The New Chamonix Bike Park – The Evolution of a Legend
As mountain biking evolves, many things come and go – some are dropped like a hot rock when people realise that they aren’t all they are cracked up to be, whilst others (even well respected ones) are simply bettered by newer or louder products, and fade into obscurity.
This might sound like a strange introduction to an article about the opening of new MTB trails, but in today’s highly competitive tourism industry every riding destination is a carefully planned, polished and marketed product which is vying for your attention.
Ancient History
Chamonix, at the heart of the French Alps has always been an emotive name within mountain biking, with its wealth of stunning natural riding - which many people consider to be the finest in world - it remains a legendary name nearly 20 years after people first started travelling to the area with fat tyred bikes.
Legends, however, tend to fall into the category of remaining respected, but run the risk of becoming overlooked by newer choices. The modern perception of Chamonix is that it’s all about lung-busting cross country riding, and that it’s failed to move on as newer resorts, such as Les Gets, Morzine, Verbier, Les Arcs, Alpe D’Huez, Les Deux Alpes and many others jockey for riders’ attention with flashy marketing, huge man made trail networks, extensive lift systems and, importantly, bike-friendly attitudes.
Chamonix has never really specifically marketed itself as a biking destination....it just happened naturally due to the incredible trails nature put there, and its mind-warping scenery. Attitudes to bikes have become less tolerant over the years due to the shared nature of the trails – and as for man-made routes...well, until a couple of years ago there were none at all.
Recent Developments
Things in Chamonix however, are changing – and they are changing fast. For starters, the local riding scene has continued to develop – whilst many tourists may now flock to join the long queues to ride the trails in the nearby meccas of Morzine and Les Gets there has always been a committed core of riders in Chamonix pushing to draw a new generation MTBers into the area. The problem has been twofold though – firstly in this age of waymarked and constructed trails there’s been a perceived lack of options for actual riding (which anyone who knows the area well will no doubt fall over laughing at), and secondly there has been some local resistance to actively pursuing the MTB market. In July and August Chamonix even imposes a very bizarre “bike ban” on many of it’s trails in the valley, which does little to help matters.
Recently things started to evolve – in 2007 a new DH trail was opened at nearby Vallorcine – at the top of the Chamonix valley, and it’s enjoyed some success, but it was a bit isolated. There’s also a new sheriff in town, or rather a new mayor. Apparently the new chief is somewhat more youthful than his predecessors – and the mixture of lobbying from riders – and more importantly, the realisation that a huge amount of tourism revenue is being missed out on – has led to the birth of several new projects aimed at putting Chamonix firmly back into its rightful place as the Alpine capital of all things mountain biking.
A couple of summers ago Vallorcine was joined by a small bike park at Les Houches – a few kilometres down the valley from Chamonix town centre. Unlike the trail at Vallorcine (which is pretty unforgiving) there’s a choice of runs aimed at different ability levels – with everything from gentle doubletracks for beginners to some truly crazy north-shore structures which will challenge the most fearless of riders. However, both Vallorcine and Les Houches suffer from a lack of marketing – even in the height of summer there’s very little to tell you that they even exist! Les Houches is doing a better job of improving its awareness this year with a local poster campaign around the area– but the overall valley trail maps are still pretty woeful in comparison with the well thought out glossy plans and guides found in other resorts.
Bang Up to Date
What Chamonix needed was a catalyst - something to really draw the new breed of all-mountain and downhill riders into the town, whilst continuing to provide for it’s traditional cross-country clients. Chamonix needed new trails – well marketed ones located close to the town centre that don’t require transport to reach.
In probably the most significant trail development in the area for many years, July 2010 saw the opening of what may just prove to be that catalyst – the opening of the first trails in what is being described on the maps as the “Chamonix Bike Park”. Primarily this consists of 3 new downhill trails which are accessed via the Flegere lift, a few minutes ride from the town centre.
The Flegere lift has opened in the summer for many years, and will be well known to anyone who has visited the famous Lac Blanc to see one of Europe’s finest views across the valley to the continent’s largest glacier, the Mer de Glace, and the towering summit of Mont Blanc above. The cable car starts at 1030m in the valley, and deposits you at the 1870m mid-station, from where you can then either descend back into the valley, or jump onto the Index chairlift, which takes you all the way up to 2385m – giving a pretty tantalising prospect of over 1300m of vertical height loss back to the valley floor!
