Proper budget option would be tigne. Campsite (really nice one 7 km from the resort) less than 10 euros each per night, free lift passes for tigne and Val d’isere. 2 hrs a day on a canyon test bike if you want it.
Getting there, costs as above. Ferry rather than tunnel saves a bit as well.

Anyone know the crack with those trails in Riddlesden. Any good?

Youth Hostels are a good option if you want to do it on the cheap, yet need people around.

My son started wearing a full face (Azonic Fury, small) at 6 and he never had any issue with the weight. He does not wear it all the time though, just for bmx and downhill. I am pretty sure he would hate to have to wear one all the time though, riding any distance in a full face would be horrible.

The urge enduro-matic might be worth a look as a possible compromise.

At his bmx club there are loads of younger kids wearing them no problem.

Small adult should be fine.

Even Mr Absalon drops his post sometimes

Depends on the weather I would say. There is nothing worse than getting drenched then dossing in a van. It also depends on your personality.

I spent a lot of the last 18 months road tripping through France on my own and for the most part had a great time. The only exception being November when the weather was F-in awful and I got marooned for a week in a carpark by flooding 😥 Chill out, bring plenty of books, beer and music, pray for good weather and it should be cool.

If I lived in Newcastle though, I don’t think it would be worth the drive down as far as the FOD.

My son was born with a damaged kidney (smaller than normal and a bit wrinkled) He has never been ill with it (although the potential is there). If is something similar there will be regular blood tests etc to monitor but thats it, usually.

It has not had any negative effect at all on his physical development and he has experienced no pain. I just have to make sure he drinks loads of water.

Pretty sure you can get digital ign maps.

My sons bike has: 34 front. 11-36 on the back
Seems to work, 32 might be better though.

Alternatively, go to deux alpes and ride the easy trails. The blues and some of the greens are pretty fun and not that hard.

You could combine it with some XC in the vercours which is pretty much on the way. Villard de Lans has a bike park (not the best) and a FFC centre with marked XC trails.

Another idea might be the Buesch valley, just north west of Sisteron. Over 1000km of marked trails apparently.

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Good little bike park, epic mountain riding, beautiful scenery, guaranteed good weather.

I want them (and me) to be in the safest possible place, which for me at the time was an XC90

Wrong, you need one of these:

Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 Armoured LHD,
fitted 4.2 litre turbo diesel,
5 speed manual gear box,
Jankel B4 armoured,
Anti-Lock Brakes,
Driver Airbag,
Passenger Airbag,
Side Airbag,
Power Windows,
Rear Window Defroster,
Rear Window Wiper,
Tinted Glass,
A/C:front and rear,
Cruise Control,
Radio / CD with CD Changer,
Power Mirrors,
Sunroof,
7 Seats,
Dual batteries,
Fire suppression system,
external vehicle intercom,
Hi-Lo ratio,
Spare wheel,

POA from MOD sales

or you could go all judge dredd and get one of these:

10 seater and a mere £35K

High driving position, room for seven, 4X4 and will definitely get the neighbours talking 🙂 You could even stick some armchairs in the back and line with velvet for extra luxury.

Some observations:
Fendts and Hymers have a custom rear axle that can often fail around 12 yrs. I met some swiss in Andorra who had this problem and they could not find a replacement anywhere in Europe. There was a month lead time which basically trashed their holiday plans.
Hymers are expensive, I cant imagine you will get much for 10k. My mate really wants a hymer, has a budget of 20K but has to look at 12yr old ones. Also apparently, pre 2000 the engines are not that good.
If you are happy with LH drive, there are better deals to be had on German ebay. I met a guy this summer who had an awesome Merc truck conversion which he picked up for 12K euros in Germany.
VWs may be cool and trendy but they are really expensive for what you get and they would be way too small for a family of 4 (especially if the weather is bad). You would need extra tents for the kids and would lose all the flexibility that you should theoretically get from a camper.

