Poaching Chamonix - A Smuggler’s Treasure Trove.

“Disguise them!” I say with the stubborn determination of a dog eyeing up a bone. Guillaume smiles at me benignly, like I am a small child who knows nothing of the world outside PS2. “All we need is some big bags and the tools to put our bikes back together at the top,” I add to help explain. I can see my fellow rider is already seeing sense in my idea. After all, the trail we’re both itching to ride is an epic: more than a vertical kilometer of twisting singletrack, much of it fringing the spectacular, moraine-strewn Bionassey glacier. It’s probably one of the world’s most spectacular trails, and all that stands in the way of riding it is a 2000ft climb from a lofty ridge. The good news is that there is a lift: a century-old cog railway called the Tramway Mont Blanc, that shuttles countless shell-suited tourists to its lofty 8000ft Nid d’Aigle (Eagle’s Nest) top station and entrance to our trail. The bad news is that it doesn’t allow bikes.


I’ve ridden the trail once before, not enough to know every turn and front wheel drifting gravel-strewn corner, but enough to emerge at the other end grinning like a nutter immersed in that fuzzy glow that finishes every first ride on an epic new trail, enough to know I’d be back to session it again. To reach the valley floor again there sits nearly five thousand vertical feet of swoopy bends, puckering exposure, challenging switchbacks and perfect natural jumps. How could it not be worth a revisit? Enter the bike disguise idea.


Chamonix has eight bike friendly lifts. It has several more, all soaring vertically upwards between sharp, needle-like peaks to arrive at beautiful singletrack that has a ‘no-bike’ policy. The top section of the Tramway du Mont Blanc is one such bike-free lift, but allows hoards of climbers and parapenters bent double under backpacks the sizes of small Eastern European countries to board freely. “If we can make our bikes look like paragliders, or one of the many other random things people carry to the top of mountains to fuel their adrenaline-junkie addictions, we could be on to a winner; we could ride the trails that these lifts access with minimum of sweat” I propose. The beauty of today’s rigs, with their bolt on rear swing-arms and drop through, threadless steerer forks, is that you can pull them apart, stuff them in a bag and re-assemble them with just a pocket multi-tool.


Sweat is something that figured significantly in our previous mission to ride the Nid’ trail a year earlier. Then we’d been denied access to the train, as according to the guard, “There are no rideable trails at the Nid d’Aigle”. The guard, of course, looked like someone whose own ‘mountain bike’ was a $80 supermarket special and probably sported a shopping basket. “It’s too technical, too steep” he said, politely slamming the door in our faces. In a place that prides itself on allowing the kind of freedom that allows dozens of people throw themselves off mountain peaks, or fall into crevasses to their deaths every year, this attitude seemed a tad blinkered. Surely we, as riders, should be the judge of whether a trail is rideable. Persevering, we hiked and pushed our bikes up from the 1800 metre high Bellevue cablecar station, tripping over railway sleepers and clattering cleats on scree for an hour and a half. The trail we discovered was a virginal swathe of dirt that never sees a tyre track, and epic indeed.


It’s different this time though: I haven’t sweated a drop to get here, leaving every ounce of my energy reserves for the epic descent ahead. This time we let the train take the strain. When we board the train I’m a little nervous, concerned that our plan will be foiled. Three men dressed in shorts and flipflops hauling odd-sized bags might look a little suspect, even arouse interest from the FBI in some places, but in Chamonix, where the streets are awash with strangely dressed tourists and mountain folk, all sporting irregularly shaped bags, we don’t raise so much an eyebrow from the ticket inspector. He even helps us load our five bits of luggage onto the train, unaware that in three are bike frames and helmets and the other two, wheels and shoes. There is nothing about our appearance to suggest we are mountain bikers, we’ve seen to that.


