Verbier

The 'want' for big bike shredding

Rich wanted to get out on his new DH sled again after several weeks of intense Alpinism. This suited me and Tom H so we made plans to go to Verbier. We've ridden a lot in les Houches/St Gervais area and we can explore again another season. Plus we are all heading off in different directions over the next few months before winter arrives so chances to hit up Saleve, Crans Montana, Verbier, Chalais, etc may be slim.

There aren't any photo's I'm afraid as we barely stopped all day long! Bad blogging, but we just kept going, floaty little jumps, big jumps, drops, rocks and perfect berms. There may only be 3 main lines at Verbier, but they are so well built they all deserve several laps to get into the flow of them and know the best lines and jumps. There is steep tech on the red line, but not Cham style so you can open it up on the big bikes and zoom round berm's into a large root garden's and floaty jumps. The yellow line starts in the open on a ski piste with rocky, bermy and jumpy sections that finishes off in the woods with some large jumps and very difficult sections to keep your speed through. Perfect for lapping multiple times trying to get everything right!

We decided the trails are just a perfect mix of technical-ness to keep you on your toes, but fast enough to be really challenging and exhilarating. GO CHECK IT OUT!
Oh and watch out for the local on a Spesh 29ner Enduro who will pass you on the gnarly black trail wearing only an open face XC helmet cruising down it like it's a family cycle trail.

Singletrack-world

In the afternoon we meet a local Irish lad who had told us that it was possible to ride all the way down to le Chable where we had parked my car. I picked up a Verbier branded hiking trail map to try and work out some good lines. You can take the Cham riders out of Cham, but you can't take the desire for Cham-singletrack out of them. We dropped in off a 'bise' 10mins easy uphill ride around the corner from the top lift station (We're from Cham, what's a little uphill?). It was marked with the typical yellow Swiss walking trail signs and we were rewarded with about 1400m descent of classic Verbier singletrack everyone has heard about. Alpine switchbacks flowed into Spruce forests and down into meadows and back into the tree's and pretty much right into le Chable. It was easy to follow thanks the skid marks of a season's worth of "enduro" bikers and high quality Suisse sign posting.

Quality!

check out Tom's photo's from earlier in the season here:
http://www.verbinet.com/activities/report/verbier-activity-report-6th-july-2013.html

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