Views of the Kona Bike Park above Les Gets

Many of you will already be very familiar with the attractions of the Portes du Soleil area in the French Alps, but there’s a bunch of new stuff for 2005. The 24 ski lifts have been open since 24 June and they’ll all be open until 28 August, with some staying open through September and into October.

There’s over 660km of waymarked MTB trails in the area, but the main attraction is all the downhill and freeride stuff. For 2005 there’s ten permanent downhill runs with the addition of the Lindarets run at Avoriaz. There’s also been some changes to the Grand Conche black run at Champery-Les Crosets and the Mont Chery black into Les Gets has been rerouted to separate bikes and hikers. The start is now a bit lower (from the Mont Chery gondola) and there’s a selection of lines to choose on the way down.

It’s freeride stuff that’s seen the most development, though. As well as the existing bike park in Champery, with dirt jumps, 4X and trials obstacles, there’s a new Chatel bike park, sponsored by Vario, featuring eleven courses at different levels (one green, three blue, three red and four black) including Shore-style obstacles. There’s also a short XC loop and a Cross Park. The Cross Park has three zones – a 150m long Shore zone with bridges, tree trunks and boulders, a 500m 4X track with a variety of jumps and a “field of bumps” featuring different-sized lumps and jumps that you can roll or jump in probably a million different ways depending on how good you are.

Then there’s the Kona Bike Park under the Grand Ourse chairlift above Les Gets and features a host of spiffy stuff to launch yourself off. From the top you’ve got a choice of two ladder drops, the big scary one off the top of a mountain hut or the smaller, mellower one. Both drop into a steep landing zone, or there’s a set of berms if you don’t fancy leaving the ground. Then you’ve got a bunch of choices, taking in berms, spines, left- and right-handed wall rides, tabletops, doubles, step-ups, wooden bits and bobs, a see-saw, hip jumps and all sorts of other stuff. Down the bottom there’s a bunch of parallel dirt-jump sections arranged in order of difficulty – low tabletops at one end, steep doubles at the other. Oh, and a monster double over another hut for any John Cowan wannabes to have a go at.

Adult lift passes are 14 Euros a day, or 54 Euros for six days. More details at www.portesdusoleil.com.