After a couple of days of “enjoying” the French toll roads on the monumental drive across the Cote D’Azur and up into the south of The Alps we arrived into Chamonix to be met by blazing sunshine and some of the hottest temperatures we have ever experienced in this part of Europe.
Nestling at the foot of Europe’s tallest mountain, the enormous 4810m Mont Blanc, the town of Chamonix itself sits at just over a thousand metres (that’s a bit like being on the top of Snowdon before you even start going uphill) – so seeing the thermometer hitting 39 degrees was pretty unexpected!
We had a few days to get acclimatized before our first guests arrived – a group of 5 – so headed out onto the trails to check conditions. This was only a few weeks after the terrible storms which caused fatal floods in the south of France; and here in the mountains it had fallen as snow. After having stopped off in Les Deux Alpes on our way northwards a few days earlier it was apparent that a lot of the white stuff was still on the ground – at Les Deux Alpes bike park there were still people skiing and snowboarding in the top half of what was supposed to be the summer Bike Park!
Fortunately the natural trails were pretty much clear of snow, although our Border Patrol route still had a couple of brief patches which made us get off and walk. The brand new Chamonix Bike Park was less fortunate – and it’s full opening ended up being delayed by a couple of weeks as a result – see our exclusive review elsewhere in the Blog for full info!
A week later our first group of guests, led by Adam from Berkshire (joined by Tony, Stuart, Dave and Andy) were understandably pleased to find that the perfect weather was still in place for their first mornings riding – which saw us head up the valley for a gentle day’s riding. The Valley Ride explores some of the hidden trails which you’d never find by looking at the map alone – as UK qualified guides can’t legally lead groups on French soil (see our website for the full legal lowdown) we equip the group with a pre-programmed GPS, a highlighted map and a radio link to us...and we then shadow the group to offer support where it’s needed! This allows us to ensure our clients don’t get lost, provide full assistance when it’s needed and be on hand for emergencies.
Adam himself was designated the navigator by the rest of his group – and once he got his head around the basic functions of the Garmin GPS the group were well away, followed at all times by the camera wielding shadow of Martin from STS.
Amongst the group were a real mixture of characters, abilities, ages and approaches to riding – but they were clearly united by a love of food and drinking. Sorry, that should of course read mountain biking. And food. And drinking. The shape of the week was defined by midway through the very first morning, where a quick coffee stop in Argentiere rapidly evolved into a major feast at a fantastic restaurant....and not for the last time during their trip!! However this didn’t detract from the rest of the day – and there was even time for a quick switchback coaching session in preparation for the week ahead.
There were a couple of particularly memorable moments during the week – Dave (who I believe was the group’s most senior member!) demonstrated his immense power by tearing one of his cranks clean off the axle...and this was an XT hollowtech chainset – designed to be super-strong....the bike shop agreed that they’d never seen anything like it! A less technical, but far more amusing incident happened when Adam managed to tear his baggy 
shorts during the Border Patrol descent into Switzerland. His saddle somehow worked it’s was into the hole and he couldn’t get off his bike...leading to some choice language! At the foot of the trail he proceeded to try to remove the rest of the outer shorts in what can only described as a “Bucks Fizz” manoeuvre (ask your parents kids)...which resulted in shorts basically turning into a skirt....drawing a few funny looks from people at the railway station a few miles later!
A few days later the group was joined by Will, who had travelled all the way from Australia to spend a few weeks exploring France by bike – although a mountain biker at heart Will is a closet roadie too – and after spending a week with us he was due to head off to do some work as a roadie guide in the south of France for a few weeks. Despite his inner lycra shining through a few times he was a great rider – and astronomically fit, much to Martin’s embarrassment!
Will’s first ride was also the Berkshire group’s last (they were effectively doing a very long weekend, rather than our “normal” twin centre holiday) – so Will was in at the deep end. After several days of getting into the flow of the many switchbacks which The Alps’ natural trails have to offer we headed out to take on “The Twister” – an amazing natural trail at the southern end of the Chamonix valley, which descends steeply, via dozens of switchbacks to St Gervais far below in the valley floor.
