White Room Chalet

This summer's Alps trip was to the White Room Chalet. They are based in the tiny ski resort of Sainte Foy which is so small it doesn't even open its lifts in the summer it just runs a minibus shuttle instead. However, they take advantage of nearby resorts too and we rode in Les Arcs and La Thuile (Italy) as well as a backcountry day starting from La Plagne and another run down form the Petit St Bernard Pass. We stayed in their lovely chalet with professional chef so ate really well. Overall the riding wasn't as super technical as we have ridden elsewhere with the focus more on nice link-ups, but Stevo and Iona are great guides, organsie their groups well and really try to make sure everyone has the best time possible.

Tenerife

We travelled to Tenerife with Lavatrax who are now offering a downhill package. It's all van assisted and has some really long descents over a huge variety of often spectacular terrain. I would thoroughly recommend it. We spent a week there and almost rode it out in terms of what they have downhill - but they are still exploring!

We stayed in an appartment in Los Christianos. Nice to have the flexibility to cook your own food or eat out as you want, but Los Christianos is sterotypical Tenerife, full of old British couples and no atmosphere at all. We had a drink in a bar in El Medano, along the coast which has a much better atmosphere - full of kite surfers rather than high rise hotels. It would be more expensive though.

Return to Italy

Went back to Italy with the guys from Rivierabike. I cannot recommend these guys enough. Fantastic riding - three days around Molini, one a bit further along the coast to the East and one above San Remo.
Crossing the ford on Il Tubo - so nameds because of the evil black pipe which throws off more riders than any drop off....
Scenic riding!Into the Blue!

Italian Riviera

Well, what a venue. Without a doubt the best riding we've ever done. Truly varied - cobbled mule roads, tight switchbacks, woodland singletrack, open singletrack, "street" riding (i.e. shallow steps in villages), rock slabs, roots, drop-offs, jumps, berms, built downhill courses. In the high mountains, or finishing on the beach. At the start of the week I tried to take note of the names of my favourite trails, but I gave up when I realised they were all awesome. We probably preferred the trails on the coast, but this may be because it was sunnier there.....

You definitely need an uplift, and probably a guide to make the most of these trails. We would highly recommend RivieraBike who not only do uplifts and guiding, but will also organise the whole week for you (airport transfers, accommodation in a lovely hotel with wonderful traditional food, workshop and lots of TLC if required!)

The only downsides are when it rains there's very little to do, as the limestone trails become extremely slippery and the other trails become too muddy.

There's even some photos of me riding:

Europe

We took our bikes on a kayaking trip to the Pyrenees, but were largely disappointed by what we found. The Spanish and French Cycling Federations have signed loads of routes with small square white signs. However, finding the start of these routes can be non-trivial. Sources of information you’d rely on back home seemed to be ignorant. This included the local bike shops and tourist information bureaus. Sometimes, we even found the noticeboards detailing all the routes, but couldn’t find where the routes started. And of course, without a map of the route you risk losing it entirely if one of the crucial white signs is missing. Assuming you do manage to follow a route all the way, you still might be disappointed, as they are generally technically easy. They can also put all the climb at the beginning of the route. In one case, after 1.5 hours of steady climb uphill (and no idea how well we were progressing) we simply turned around and descended the doubletrack in 15 mins. Our alterative approach was to cycle up the tarmac, until we reached a path descending (outside the national park, which is actually quite small all paths are open to bikers). We ended up finding an awesome Packhorse trail which was great fun (from Enviny via Bressui to Sort). The GR19 is also fun, though probably in a southwards direction (from La Fortunada to Laspuna) as this is slightly downhill.

After realizing we loved biking enough to make it our main summer holiday, we booked a last minute trip to Verbier with a company called Bike Verbier. They provided beds, excellent food, transport, a workshop and most importantly guiding. So all we had to do was relax and get on with it. They also made good use of the lifts. I was initially a bit snobbish about the lifts, but soon realized that using lists meant I could do more of the riding which I love the most – i.e. descents! I’m not going to give away too many of Bike Verbier’s trade secrets, but my favourite tail was?, which starts from the first hairpin from the top of the list access road. It consisted of roots and hairpins, often in combination. At the start of the week this was well beyond me, but on the last day I nailed it and was really pleased.