At the top we haul our bags around the corner from the station and set about re-assembling our bikes under the intrigued gaze of Vibram-soled hikers and Japanese tourists. Twenty minutes is all it takes to be up and rolling, and with the empty bags stashed under rocks until I can nip back up on the train next morning to collect them, we push down on our cranks and are catapulted into the start of the descent. The trail winds its way across open mountainside, leisurely rounding outcrops before dipping purposely towards the valley floor, far, far below. We set off fast, reeling in our speed as we realize the trail is looser than we remember. As we drop into switchbacks I’m torn between focusing on the trail ahead and lifting my Xen’s peak for a view of the mighty towers of ice that sit only a stone’s throw - or an unlucky fall - away to my left. An hour later we’ll be spinning across a meadow, having ridden one of the world’s most spectacular trails, and all without so much as a pedal stroke uphill. Stage one of the plan is a success.


The best-laid plans, of course, usually include three stages. We don flip-flops once more to board the Montenvers cog railway for the half hour ride up to the Mer de Glace, the massive glacier that gave Mary Shelley inspiration for parts of her book, Frankenstein. It’s another trail that we have ridden once before, then enduring the forty minute grind and hour long bike shouldering session to reap the fruits of our labour: a brake pad burning descent back to Chamonix. This time it’s a breeze of course, at least the getting up there is. The trail is a real epic, littered with challenging granite step offs that test our mettle, but guarantee a grin. By the time we reach the trail end we’re exhausted, 5000ft and thirty switchbacks behind us.



Our last challenge is the one that causes us to sweat just from joining the queue of ice-axe wielding climbers. We’re about to board the legendary Aiguille du Midi cable car, a legend in its own right and a feat of 1950’s engineering that makes its millions of annual visitors question if the French have a death-wish. The top lift soars to a mighty 12,000ft, but we jump off at the 7500 ft mid station and begin an hour traverse to the abandoned 1920’s lift station and the start of an truly unridden descent. This is virgin territory and none of us know of anyone who has dropped this trail on a bike. The towering mountains of Chamonix reap havoc on our sense of scale and the hike-a-bike traverse takes us over an hour and includes circumnavigating below a glacier; it’s no surprise this trail has kept its virginity. Finally we reach the ruined lift station with its still intact frescos adverts for Dubonnet adorning its walls, and start the descent, rolling into a snaking trail that drops steeply alongside a broken sea of ice. It’s mighty terrain, and cloud swirls around spiky peaks.


An endless field of ice - Chamonix harbors the lowest glaciers in Europe - sits only a stones throw from our side. For the next hour we pick our way down tight switchbacks and committing line choices, sweating our way down 4000ft of insane trail, until wide-eyed and dry mouthed we’re spat out at the bottom, among the thong of backpacks in Chamonix’ high street. I’m exhausted and mentally destroyed. I look at Jez and Guillaume and they are equally wide eyed. If we had the energy, we’d wrangle a smile, but for now I’m happy to just sit, enveloped in a warm fuzzy glow, knowing the gold mine has been tapped for probably the first time.


Riding Chamonix
The Chamonix valley has an almost mythical reputation for epic singletrack trails, most are shared use hiking trails, and technical at that. This extreme mountaineering town and its lift system is a far cry from the biker buzz and body-armour whiffs that tinge the streets of mountain bike meccas like nearby Les Gets. With 8 lifts accessible to bikes between June to September, there is plenty of riding to be had without poaching lifts, but many trails are steep and technical. If you want to know the best spots then hook up with a guided outfit such as www.mbmb.co.uk. With over 17 years of trail knowledge they are unrivalled in showing you the best trails in the valley.


The Aiguille du Midi
Although you can’t officially take your bike on the Aiguille du Midi cable car, a ride up to the top station is a must during any visit to Chamonix. While you’re standing breathless at its 3842 metre summit, gazing across at the peak of Mont Blanc, spare a thought for the team of 60 climbers that, in 1955 scaled the vertical North Face of the Aiguille each carrying a coiled section of the 1800 metre long cable: the only way then to get the single-piece cable to the summit. Reaching the peak is via a two-stage lift. The second part is a single span rising 1550 metres with the top cable car dock nestled between enormous hanging glacial ice.


All photography by Dan Milner. You can see more of Dan's incredible work on his website.

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