Alps Bike Festival takes place in La Clusaz next week with 3 days of events. Around 4000 participants are expected to make the journey to the French mountain resort. With entries due to close on the 13th there’s still a few days left for you to make you’re booking.
The event aims to bring families to a sporting festival in the resort during the summer, whilst many know the area for the skiing in the winter there is great mountain biking in the area waiting to be explored. 6 years ago the resort hosted the alpine counterpart of the Roc d’Azur, the biggest mountain bike event in France: the Roc des Alpes co-organized with ASO was born in 2013. The event accelerated the development of mountain biking in the La Clusaz. The resort now includes 112km of trails with 18 mountain bike circuits including 1 All Mountain track, 1 Bike Park (with 3 complete lines from beginner to expert), 8 Cross Country Tracks, 5 Downhill Tracks and 3 Enduro Tracks. There are 3 MTB lifts to assist cyclists to the top of the mountains.
One of the main events of Alps Bike Festival is Fridays 79km marathon which is part of the UCI World Marathon Series. With 2890 meters ascent the route offers panoramic views of the massif des Aravis. For the less serious participant the marathon can also be tackled as a 2 person relay or 4 person corporate challenge! There are also 30km and 50km cross country events on Saturday and Sunday. There are a variety of other events including Enduro races and kids races.
MarathonMTB.com returns to the race with European Editor Ben Thomas racing the marathon and providing coverage from the weekend’s events. Imogen raced the event back in 2016, you can read her race report here. More information on the event can be found on our event calendar.
Imogen at the event in 2016