Chamonix Activity Report: 13th May 2010
So, inter-season it is now! We have had some mostly overcast weather with sunny and rain spells, overall not very interesting and not that great if you want to get up the Aiguille du Midi for a ski or start some summer climbing. But hey, you can now start to get out on the mountain bike and enjoy the outdoors!
The other day we went for a wee bike ride around the footpaths near Les Bois then up to Argentiere. There are a lot of nice easy bike trails round this area, but still some that can get you going at a great speed and challenge your skills on a bike and they are all easily accessed from town; just follow the river and then the signs to Les Bois, where you will find a vast number of trails to go up and down on, ranging from greens to some reds on the difficulty level.
Chamonix for downhill mountain biking can be pretty challenging, there isn't much of a beginner area up on the hill so these trails are good training pre-season if you're thinking of hitting the big gnarly downhill tracks that Chamonix has to offer!
We did a few different trails around the area hitting some fairly steep trails considering how low down the paths were, testing our skills that we forgot a little from last season and trying to build our confidence, leaning a little more forward into our turns to get better grip on our front wheel.
After a good few runs around the different paths in the area and concentrating on some of the harder ones we headed up the hill towards Argentiere. You can either follow signs up the trails to get there, or get on to the road for an easier ride up, or even get on the train for a really relaxing ride up followed by an exhilarating ride down!
Once at our destination in Argentiere we popped in to The Office Bar for a cup of fine coffee before heading back down to Chamonix via the Petit Balcon Sud, which is a wicked and easy trail all the way back in to Chamonix. It's not too steep but has some challenging sections in it and is great if you're training to get in to the season for downhill riding or trying this side of the sport out for the first time. It is quite dry on the paths at the moment despite the intermittent rain showers and snow melt, there is the odd puddle to jump but overall the condition of the lower paths are great for hiking and riding right now! We rode down the trail pretty fast splashing through some of the streams that join the river, jumping up and off bridges and rocks on the way, before finally reaching Bar'd Up which is also open through the inter-season. We got there just in time for happy hour and thought it would be rude not to drop in for a pint!
Check out what to do around town once the lifts have closed with our Apres Ski Report - a weekly round up of what's hot and where to party in Chamonix!
