The ultimate lift, Spring 2015

I have talked before about the beauty and technicality of the area surrounding the Telepherique du Brevent. It’s somewhere not many mountain bikers venture, like the North face steep skiing lines off the Aiguille du Midi lift, it’s for the high calibre adventurist only.

So off four of us set!

The previous day we’d blasted around the best of le Tour/Switzerland/le Buet area in a mad frenzy trying to tick off the best on offer. We didn’t ride everything, but we sure had fun, and could have gone back there for Sunday, but no, instead we headed high above Chamonix Town in search of tech rock rides, hike-a-bike and a huge descent into Servoz. Overall we did 1900 metres of descending. Along the way we bumped into a Scottish hooligan, and linked into our classic Flatiere trails for high speed shredding and mate chasing shenangians.

At the end of the afternoon we drank beer’s and ate French snacks before heading back from Servoz on the train ready for the big Fete de la Musique party in Cham town. A huge day out with a great crew, a huge evening out partying. This equals a perfect Chamonix style days!

This is what happens when the pro photog' rides and the guide takes a close-up photo= bike in the background

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Aiguille de la Grande Sassiere 3751m

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What guides do between work in the peak of July

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In a small hard to reach valley there is a real gem of bike-friendliness Tom H. Photo by Tom G The road up! It was a long drive, but the girls did us well! We'd only seen a few cars on the hairy, Verdon Gorge-esque road up to the ski resort village of Saint Luc. The road up was stunning and the views into the steep sided gorge were worth the drive alone. We'd come to bike, and upon pulling into the carpark we were greeted by a lack of parking spots. Is it going to be too busy today? The funiculare train only runs every 30mins at weekends. The bike park was so busy that they were running the funicular constantly meaning very little que time. Not that 30 minutes is that bad, but it meant we kept going and going all day long. Another reason we kept going lap after lap was that the trails were so good! The Swiss bike park's always seem to have a good setup and are alwats so well looked after. Despite constant funicular access it ...

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