Mountain Biking in Chamonix

The chalet is perfectly placed for mountain biking, in the heart of the trails and close to the Flegere lift. We ride both cross-country and downhill ourselves, so feel free to contact us with any specific questions. Our shed can hold ten bikes, and has a steel door and security light. There’s an outside tap and hosepipe for washing bikes down. We’ll be expand­ing this section as time goes on so if you’d like to be kept updated, let us know!

Cross-country mountain biking in Chamonix

From the chalet door, you can ride a multi­tude of beauti­ful and challeng­ing cross-country routes. The circuits marked in green on the map (pdf format, 2 pages) are virtu­ally flat, and ideal for family days out — perhaps progress­ing to the blue routes later on. The red routes are step up from these, and suitable for more experi­enced cross country riders — though you can easily cut the loops short at any point if you decide you’ve had enough! These take you along undulat­ing trails through the pines, with rocky and rooty sections, some great climbs and descents. For those who really want to climb, the Col Des Posettes at le Tour is a tough and commit­ting ascent, rewarded by a marvel­lous downhill.

Downhilling in Chamonix

Flegere is the newest area to be devel­oped as a bike park — the trails are pretty rough and furious, but a lot of fun and very scenic.
Chamonix bike park
Useful review of the good and not so good points at Flegere bike park

Vallorcine’s downhill track was the first mountain bike only track to be opened in Chamonix, and proved such a success that it will be open for July as well as August this year. A massive twist­ing trail plummet­ing down the side of the valley, it’s a fantas­tic ride. There’s a handy bail out after the first section where you can switch to a fire road for the remain­ing descent if you don’t want to do the commit­ing and techni­cal lower part though the woods. This trail is so good that some days, we just ride it all day!

 

The other lift accessed “official” descents are fast and furious fire roads with some techni­cal sections, especially at Le Tour and Les Houches, and from Lognan at Argen­tiere. Don’t miss the shuttled descents on Wednes­day after­noons from the Vert Hotel down the from the Merlet — this is a good place to meet up, as it’s a very social occasion. Outside July and August,there’s more techni­cal routes avail­able through­out the valley.

Days out mountain biking near Chamonix

From Chamonix you can easily have days out in other mountain bike areas. We like to go to Pre-la-Joux, near the Swiss Border,for its eye-popping cliffs and twisty single­track, Les Gets for fast downhill and big berms and jumps, or Pila in Italy with its long scenic descents, massive drops, and Italian charm. These are all brilliant days out and not more than an hour’s drive.

Pila and Les Gets are partic­u­larly good if you have any non mountain bikers with you — Pila’s trails come down from a lovely restau­rant with a swimming pool and gorgeous views, as well as separate walking circuits with a Marmot Trail for kids. Les Gets is a lovely Alpine town with plenty to offer apart from biking — see their site for full details.

Mountain bike shops in Chamonix

Zero G (+33 4 50 53 01 01 , zerogchamonix@hotmail.com) is proba­bly the best place to head for if you want to rent bikes — they’ll also sort you out with protec­tion and have a good servic­ing area.

Another good shop is Legend’chx with its mini-northshore ramps for testing (+33 (0)450 902225, legendchx@wanadoo.fr, map)

Mountain biking and walkers

The attitude to mountain biking in France is notice­ably more accomo­dat­ing than the UK — the French love cyclists of all kinds and and calls of ‘Bön Courage!” are more likely to follow you than anything else. We very much hope to see this contin­u­ing in Chamonix so it’s good to have consid­er­a­tion on the shared trails — a cheery “bonjour” goes a long way to ensur­ing the future of mountain biking in the valley.

When to go

It’s worth keeping in mind that in July and August, you are only allowed to ride bikes on the desig­nated bike trails (map in .pdf format, 2 pages). These are exten­sive and very good.… However, outside these times, you can ride anywhere you want, opening up more terrain.

Balanced against this, the lifts open in mid-June and close mid-September (Grands Montets is slightly shorter, full details here). After this time, the lifts are gener­ally open at weekends only, accord­ing to weather. This means that around the last few weeks of June, and the first few weeks of Septem­ber, the lifts are open, and you can ride anywhere. The trails are less busy with walkers too, making this an ideal time to visit.

Cross-country riders who aren’t bothered about lift access will find Chamonix a paradise in June, Septem­ber, and October, with some great cross-country avail­able right into Novem­ber if condi­tions are good.

The Flegere lift usually opens in Novem­ber for the French Toussaint holiday weekend around the begin­ning of Novem­ber, provid­ing the weather’s good — last year we had some superb downhilling at this time!

N.B. At busy times, the train allows only five bikes on at at time, so this isn’t reliable for large groups.

We’ll be expand­ing the mountain biking section as time goes on so if you’d like to be kept updated, let us know!