to find them yourself over there but then there is Ride Slovenia you could go with!

Norway is epic too but a different kettle of fish i guess…

Yes I live abroad and do this often as I want prices in £, usually works to just go to google.co.uk first, then search and go to the shopping section. If that still redirects you, you can scroll along in the search bar to the ‘google.xxxx’ bit and delete whatever it is showing and write ‘.co.uk’ in place

Fair enough, I think the benefit of Trailguide is they are much more spread out, between the two you have a lot of riding to be had.

I would say if you were open to exploring some other areas than just Hafjell then you can get there and back fairly cheaply and easily in a weekend and have some awesome riding in some epic scenery. I wouldn’t write it off just because you can’t go to Hafjell.

Fly to Bergen, you can ride DH trails accessed by a gondola straight from the city, you’ve got a cool city and epic scenery and you could do a day on the train to voss!