Champery Portes Du Soleil - Mountain Biking in the Off Season     Back to: Champery Portes Du Soleil Feature      Home

No problem, I had done my research whilst skiing out there that winter and whilst I knew that a lot of the chair lifts and links to other towns in the region were closed, the main Cable Car, or ‘Telepherique’, in Champery was open, and that there were plenty of routes down the mountain from the top. We were driving and so there was always the option to drive to Morzine or Les Gets and possibly explore further afield – maybe visit Verbier or Bex or Rochers de Nayes near Montreux. We weren’t too afraid of pedalling up a couple of mountains if needed! The departure arrived and we loaded up Matt’s Blue Bus with four lots of bikes, spares and clothes for the week. Worries that we would be taking too much and overloading the bus were unfounded. The drive down wasn’t too bad as far as a 9 hour drive from Cherbourg goes. We chose Cherbourg as our nearest ferry was Poole, half an hour’s drive from where we live. So the most convenient ferry port in the UK for us happened to arrive in just about the furthest French port from the Alps! We elected to travel and eat on the hoof. Literally stopping only to fill up the van with fuel and buy food. We were greeted on the first morning by beautiful blue skies, snow capped peaks and warm temperatures. The view of the mountain Cols that make up the border between France and Switzerland as we walked off the Telepherique was fantastic. Electing to take a route in one of the guides from the Tourist Information, we were back down to the village waiting for the next lift back up within an hour. This first descent was a little disappointing. Although the descent was over 700 metres it was mainly double track gravel roads. Pretty sanitised and not much different to fire trails at home. At this point we got chatting to some locals, and realised we were going to have to hunt out the good stuff. We were advised to try the climb up to Col De Cou, then follow the ridge overlooked by the Dents Blanche back to Barme. A 40 minute push under mid afternoon sun reaped its rewards with a cracking ride along a narrow, scary track on a ridge before descending a tricky trail with tight switchbacks to Barme. Once past Barme the trail turned into a fast, loose and rocky double track descent that brought us back to Champery.

The second day the sun still shone and we drove the hour and a quarter to Morzine. We parked and bought a lift pass for the Morzine / Les Gets region. We got chatting to a large Irish chap wearing body armour, riding an out and out DH bike. He eyed us up and down and said in a full Irish lilt, ‘you’ll be looking for XC trails then’ whilst looking at our ‘All Mountain’ bikes. Then he told us we might find the Pleney DH a bit ‘out our league’. This was like a red rag to a bull. “It’s not what you ride it’s how you ride it…” Unfortunately not soon after on the Chaux Fleury downhill in Les Gets I managed to pringle my front rim beyond repair. In a mad panic I found a shop that would replace the rim and rebuild my wheel by the end of the day, at UK local bike shop prices. So I found a bar in the village and whilst drinking a beer waiting for my wheel to get fixed I got a call to tell me one of our guys, Mark L, had managed to ride straight into some mud at very high speed and go over the bars landing on his head. To cut a long story short he ended up in Thonon hospital for an MRI scan to rule out any neck injury. Fortunately he hadn’t broken his neck. Unfortunately it was a serious whiplash injury that would curtail his riding for the rest of the week. Because of this we also cancelled a planned guided ride in Verbier the following day.

The following day the weather was pretty bad so we ended up getting the last lift at 4PM to do some more exploring. We bumped into Steve who was travelling around Europe for six weeks taking in various MTB resorts. He was running a hard tail with a Rohloff Hub, a similar configuration to Matt. Steve decided to join and ride with us for a few days, unfortunately Steve and Matt were to bore us to death with their discussions on the  merits of Rohloff for the rest of the week! During this time we started exploring any signed trails on the side of the mountain. Most of these I guess were really for walkers, but no-one could tell us whether we really shouldn’t use these trails. There was an excellent mix of technical, rocky, and flowing trails and green Alpine meadows. We spent the rest of the week exploring them, working out how they linked up, and also revisiting the Col De Cou route to Barme with our new friend Steve. When the weekend came the chairlift from Les Crosets to the top of the red DH track opened. And so we were able to try this route a number of times. It’s a great trail but very short. It was fun to use the chairlifts and just keep going up and back down on the same trail. The last day came all too quickly and we kept riding until the last lift.

A 9 hour drive back to Cherbourg gave us plenty of time to reflect on the trip…
Champery in early season is great. You just have to explore more. The fact that Steve decided to extend his stay in Champery by 3 days to ride with us backs up this statement.
6 days of riding mainly natural trails had improved all of our riding skills immensely.
Worries about DH Tyres, Full Face helmets, and knee and arm protection being OTT were unfounded. Everybody wears this gear out there and after seeing the results of Mark’s crash well recommended.
Would I go again? Yes. Would I go again at the same time of year? Yes, but I would also like to go a few weeks later in the season to explore all the links and routes when the ski lifts and links are open…