It’s better maintained than the Alps and more sculpted/fun, but surprisingly small in comparison. Bear in mind there are only 2 lifts.

I was coming to that conclusion looking at the trail maps, 400m of vertical for the majority of the runs does not seem much and they don’t look too long either. A 2km downhill with a 20 min wait for the next lift would soon begin to get frustrating. Or am I missing something?

Sunpeaks looked OK from the videos but is it really any better than what you can find in Europe?

So what other decent parks are there in travelling distance of Whistler? What is Kicking Horse like?

We would be happy to travel a bit but in essence it would be a riding holiday and it would need to be lift assisted as he would definitely struggle to get up any hills on his downhill bike.

Maybe I should qualify a bit. He is a good rider, has been riding the euro parks for 3 years, can jump, can ride stuff like the world cup course in Valnord, is pretty quick and will not be mincing down the trails on an Isla bike. He will obviously be slower than the quick guys but he will not be a liability.

If I thought he would be out of his depth I wouldn’t take him. I am really asking if its worth the trip over the Atlantic or is Whistler just a Canadian version of Deux Alpes (which is obviously cheaper and less trouble to get to)

LOL! I guess you haven’t been? Be prepared to have your son’s swearing knowledge greatly increased as all the locals hurl abuse at him for wrecking their lap. A Line and DM may look easy in the videos but they are FAST and unless your son can jump 20ft to fit the trannies then he’ll get eaten alive.

So is it like Morzine with bears?

I’m pretty sure he would be OK on the trails but if there is going to be a lot of dickheads giving him a hard time for slowing them down then it would suck. Is it really like that?

Thanks for the info guys super useful. @ianv, are those your kids ?

The lad in the yellow TLD top is my son, he had a pretty good time I think, apart from the early trip to A&E 😀

6 weeks, 3,500 miles in our Mazda Bongo, no serious injuries or mechanicals (just one broken Joplin and 3 flats)

Bongo for me as well although I hate to think how many miles I did. Machanicals car = one blown out tyre on the autoroute, one damaged oil filter. bikes = 2 written off rear wheels, a new set of brakes that subsequently got trashed, broken dereilleur, 4 replacement tyres, massive dint on the top tube of my stinky, two broken shock bolts, new headset, damaged brakes on my sons bike. Not to mention, 1 suspected broken ankle for my son on the first day he was riding with me.

How long did that trip take?

I went over mid may and started riding the parks from mid June. Got back 2 days ago to a 25 degree drop in temperature and torrential rain 🙁 .

For some hidden gems try Wasdale or Cockermouth

Or Eskdale or Dunnerdale

Ianv – I can promise you, from bitter experience and a large legal bill, that this is definitely not the case, and that rebutting the presumption that equity will follow the law (ie. joint ownership = 50:50) is a very big uphill battle in all but the rarest cases.

Maybe I was lucky, but I got legal advice as did she and we were were both told the same: what you put in you have the right to take out, I was not even on the deeds but I got over 2/3 of the value of the house as I had put in the equivalent in equity.

The rules for non married couples are that each takes out what they put in. So for example, if that 15K put her share of the equity up to 60% overall she is entitled to 60% of the sales price. It obviously depends on the appreciation of the property but £5000 seems very reasonable and if she starts getting legal advice, it might escalate.

The fact that it is registered 50:50 is not relevant. In my case the house was in my exs name but because I put in a big chunk of equity I got the majority of the value when divvied up.

I would pick deux alpes/alpe d’huez. The weather is better, there is stacks of really good riding (mega blues with loads of jumps to pretty hard technical blacks) and its less busy than the portes du soleil. Personally I think deux alpes is the best bike park in the french alps. Alpes d’huez has loads of enduro type options and the area is pretty big, taking in Oz d’oisans and vaujany. The lift passes are also pretty good value, 15 Euros as opposed to 20+ at deux alpes and the PdS.

