bike for the alps???

jonnyashworth

Right I need some help here!
I own a giant trance x3 and a giant anthem x2 (they were really cheap or I would have chosen something other than the trance)

I'm planning my first trip over to the alps for a week this summer and want to take my own bike. My worry is that the bikes I have wont cope with the terrain over there though.
The anthem only has 100mm of travel and the trance has no lockouts and is fairly xc oriantated. I have been thinking of selling the trance and rolling the money over into something like a spicy or a zesty to take with me.

So the big question to all who have been out to the alps is....... Would that be wasting my time and my money?? or will I see major benefits from this???

I love riding my anthem. Although not a brilliant all day bike.
I love riding my trance but still pretty xc oriantated.

All help will be much appreciated

Northwind

What flavour of alp? If you're off to bikevillage or somewhere like that, you don't need anything special. If you're doing nothing but downhill, very different.

Sir HC

As Northwind has said, depends what you intend on doing.

I took my ReignX out to the Port Du Soleil. Coped pretty well, got arm pump through the constant battering from braking bumps and from the length of the runs.

The next year I took an Intense Socom, bit more travel than the reign, much comfier, no problems with arm pump.

rhialto

What he said. I took my Lapierre Zesty (140 mm all mountain) to Les Arcs last summer, riding with guides from TrailAddiction (great outfit, BTW). It was 6 days of steep, tight, alpine singletrack. I felt like my Zesty was a bit lightweight for the type of riding we were doing and I would have liked to have tried a 160 mm bike on the same trails. But this is personal opinion. There were guys riding 200 mm bikes and one guy riding a hardtail (although he did say that he wouldn't try that again).

jonnyashworth

To be honest I'm not sure what I will be doing. I'm deffinately not a downhiller but I do like to push my limits. I'm just worried that 120mm of travel will leave me either not able to push myself while I have the access to alpine terrain or it will leave me broken and battered at the end of every day.

Dave_P1

As others have said, it does depend on the sort of riding your going to be doing and the area your heading too.

I've spent a lot of time in the Les Gets / Morzine / Chatel area and a downhill bike is the way forward. To be fair, most of the trials can be ridden on almost any bike, but when it comes to the downhill tracks more travel is a bonus.