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Short and Sweet

Two days of short but sweet Cham valley singletrack Oli style


One of the great things about living in an area with ski lifts is that you can get easy access to some quality descending very easily, even if you only have a few hours to spare.  This is ideal if like me you have your girlfriends birthday to be back for, or perhaps children or work commitments.  Or like today with my trip up Brevent, all your riding buddies are either away riding elsewhere (chamonet crew), working or in Andy's case, on his best behaviour the day before his wedding!

 Friday, Lap 1: Frontside switchbacks off Grands Montets.  Lap 2: Down to Les Bois off G.M
The big storms had past, but the typical summer weather had not quite returned.  Tom H wanted to shred before having a weekend of riding with his proffessional camera bag setup (see lesarc-net soon). So with warm clothing on we hit up a couple of G.M laps.  The frontside trail is great fun with little wall rides, tight and wide switchbacks:
Tom H wallriding
Me wallriding
Emerging out of the mist
Still in the mist
That's me
And again following the grumpy runner
For our second lap we took the classic descent all the way down through Lavancher, and down to les Bois. Lower down in the trees just above Lavancher the large damp roots criss crossing the trail made the bikes skitter all over the place, but we survived and loved it.  It makes a nice change to a classic descent to ride it in wet conditions.
Les Grands Montets

Goat farm meadow perfectness
Total Descending: 1700m Total Time: Around 3 hours

 Today (Saturday) I headed up Brevent first thing to get started before too many walkers got out.  After watching 5 wingsuit mentalists jump off the top it was time for my own mental challenge.  The descent off the very top of Brevent is very rocky and technical, if you look for a good line sections can flow, but some of the corners are very slow and almost trials like.

 After a few ups and downs its time for the main push across and up to Aiguillette Des Houches.  Its around 30mins of hike a bike. Being by myself I was able to look at some flowers without any abuse.
Brevent on the left, path up in foreground

Aiguille du Midi

Cotton Grass and perfect blue sky

Tyre track

View of the Fiz
Upon reaching the col you have two options, descend left on a fast section and back to Chamonix. Ideally out of season you can descend from here, 2285m all the way to Les Gaillands on the outskirts of Chamonix.  In previous years we have taken the right hand ridge line option all the way down to Servoz. This gives you 1500m of classic alpine descending from up in the open all the way down through the pines and larches to the village.  Today I did part of the epic ridgeline, then cut left back across to descend all the way to Les Houches.  There were a few walkers around so it took me 50mins to get all the way down.  Perfect strength training for the Trans-Savoie!
Ridgeline singletrack
Where's the helicopter to film me
Mont Blanc view, check, buff singletrack, check,  blue skies, check!
Total Descending: 1800m Total Time: 3 hours


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