Aussies visiting Europe
We are a couple of Aussies visiting Europe for 6 weeks mtb riding from Sep 1st this year. Primarily France, Italy, Spain. Excited! We will have a camper van and so will be flexible and self sufficient.
Our emphasis is All Mountain / Cross Country riding rather than serious DH. I will be riding a Giant Trance (140cm travel). We are used to riding both up and downhill although I am sure we'll also be doing some lift assisted riding which is new to me.
Some questions:
1. Any suggestions of 'must ride' destinations?
2. At the european downhill ski resorts do you have to pay to ride there if you don't use the lifts?
3. Is it even possible to ride at the european downhill ski resorts without using lifts? i.e. is riding up and down an option?
4. Outside the resorts, I have read about french cross country trail centres (60,000k of trails according to http://www.ffc.fr). Are any of these good? Singletrack? Or just easy 'family rides' and/or vehicle tracks?
Cheers,
Our emphasis is All Mountain / Cross Country riding rather than serious DH. I will be riding a Giant Trance (140cm travel). We are used to riding both up and downhill although I am sure we'll also be doing some lift assisted riding which is new to me.
Some questions:
1. Any suggestions of 'must ride' destinations?
2. At the european downhill ski resorts do you have to pay to ride there if you don't use the lifts?
3. Is it even possible to ride at the european downhill ski resorts without using lifts? i.e. is riding up and down an option?
4. Outside the resorts, I have read about french cross country trail centres (60,000k of trails according to http://www.ffc.fr). Are any of these good? Singletrack? Or just easy 'family rides' and/or vehicle tracks?
Cheers,
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Comments
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I will be riding a Giant Trance (140cm travel). Christ! Nearly 1.5 meters of travel!
1. Portes Du Soleil has hundreds of KM of singeltrack, and loads of DH. Avoid the DH though as the tracks are pretty chopped up and make riding on shorter travel bikes a pretty unhappy experience.
2. No, you pay for the lift passes, not access to the mountain.
3. Yes, there are tarmac roads which go up to the base stations, and usually dirt access roads to the upper stations. This might not be the case for the highest 'plateau' stations though where they are the only way of accessing the trails other than wild hiking. You could push up the trail as traffic is fairly light, but you'd be in danger of high speed riders coming down.
4. I didn't use any of the XC trails in France, but from what I've seen they look very very good. I want to use them more than I have done on my yearly MTB holiday. I have previously hit the DH parks.0 -
Good info thks0
