Mountain biking at Les Houches
Get the guests along to the bike hire shop before 0900, otherwise all the bikes have gone. Helmets on, then off we go, down through town towards the Lac des Gaillands and climbing wall.
Day's lift pass - bargain at 13€
Ride along the path through the woods parallel with the river, before crossing the Arve and heading along the road into Les Houches. Buy a lift pass at the Bellevue cable car (bargain at only 13€ a day for unlimited rides with bike up Bellevue and the Prarion bubble). Why the hell ride uphill if you can stick the bike on a lift?!? Pick up a couple of route maps (v similar to skiing piste maps) and into the cable car.
From the top at about 1900m, there's a wonderful panorama from Mont Blanc on your right, across the Chamonix valley and left around to St Gervais and Les Contamines. Check everyone is helmeted up and set off down the wide track towards the Col de Voza, riding parallel with the Tramway du Mont-Blanc, an old rack-and-pinion railway that goes from St Gervais in the valley right up to the Nid d'Aigle at 2400m+.
The track changes from mostly firm mud with a few puddles to rocks and pebbles a few hundred metres further on. There are quite a few walkers about, so you need to respect them and try not to knock 'em into the bushes... Get a good lick of speed up over the rocks, get your bum off the saddle, hang it over the back wheel for better distribution of weight - and go for it! There are several sharpish bends on the track - use the back brake to slide/skid speedway-style around them while keeping the speed up. Pick out the rocks ahead of you and line some of them up for little hops.
Watch out for the gulleys across the track
Drainage gulleys run horizonally or diagonally across most mountain tracks. Some are very small - little more than a narrow drainpipe which you don't even feel as you ride over it. But many of them are quite broad channels with a distinct dip and rise that you need to negotiate. Get it right and you can use the rise as a ramp to get a bit of air. But get it wrong and it's saddle-in-the-balls time...
At the Col de Voza, cross the tramway again and bear left in front of the hotel, following the track as it rises slightly. After about 200m of easy climbing, it's downhill all the way. This is my sort of mountain biking!
Following the track all the way down, you pass in and out of the trees, keeping the speed up and watching out all the time for big rocks and drainage gulleys. Just like when you're on skis or a board, you can pop off the track and use bits of the hill to get some air. You're generally using your back brake to control speed - get too heavy on the front brake and you'll be straight over the handlebars. You tend to feather the front break - on/off, on/off - to help control where the bike goes.
La Vieille Luge - what a restaurant...
Just before you get back into Les Houches, you come past La Vieille Luge, surely one of the most beautiful mountain restaurants in the Alps. Run by Aussie Julie and local Claude, it's a renovated wooden 'cheese barn' (not really sure how else to describe it) and has been in Claude's family for generations. Even for a non-horti like me, Julie's beautiful flower garden is something else. It's incredible to think that it's covered in snow half the year. Get a table outside in the garden and order a carafe of the house rosé - very nice it is, too. The food is lovely - a mixture of traditional local stuff like farcon and other more widely-known dishes.
If you can tear yourself away from that perfect resting spot, it's a short burn down to Bellevue - sploshing through a few puddles and streams - and then you're back into the cable car.
To St Gervais via Bionnassay
From the top, head down the same track to start with, but instead of crossing the tramway at Col de Voza and riding back to Les Houches, this time we turn left and follow the track over the back side of the mountain in the St Gervais and Les Contamines direction. There are more cycle routes marked and signposted on this side. You come down through beautiful Heidi-style meadows to Bionnassay. Here, you veer uphill a little and follow the path of the Torrent du Bionnassay, the glacial torrent that flows out of the Glacier du Bionnassay. They produce some fabulous goat's cheeses in this little valley - stop at one of the farms and buy it directly from the producer if you can. Cross the Torrent, ride a little bit further uphill, then it's downhill all the way once again!
You come steaming down through yet more impossibly beautiful meadows and woodlands, before reaching the hamlet of Le Champel. Here, you rejoin a small tarmac road for a rip-roaring blast right down to the bottom of the valley near St Gervais. There are 8-9 hairpins on the road and if you're feeling brave (stupid) enough, it's a hell of a thrill to drop the knee and take them at speed - fingers crossed that there aren't any cars coming the other way...
Up the Tramway du Mont Blanc
Eventually you'll ride into St Gervais, from where you can catch the tramway back up to the Col de Voza (you can only put bikes on the last 2 trains of the day, leaving at about 1700 and 1730). Chuck your bikes on and enjoy the ride in this beautiful old train as it meanders slowly up through the forests. Rested, get out again at Voza and either take the earlier route down to Les Houches or follow another one more to the right as you look downhill (we prefer the original one). From there, it's just a few km back up to Chamonix (though you'll be knackered by then).
It's a fab way to spend a day in the mountains. The whole thing is very similar to when you're skiing - getting on/off lifts, consulting the route/piste map, stopping at mountain huts/restaurants, diving down into different valleys and the exhilaration of hurtling down a mountain at speed. Not everyone likes it - to get the most out of it, you need to let your fear go a bit and relax. You'll get sploshed with mud and can hurt yourself if you come off on rocky tracks at speed, although the helmet (and other protection if you're wearing it) should prevent the really nasty stuff. But we love it...!