It’s been three weeks since my last post and we’ve done so much I don’t really know where to begin. Since the last post we’ve been doing quite a bit of exploring and checking out fun things to do on two wheels in the Alps. So in chronological order here we go:
Sunset Ride, Flims.
The Sunset Ride is simply a must do if you like riding technical alpine singletrack. The tour runs every Saturday during the main summer season and during the school holidays in October. At 2pm you meet the guide by the lift station in Flims and head up to the start of the Runca trail to do a test run. Due to the fact that the trail is quite technical in places they need to make sure that all participants are comfortable on their bikes before taking you on the cable car up to Casons.
The Cassons area is usually forbidden to bike in. The cable car only takes bikes after 3:30pm on Saturday afternoon and only with a guide. On arrival at Cassons you relax for a while and enjoy a Bundner teller and wait for the hikers to take the cable car back down. At about 5pm when the last of the hikers have left the mountain we climb a short distance behind the restaurant and enjoy a stunning view over the surrounding glaciers and St. Martins Loch (The hole in the mountain that can be seen from Elm) before pointing your bike downhill back towards Flims. The trail starts out as a perfect rocky high alpine trail. Rocky features, a little bit of high speed flow and then hard on the brakes into a very tight switchback. We’ve gone 200m and already the trail has had everything I like about biking in the Alps, but it still only gets better! If interested contact Flims/Laax tourism directly.
Gearing up for the start.
Still some snow up there.
Some nice flowy sections.
With unforgetable scenery.
Pick your line wisely.
Aletsch Glacier
I’ve seen the pictures of Aletsch glacier quite often before and always wanted to go and ride my bike overlooking it. We had tried to get up there a few months ago but the weather was so bad we could hardly see the trail directly in front of us, never mind the glacier a few hundred metres below. This time it was a perfect day as we took the cable car from Bettmeralp up to Bettmerhorn. Our route took us from Bettmerhorn towards Fiesch before doubling back on ourselves and heading to Riederfurka and Riederalp. It was certainly one of the most memorable days I have ever had on a bike.
The start of the trail has some big slabs which require your full attention despite the distracting scenery.
A little further on the trail gets a little more playful. The scenery remains distracting.
The glacier in all its splendour.
Just before Riederfurka the trail gets very flowy and continues like this most of the way to the valley
Zermatt
I had been biking in Zermatt about four years ago. That time we did a tour up to Schwarzsee and rode some nice trails back down to the town. The brief this time was to find great trails with great scenery. On the first day we rode the Blauherd/Rothorn area and on day 2 we rode down from Gornergrat to the amazement of some very confused tourists. The trails around Zermatt were superb, however the cost of access was quite high (40CHF for one run up on Gornergrat!) and the area was as expected very crowded. The trails were well worth the cost and the disbelieving looks on the tourists faces as we rode down the first rocky sections from Gornergrat.
Trail from Blauherd – Sunegga
Trail from Blauherd – Sunegga
The view from the top of Unterer Rothorn.
The trail from Unterer Rothorn to Sunegga
Gornergrat
Gornergrat
The trail from Gornergrat to the Valley. That’s Zermatt a long way down there.
The Matterhorn is nearly always visiable on the descent until you get below the treeline.
Portes du Soleil
Having heard so much about it, I felt it was time to go and see what all the hype was about. We stayed in Morzine because of easy access to the Morzine/Les Gets complex and because it would allow some easy trail type rides to the surrounding resorts. The area is one huge bike park and has everything that goes with it. There infrastructure is second to none on most of the lifts the bike carrying capability is superbly thought out (the exception being the Morzine – Pleney lift), there are more then enough bike rental/repair stations and enough shops to get any spares you may need. The trails are prepared, banked turn highways with more braking bumps then you can shake a stick at. If you like high speed gravity assisted but largely non technical trails then this appears to be the place for you. It was fun to blast down some of the banked turns courses (we rode pretty much all of the ones close to Morzine/Les Gets and towards Chatel) but I was quite disappointed by the trails on offer if you wanted to ride technical rocky or rooty trails that you find elsewhere in the Alps. The connecting trails between the resorts were OK, and we found some fun off the beaten tracks sections which were not marked (probably the best trails we found there) but the whole place gave me the feeling that it would be awesome if you didn’t know better places for trail riding existed… but unfortunately for us we had just come from riding some superb trails elsewhere so it was a bit of a let down.
In summary if you like highspeed non technical freeride and don’t mind lift ques go to Portes du Soleil, if you prefer your trail riding with a touch of the technical, like to get off the beaten track and away from the crowds then like me you might prefer to ride elsewhere.
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