Everyone got down eventually – the only victim being Dave, who decided to test the impact resistance of his shiny new cranks by disappearing about twenty feet down a bank. Fortunately the undergrowth he went barrelling off into was very dense and soft....but this really confused Martin as he caught up at the tail of the pack – Dave’s bike was simply lying in the middle of the trail, but of the rider himself there was no sign! It took a few minutes for Dave to clamber back up through the bushes back to the path, appearing through the trees like some kind of Amazonian tribal native emerging from the jungle!
The following day saw the departure of Adam and pals – and Martin and Will rode alone for the next couple of days. On one of these rides Martin took a bit of a tumble on a very technical descent – Will was treated to the sight of an elegant swan dive over the bars....fortunately Martin’s face broke the fall in the midst of a pile of jagged rocks! Funnily, despite a slight scrape by one eye it was his knee which took the brunt of the impact (despite kneepads) and promptly swelled to roughly the size of a melon....at least by the end of the week Will had managed to beat this by missing the edge of a small footbridge whilst we rode the Passeportes Du Soleil route and disappeared into a ditch....it’s caught on the video if you haven’t seen it....in fact across the 2 videos Will features in I think he’s spotted crashing no fewer than 4 times....
At the end of the week we were joined by Jo and Stu, who were part way through a 3 week roadtrip around the Alps in their slightly sickly camper van. A few days of great trails and a proper roof over their heads seemed the perfect antidote to the on-the-road stress that their Mazda Bongo had been causing them! We first met Jo and Stu in Chamonix a few years ago when the original idea for Singletrack Safari was just beginning to form....we were having a slightly beery afternoon in Bar D’Up in the town centre when we met two brits who were suffering from the usual Chamonix conundrum, namely they’d struggled to find the best of the trails without advice. The following day we took them around the Border Patrol route, and we’ve been good friends ever since.
On one of their first evenings, true to form, Jo and Stu went in search of a curry (these people have lime pickle for blood) – and we tried a different Indian restaurant none of us had visited before – Tiger Tiger in Chamonix. Our one word review? “Don’t.” During the same evening Martin (without even being tipsy) suffered his second injury of the week when, like some geriatric spinster, he tripped on a kerb and twisted his ankle too badly to walk home. The Indian restaurant “called” us a “taxi”....which when it arrived was simply a minibus which seemed to be driven by a member of staff we had seen leaving the kitchens a few minutes earlier....at 30 euros for the minute ride we had extended our one word review to two words; “Don’t Ever”!
Somehow, despite an inflatable knee and a blackened foot, the week continued relatively uninterrupted, with more fantastic weather and some fantastic riding for everyone. Jo and Stu both joined the crashy club on the Border Patrol ride with a couple of tumbles, but everyone kept grinning at the mixture of singletrack, sun and regular visits to MBC for their home-brewed beers! Will left for the South of France just before Jo and Stu were due to head home, so on the last day we revisited the Twister (which these guys had missed out on earlier in the week) and roared down it’s twisty length with renewed enthusiasm. The main Twister descent was quickly dispatched, but on the final run down to the train station at St Gervais there is a last-gasp technical section which we call the Pipe Cleaner....so called because it runs next to a large water pipe. It gets pretty steep and twitchy in places – but Jo, ever the trail monster decided that she was going to attack in aggressively and got a bit out of shape and quickly tumbled down the trails, catching her leg and bleeding quite a bit. Being made of sterner stuff than the boys she carried on as if nothing happened – it was only after we were at the station that she even realised she’d given herself quite a nasty cut!
And so our first couple of weeks rolled together....they were very eventful, but everyone had a great time – and despite an unparalled number of off-trail forays there were no serious injuries overall....other than some damaged pride of course!
The weather had stayed hot and sunny.....but this was soon to change....with some amusing consequences!
Tags: 2010 Season, Bruised Bottoms!, Crashes, Ultimate Alps