As mentioned, there are 3 new runs to explore – a blue (called Ushuaïa) and two red runs (Planet Mars and Elfe Secret). So, the big question: what are they like to ride?
Ushuaïa Blue Run
Bizarrely, the blue run begins at the very top at 2385m and drops about 400m to the mid station – still leaving you 900m above the valley floor, with no waymarked options other than the red Elfe Secret run back to the bottom....but that will make more sense when we talk about that section later...
The blue and red descents have separate start points, but share a lot of the same real estate as they drop down the mountain; often crossing over one another – and the two trails become one for extensive sections.
It is very obvious that the blue run has had a lot less use than the red trail in the couple of weeks that they have been open for. With a very loose and sketchy surface, and some very serious signage issues it makes for a pretty poor first impression, especially if the idea is to make the mountain accessible to less experienced riders. Simply finding the first section of singletrack is not easy – there’s a short “taster” area located by the lift (a bit like the ones used in the 7 Stanes trail centres in the UK) – but this deposits you slightly downhill of the main trail start, and there’s no signs to tell you where to go – and judging by the number of tyre marks heading off down the rocky 4x4 track a lot of people have gone the wrong way.
Once on the trail itself, riders are presented with a fairly gently contouring descent, with a gradient that never really gets too severe. This is fine in principal – but the incredibly loose surface really desperately needs to see several thousand tyres pass over it to get it bedded in, and in some areas we got the impression that it really wasn’t finished – some parts need raking to remove excess scree and loose rock, whilst in one or two places there are strange isolated bits of trail marked with fluorescent orange tape to try to guide riders towards them.
The biggest issue with the blue trail however, is the continuing theme of poor signage, which continues down its entire length. In several places on your first run you will stop, scratch your head, and wonder where the hell it’s gone to. Behind you will be the last section you exited, but the next section seems to have vanished into thin air. This is never more true than about two thirds of the way down, where you emerge into a meadow. There’s a blue sign stood in the middle of the field – but it was hard to tell whether this was leftover from a winter ski piste, or simply indicative that there’s a section that hasn’t been built. Either way, the only way to continue is to ride through the grass over to the adjacent red run – and after a few hundred metres the trail becomes blue/red shared again.
The trail itself twists its way down the mountain, avoiding the more technical areas that the red ventures into –and in many places it’s good fun – especially the last section down to the lift station where a series of sweeping bends help build cornering confidence for less experienced riders. Considering the intended market, if the top half of the trail had a more user-friendly surface the blue route would have the potential to be a major winner – as long as the signage issues were resolved! As it stands, we felt that the trail surface was much too sketchy to be fun for less skilled riders – in fact, traction was harder to find on the blue than on the reds in most places....Overall we got the impression that the builders and designers had a lot less passion (or perhaps involvement) in the construction of the blue trail than the red routes.
The Reds
So, we’ve started on a slightly negative note – and by now you may be wondering whether the red trails suffer from similar problems....and at the end of your first run down the Planet Mars trail you might feel frustrated by a lack of flow. However, Planet Mars is a route which rewards repeated runs –and the second time you ride it you’ll feel much better – by the third you’ll be hooked and you will want to spend all day riding it again and again!
The two runs, Planet Mars and Elfe Secret feel very different to one another – Planet Mars sits above the treeline, and features drops, jumps, skinnies, boardwalks and the odd tabletop – all set on a primarily rocky moonscape (or maybe Mars-scape) – which reminded us of the higher trails at Alpe D’Huez. Elfe Secret is entirely below the treeline, in places is a bit steeper, but often has a much smoother surface – at times this is more like a Les Gets run....but without the annoying braking bumps!
The two runs, to all and intents and purposes are one long red descent - where one ends the other begins. According to our GPS the total run from the top of the chairlift to the bottom of the main trail is a pretty impressive 7.4km, and equates to about a 25 minute blast from top to bottom.
Planet Mars
Anyway, back to the top – we’ll look at the Planet Mars descent to start off with – which, as we mentioned earlier starts in the same place as the blue run – the top of the Index chairlift at 2385m. Before you set off, take a minute to admire the view – it is without a doubt the most impressive from any man-made trail you will find in Europe! Having said that, the first few hundred yards of the trail feel anything but man-made – it’s all natural to begin with – with tight, rocky corners, some tricky cambers, natural rock drop-offs and a couple of moments which will have you breathing in as the trail squeezes through narrow gaps between enormous boulders – it’s a great way to start, and speaks volumes about Chamonix’s biking heritage.
