Mountain biking in Barboleuse…
We’ve had a quiet few days here in Chatel as the weather on our side of the Portes du Soleil had closed right in and it was very wet. Very uninspiring for mountain biking after we had had a great week previously.Having been to Barboleuse that week and we were told that there were a few XC orientated freeride routes to the opposite side of the of the valley headed down on the riders left toward Gryon and then on down to Bex. We decided to check them out on the basis that if it was wet then at least we had another couple of routes under our belts. But how wrong we were! The ground was very dry considering how close it is to us here Chatel and how bad ours had been. We headed out following our Carte D’excursions – St Maurice maps. Finding the trail head was tricky on the first trip down as we were told that it headed out of the car park but in actual fact it headed down just by the campsite. The first section was a great opener leading to a road section. We then saw on the map that we had to head down to a river section and then up to a made track. When we got there the scale of the map didn’t do the climb justice! suffice to say even on the path it was bikes on our backs!!! Not great when your already carrying a 6 kilo guide pack! once we had done the climb we were on our way again and the rest of the route back down was a sweet mix of traverse, small ups and epic decents. Recomended to anybody! The second route was a continuation of the first. Taking us through the carpark up to the campsite and down the first decent following the same route down but bypassing the monster climb with our bike on our backs! We looked on the map and saw we could do a bigger road traverse and then head up a combination between made road and umade road for about a kilometer which took us to another awsome decent. taking us through a mixture of open track, forest and then down again into Bex. All in all a great 5 hours in the saddle and not a rain drop in site. Using the trains which depart from Bex, Aigle and Montreaux, You can generally ride this whole area as soon as the snow melts! www.magic-rides.com
Tags: Bike Chatel, chatel bike park, chatel freeride, chatel mountain biking, mountain biking Barboleuse, Mountain biking Chatel, ride chatel, Taxi Barboleuse
