Chillchalet accommodation in the French Alps

Mountain biking in Les Arcs

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Home > Mountain Biking > Exploring Les Arcs

Les Arcs consists of five separate resorts, all of which are accessible to mountain bikers. Arc 1600, Arc 1800 and Peisey Vallandry all sit on the west side of a long ridgeline. To the east of this is another valley where Arc 1950 and Arc 2000 are located and beyond that, the highest point - the Aiguille Rouge (3226m). The town of Bourg-st-Maurice where one of our chalets is located is at the bottom of the valley below 1600. During the summer season the resort opens eight of its lifts. A funicular railway takes mountain bikers from Bourg up to 1600 in only 7 minutes, then two high speed gondola lifts and three detachable high speed chairlifts get you around the resort.

Downhill tracks are improved and extended every year as the area becomes more and more popular with mountain bikers. The cachette track in Arc 1600 is one of the best in the Alps. Around six minutes flat out with a vertical drop of 550m and a course length of over 3km. It has played host to a round of the Avalanche Cup for the last three years. Tables, hips, fades, berms (braking bump free!) technical sections and scarily fast straights all feature. If this gets a bit too much for you, you can take the Trans Arc cable car to Arc 2000 for the Plagnettes course. This is a very smooth track with some nice flowing sections and smaller jumps. An excellent course for hardtails.

Single-track covers Les Arcs, whether it be through the forests or out in the open through steep alpine meadows. One of the best known tracks in the area runs from the Arc 1600 back down to Bourg. With a vertical drop of 800 metres through a steep forest, this winding track takes 20 minutes flat out. And the lift back up? Takes just eight minutes and it runs until seven thirty at night! Between Peisey and Arc 1600 there are 12 separate single-track routes running through the forest down to the valley, and thatäs just what's available below 1600m.

Technical riding is where Les Arcs gets right where other resorts have failed. Every lift has at least one technical route running down from it. Higher up on the mountain this involves steep switchbacks over some very loose rocky terrain. Lower down in the forests things get a bit more north shore with the kind of trails where you are constantly on the brakes. This can make for descents lasting up to an hour through technical terrain at very slow speeds.

Epic descents are prevalent in Les Arcs due to the huge drop in altitude. How does a ninety minute downhill grab you? Eighteen hundred vertical metres (yes nearly two kms!) of descent with a mixture of flowing single-track, fire road and technical single-track. And there are three or four completely different routes like this each using different sides of the mountain. More? Bourg Saint Maurice has itäs own skate park and the surrounding forests are littered with dirt jumps. Thereäs even a lake jump. Have a look at a video showing some of the terrain...

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