A good location to stay is Venosc. There are a number of campsites close to the cable car up to deux alpes and you can easily commute to alpes d’huez.

The week after the mondiale du VTT is a good time to go, the trails are quiet, still in reasonable condition, the top lifts up to the glacier are usually open and the weather is usually good.

Are you looking for a full on DH sled or a fun bike to ride Dh on?

Probably something erring more to the downhill sled side of things but that would not have its geometry messed up by fitting a 66 rather than a triple clamp. Solid, stable, and with a bit more travel than the bottlerocket or the mega.

The soda has a tapered head tube and is a bit less slack than I would like. Otherwise it might have been a decent option.

The only company I can think of that does Andorra is singletrack safari. I don’t know anything about them but saw their van all over last year. Andorra is ace, the bike parks are great, the locals are really friendly, there is loads of hor piste stuff and the weather is usually better than the alps. Top place and well worth a visit.

the parents who buy their children neck braces are the same parents who buy them a top end DH bike, “need” doesn’t come into it

I don’t wear one but I did buy one for my son. Not because they are trendy but because I would never forgive myself if he broke his neck for the sake of saving £150. I would prefer to find out that I wasted my money than find out too late that it could have saved him getting hurt.

My son crashed last week, it cost €67 for the doc and X-ray and €14 for the drugs. I gave him a piggy back down off the mountain so saved on the helicopter.

Well I live there and if it was nice I’ll know about it
Stick with les getz and morzine muuch much much much better

Out of interest, where would you recommend as being so much better?

Forger about peuple sospel, riding is sh1te and locale not friendly.

Boll o cx

Some areas I have been this year that were really good: Sospel/peille, alpes du haute verdon (Allos, lac du castallane), Vosges, tet valley in the pyranees orientale. The problem with riding in the mountains without lifts thought is the climbing sucks, minimum 1000m (and sometimes 2000m) sometimes for a 15-20 km ride.

Nearest is la mont DES olmes near lavalanet, don’t know what it’s like though (definitely small) Then in order of distance: ax les thermes (apparently good), les angles (good but only 4 real pistes and pretty expensive), la Molina (good), luchon, St lLary (apparently good), cauterets (apparently good), soldeau (good), Val nord (very good). If it was me, I would head to ax les thermes, we checked it out but couldn’t ride as the fog had closed the lifts but there is potential for some long runs, it’s not too expensive and everyone who I have asked says it’s good. It’s also a pretty easy drive from carcassone.

Just spent a few days exploring St foy and les arcs and reckon they are both massively over rated. The uplift in St foy is really Micky mouse and the marked trails are ok but nothing special, the dh off the top cable car at les arcs is rubbish, the stuff down to vilandry is ok but again nothing special ( same goes for the 8 and the 7), the cachette is fun but not half as good as the runs in Deux alpes. I did find some good stuff from arcs 1800 towards seez but any French wooded hill side has similar riding. I really don’t understand what all the fuss is about, for enduro type riding the Vosges, the ubaye, the Val d’allos and the alpes maritime are all way better. For downhill, Deux alpes blows les arcs away ( as do quite a few other places) .

I bought a rugby undershirt from decathlon. It has pretty good shoulder padding and is pretty light. Don’t actually know if will work as I have not landed on my shoulder while wearing it but rugby players seem to get their fair share of collar bone injuries, so I guess it is what it is designed to protect.

I’d be bored shitless after any more than one day

It’s now linked in with Val d’isere so with the dh over there as well and all the enduro stuff there is definitely more than a few days worth. Especially when it’s all free!

Cheers all, half the Tignes network is closed at the moment so i might be heading down the valley sooner than expected.

Deux alpes is the best bike park in the alps. If you do manage to get bored ther is also a massive network of trails at Alp d’huez the other side of the valley.

Don’t really want to get a guide as I am away till sept and need to be frugal.

How far is a la thuile from Tignes?