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| Mountain
Biking Trails. |
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| We've put a couple
of mountain bike trails together to get you up &
going on when you first get here. |
| Description. |
| One of the most
popular mountain biking trails to get started on is
the Petit Balcon Nord. It starts off in Chamonix town
by the paragliding landing field & |
winds its way
gently through the Bois de Bouchet. As you cross under
the road and follow a tarmaced section you'll pass the
Pierre d'Orthaz, a famous bouldering stone. The path
gradually starts to climb here & you pass the river
l'Arveyron, with the river l'Arve on your left. Keep
going straight on and follow the dirt road up past the
small goat farm and turn left to cross the l'Arve over
the small wooden bridge.
Head straight on down the track & take the first
right up a small incline, take it easy here as the path
gently climbs through the forest. Take the turning right
up to Lavancher, this section is steep & technical
over the gravel, keeping rear wheel traction can be
difficult. The path switches back a couple of times
as it climbs & then you emerge at the top of the
small, pretty village of Lavancher.
Head down the road round 2 tight bends until you see
a sign to the right, you pass a few chalets & then
cross over a beautiful alpine meadow & start to
climb again into the forest. Here you have another technical
section, as the path climbs up you have to negotiate
a number of large tree rooted sections. After this the
path narrows & undulates with a series of sharp
bends on the forest track. This part is great fun but
be careful, its easy to meet another rider coming the
other way & find yourself still attached to your
bike doing cartwheels down the sheer drop on your left.
As you pass over a couple of streams the path forks,
you can take the short route down to the left &
come out at the bottom of Les Grand Montets carpark
or climb up to the right. The climb takes you further
through the forest & has a nice little downhill
section. The trail takes you to Les Grands Montet cable
car where you just head downhill through the carpark.
At the end of the carpark turn right over the bridge
& as the road heads up into Argentierre drop down
the track to your left. You pass over a number of small
wooden footbridges where in some cases you can go straight
through the streams. The path follows the river through
the forest where there are some nice, but short little
downhill technical sections. One point to look out for
though is there's a 6-8ft blind gully that crosses the
path, it comes up on you pretty quick & you can't
see the bridge that traverses it until quite late. From
here the track is a gentle downhill to the Flegere golf
course where you arrive at the main road. You can head
back to Chamonix via the Bois du Bouchet or take the
road through Les Praz and into town. |
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