There's nothing easier than a cliche to start an article. 'All good things must come to an end', 'the fat lady's singing' etc, etc. In case you'd not got the clues, the MTB accessible lifts in Chamonix closed at the weekend.
Fortunately it's but a temporary lull before Brevent re-opens for the Thanksgiving [Toussaint] holidays between the 17th October and 6th November.
Less conveniently there's only one 'official' bike trail accessible from the Brevent lifts (there is a recognised trail down the 4x4 or fire road!) although there are other options for more advanced riders.
That's in three weeks time though, so this weekend we rode the trails from the Bellevue cable car above Les Houches. The bike park trails in Les Houches are located below the Prarion gondola, but you could still reach them with a bit of traversing from Bellevue. And if that seems like too much effort then there's plenty other options out there for testing your skills.
A combination of perfect weather, Bellevue being the access point from the Chamonix valley for the Gouter route up Mont Blanc and this being one of the few lifts open to mountain bikers still running in the local area, meant that it was a bit of a gamble as to whether everyone was going to get on the same lift up or not. Fortunately our group size of four seemed to be the right size for just sneaking us all onto the cable car - some of the larger groups of riders weren't so lucky.
If you've never ridden the natural trails below Bellevue then you should give them a go. Just don't expect them to be a push over (infact, for most people there'll be at least some sections that are a push down). There's a little bit of everything on the way down, from the fast and open trail descending the Grands Bois piste to the very tight and very steep switchbacks of the GR5 trail, allegedly Cedric Gracia's favourite trail in Chamonix.
As great as the quickly accessed trails below the gondola are, we felt like giving our brakes a bit of a rest and traversed over towards the Col du Voza then joined the mellower angled trails normally ridden from Prarion. Here we could get our fix of root gardens, bike park berms and some man made jumps.
All this is really just teasing you I guess, the Bellevue (and Prarion) are now closed until the winter, but perhaps there's couple ideas for next summer when all this comes round again. Or if you're really enthusiastic, you could always pedal up....
