Avoriaz Activity Review: 6th June 2012
Lift assisted mountain biking!
The summer season is almost upon us. I suppose technically it has already started as the Les Gets lifts have opened the last two weekends. We’ve been up there getting in some early season mileage under the knobbly tires on the excellent selection of trails now available under the Chavannes and Nauchets lifts.
This weekend the Pleney is opening for the season which opens up a host of new possibilities. Un-fortunately mid week next week the Les Gets lifts shut again before opening for the summer full time from the following weekend.
Weather wise things have been very up and down lately with some superb hot sunny days interspersed with cooler showery weather. Luckily last Saturday was a dry day making for some excellent mountain biking. Sunday was overcast and threatening, the dry weather window coming to an abrupt end around 2pm. Fortunately by this point I’d had my fill of blasting down the mountain bike trails and was just putting my bike away.
The upcoming weather is forecast to be similar, some sunshine interspersed with showers and the odd right off day of mountain cold and rain.
Every season the first of the riding is to be had in Les Gets and it serves as a great reminder just how much things have improved up there in the last few years. There are now loads of green, blue, red and black (difficulty grading as per ski pistes) official maintained trails based around the Nauchets and Chavannes lifts. The Canyon trail has been around for years but it is now an official black run with loads of variations in there to keep it fresh. New for this year is a number of gap jumps over the canyon itself (this was the original trail).
For those wanting to get a little further a field there is the cross country classic (Chapelle de) Jacquicourt circuit – see the VTT piste map, route “F”. We did this at the weekend and it was great, a little bit of pedalling, some superb views of Mont Blanc and lots of technical natural terrain to test the skills.
Road bike wise I’ve been putting in the big miles in advance of the Morzine Vallee D’Aulps cycle sportive on Sunday 17th June. I’m starting to see lots more road bikers out and about at the minute, some in large organised groups, I’m not surprised with this many great roads and Tour de France cols to tackle. Woth noting is the 1 Day 1 Col initiative where a mountain pass gets closed for the day allowing for pure uninterrupted road biking.
This weekend the main favourites for the Tour will be in town contesting Le Dauphiné Libéré cycle race . It’s the biggest of the Tour de France warm up races in terms of the number of favourites choosing to prep for the big one using it. The penultimate and probably deciding stage climbs over the fearsome Col du Joux Plane from Samoens on Saturday descending to the finish in Morzine for around 5pm. If you head up the Chavannes and Nauchets lifts you are right next to the start of the road decent so it’s a great place to watch.
The next day the race departs for Chatel. The start is a great place to wander about checking out the bikes and riders before the off. Security is very relaxed compared to the Tour so you can get up close to the riders.
Bon route!