After emerging from the initial section you join the blue descent for a fast contouring sweep across the mountainside, before hitting a slightly contrived section - you follow a double track for a brief spell, but instead of simply using the main trail there are a couple of features which have been built to the sides, with a rapid succession of berms, which when you get them just right can really satisfy.
Exiting this section it’s back onto real singletrack – which ducks and dives its way through several hollows and mini-valleys. There are some very tight twisting sections in here – and some short rises. As mentioned earlier, on your first run you’ll feel that Planet Mars lacks flow – and it’s this section where you may feel the pain. You really need to know the lines through here, and staying off the brakes in some of the tighter corners allows you to maintain some momentum. Its mind over matter through here – avoiding slowing down and using the full width of the trail is the way to defeat it!
Another, faster section awaits as the trail opens up across the contours once more – it can get pretty fast here – and is made challenging by the camber and the slightly loose surface which conspire together to drag you to the lower edge of the trail. At one point there’s a step-up jump option which, whilst easy enough to ride, increases your speed on the landing – which is loose and off camber....and you’ll find yourself slithering towards the drop at the edge until your tyres find traction!
Towards the mid-station is the centrepiece of the red descent – sort of a mini Freeride area if you like, with lots of great trail features. It’s a bypass-able option – but once you’ve ridden it you’ll realise it’s been designed to be quite accessible. The features give it the look of a black bike park trail, but they’ve thought things out and built it quite sensibly. It is entered via a skinny which is probably 15 cm wide, but this has been placed directly after a very tight corner to force riders to slow down and take it carefully. A quick blast of a descent into a gully takes you to a very impressive looking boardwalk which shoots up the rise on the other side – with an optional jump at the top as it delivers you onto a brief section of slickrock. A small drop off the rock and you are into a section of fast berms punctuated by a series of natural rock gardens – most of these won’t challenge your chainrings, but they look quite imposing at first glance – however they are all completely rollable. There’s a wooden wallride, a few more berms and then the main feature which can be seen from the chairlift – a cambered north shore section which leads into a fading drop– it has a similar feel to Caddon Bank at Innerleithen, but on a gentle bend. It’s actually very easily ridden; the drop is small – but again, it looks imposing. There are always a few people stood looking at it – but so long as you exit the ramp in the right spot for the runout and keep the front wheel up it’s really good fun.
Planet Mars needs repeated back-to-back riding to get the best from it – in places it punishes braking; it’s the sort of trail that needs to be attacked a bit to find it’s flow – it rewards smooth riders who remember the lines, which we think is a good thing.
Elfe Secret
Continuing down past the lift station you encounter the start of Elfe Secret (yes, secret elf is a bit of a weird name for a trail, but it’s in the woods, see). This trail begins as it means to go on – it’s smoother, slightly steeper, full of berms and there’s a smattering of easy boardwalk features from the very outset.
The trail spends the majority of its time in the thickly wooded slopes on the mountainside – and these sections are good fun as they wind their way down into the valley. There are a few concerns being voiced locally about the sustainability of the trail – as soon as you reach the first series of berms you can see that the surface is beginning to collapse, and there’s evidence of water collection and erosion. Hopefully, with more use and a little maintenance this will prove to be a non-issue.
What’s a little more worrying is that the various sections of unavoidable boardwalk (which appear regularly as you descend through the forest) are not treated or meshed in any way – and look to be made from pine, which will be absolutely deadly in the wet. This applies to the north shore sections higher up on Planet Mars too – someone needs to get busy up there with some grip paint as soon as possible!
Elfe Secret occasionally emerges from the woods and there are several sections of rolling singletrack which are built alongside the access fireroads. These are a little disappointing – and judging by the number of riders who are simply not using them we aren’t alone in feeling they are a bit poorly conceived. There’s probably half a dozen of these during the descent, usually dug into the hillside. Most of them don’t flow – and a couple of them are downright hairy, with a loose, off camber surface and a large drop to disaster mere inches away! It seems that the builders were desperate not to get accused of using fireroads – but we’d rather see well designed trails rather than “singletrack for singletrack’s sake”, if you see what we mean. However, not all of them are entirely lacking in fun, with a couple of them delivering you into absolutely enormous, very fast berms which really put a grin on your face!
