Exploring France's Secret Bike Parks - Abries

Of everywhere we rode this summer, Abries has to be the furthest away from the classic idea of a bike park or resort. With its stone houses and twisting streets, there is not a single apartment block or cement building to be found. To drive in you have to wait for traffic lights to pass a tiny, single gauge road since the main road was destroyed by a landslide some years back and they are struggling to re-secure it. In fact, it barely counts as a town, more a village nestling amidst the mountains of the Queyras.

The region is mostly popular amongst hikers, although it has a good reputation among riders who search for the higher, wilder trails too - around the area you can scale multiple 3,000m summits with your bike. Yet here, sitting in the field on the edge of town is a chairlift.






2020 was our first time riding in Abries, and in many ways it is the spot that sparked the idea for this series. After riding in a few medium-sized bike parks, rolling up to what in truth is little more than a hut in a field with an aging chairlift heading up didn’t seem too great.

That the chairlift is slow and they can’t send people up and down at the same time, so if someone is coming down you need to wait for their entire descent, wasn’t reassuring. Neither were the green and blue trails, they’re ok, well-maintained, but they struggle to put too much of a grin on your face. The black was closed while we were there because the cows were on that part of the mountain.

Then I rode the red run…






That morning I think I put in 6 laps on it, a couple more in the afternoon too. As you drop from the lift, through the fence into the trail proper, you are thrown straight into a rollercoaster that spits you out at the bottom of the hill with the biggest grin on your face.

It’s not the hardest trail in the world, I’m not even sure it would keep its red designation in most bike parks. There are no real gaps or technical sections, but there are bucketloads of that ever-elusive thing in our sport: flow. Corners are lovingly shaped and strung together, little fly-offs and dips break up the rhythm so it never gets monotonous.






As you learn the track you find you can go faster and faster, brake later, turn harder. On the lower series of berms you can go nuts. They are shaped in a way that means you always have the support you need, and the only limit I could find was my own bravery. By the final run of the afternoon I was cornering so hard I could feel the front triangle of my bike start to squirm and flex under me.

I left that afternoon in love with that trail, telling anyone who would listen that it was the best thing I rode all year. And that brings us back to my idea of big wave surfing. If you were to judge Abries as a bike park, it would not do too well, you wouldn't want to book your annual riding holiday here (you might for the backcountry riding, but not for the bike park). Yet as part of this trip hunting for moments it is a real gem.






Coming back for 2021 I was nervous. What if it wasn't as good as I remember it being?

I didn't need to worry, from my first run down that grin was there on my face. It only helped running it with someone I rode with long ago and taking an all-out lap chasing each other down the hill together.

Taking a term from skiing, the French call the people who look after the trail "shapeurs", which I think is a far more fun name than trail crew. Here in Abries that is Florian. Born here in the valley, each winter he works as ski patrol then turns his hand to the trails in the summer. He explained to me that a while ago they had a professional trailcrew come and secure the permissions and build the green, blue and red trails.





Originally they built giant bike park berms, but the cows trampled them down over the winter, so what is left now is a small scale replica of their line. Yet while he may not have created it, it is Florian who makes sure each corner is angled and supported so that you can keep pushing harder and harder. Here in the Southern Alps I can think of more than a few bike parks where the trailcrew haven't understood where in a corner you need support. As you approach the corner looks perfect, usually the entry is good, you float through the middle ready to push out of the exit and... nothing. No support on the exit. Your speed and flow are lost.

That never happens here, the trail is always there waiting to catch you. Should I mention there isn't a single braking bump in sight too? That is all thanks to Florian, well on most days it is. He also doubles up as a backcountry guide, so if he has a group his girlfriend and his buddy step up and take turns to pilot the rake. And that is why I love Abries - it is weird and small with one perfect trail.


Abriès mountain biking trails