Back into the woods and you’ll soon stumble across some very straightforward north shore – it’s all quite wide and mostly low, and very easily ridden. It’s good fun, and a couple of sections provide junctions with different line choices.
The further you get towards the bottom the twistier the trail becomes, as it zigzags back and forth across the meadows below the Flegere lift itself. Eventually the singletrack spits you out onto a fire road from which it’s an easy return to the lift station to head 1300m back up to the top ready to do it all again.
Opinion
Currently the trails at Flegere form a great starting point for the future; they need riding in so that the surfaces settle down a little, and there’s definitely some improvements to be made and some finishing off to be done. However, in defence of its handful of weaknesses it is only fair to remind readers that the trails opened a mere fortnight ago – and this opening was delayed due to significant problems with snow on the higher parts of the trails following severe unseasonal weather which caused the terrible scenes of flooding in France back in June. To get the place turned round and ready to ride at all is quite an achievement – and makes some of the failings a lot easier to understand. We ended up really falling in love with Planet Mars in particular – it made us want to go back time and time again trying to perfect our lines, before delivering us to the mid-station with a dirty great grin across our faces.
Whilst the lower Elfe Secret trail is graded red, it’s far easier than the Planet Mars top section – which makes it very rideable for those bikers who have spent the first part of their day cutting their teeth on the blue Ushuaïa trail. There’s nothing here which will scare most people – we actually enjoyed riding Elfe more on our trail bikes than we did on downhill bikes – the extra cornering abilities of a shorter wheelbase made things feel a bit more playful. In fact, you can easily ride all of the trails here on a regular 5”+ full susser – there’s a very XC feel to many sections, and that is a great compliment to the trail builders too, this place can work on many levels.
So, are the Flegere trails going to change Chamonix’s fortunes for the better? We think the answer to this has to be yes – but not directly, and not necessarily immediately. To go back to what we said at the start; we believe that they are the catalyst to further development of the sport in the Chamonix valley. And not just from a downhill or freeride perspective – hopefully these trails are indicative of a change in attitude and acceptance of the sport – in other words this development shows that Chamonix has admitted that it needs mountain biking, and in turn the tourism and local income which it brings during the summer months.
The trails here are long, challenging and rewarding, and compare very favourably with those in the competing resorts nearby. Hopefully this is the tip of the iceberg – and looking at the trail map there is a development earmarked for the Le Tour area further up the valley. In all likelihood this is just the start for Flegere itself too – there’s a lot of available mountainside which the trailbuilders could still put to good use – and hopefully we’ll see some plans for further trails to add to the existing three.
With the addition of Flegere Chamonix now has enough trails to keep any rider entertained for a week – if you stay in local accommodation you can get a visitors travel pass which lets you use the trains and buses (both of which accept bikes) absolutely for free. All of the main man-made riding sites – Flegere, Vallorcine and Les Houches, plus the proposed Le Tour trails – are all served by the Mont Blanc Express train service which runs hourly, 7 days a week. This means you can easily ride all of the trails in a day.
Of course, what Chamonix Bike Park has, but the other resorts do not have, is Chamonix itself. Unlike the artificial and sometimes downright ugly ski resorts found in much of the Alps, Chamonix is the genuine article – a real town, with historic buildings, shops, restaurants, bars and all of the facilities of a major town. It’s a fantastic place to be based – it’s very lively and bustling all year, and there’s a fantastic array of après-bike options to be had whatever your tastes. We ourselves use Chamonix as our centre of operations for Singletrack Safari throughout July and August for a reason – we love it there!
We’ve never doubted Chamonix for a single moment – but these trails will help the town overcome its reputation of being less relevant for certain types of riding. If you want big, all-mountain epic rides with amazing scenery and some of the most technical singletrack in the world, get in touch with a good guiding or holiday company. If you want to follow easier, waymarked XC routes, they are there to be ridden around the valley. If you want to ride top-notch downhill trails...well, now you can do that too!
With the addition of the new Chamonix Bike Park the town now has every right to feel that it’s able to offer world class trails whatever type of riding you are looking for, and hopefully this is only the beginning of even greater things to come.
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[...] 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 [...]