Videos of my day bouncing around the Les Gets bike Park in the Alps

Having survived the Gremlins and made it to the trails, this blog is the story of the runs I did at the Les Gets bike park, I worked my way around the mountains and recorded the blue runs on a perfect day in August 2025.

On this trip, Strava was been my only companion and without the normal distractions of my mates, I’ve managed to make into all time top 10 for the old people (over 65) on all the runs and I’ve enjoyed every second of it.

L’Arpette trail

The first run of the day is the L’Arpette trail, this runs across country and will probably be the first introduction to the steep berms, which are the main characteristic of the blue trails in this part of France. For people coming out from the UK these can be a shock, but also very exciting, because you realise this is going to be the real deal.

The L’Arpette is mainly exposed so at least you can see where you are going but takes you into the trees on the second section for a taster of what is to come and after bouncing around in the woods it drops you out at the bottom of the Nauchets lift.

The ride up in the Nauchets lift is spectacular, it starts in a bowl, and you can see how busy this would be in the winter, but on a hot and sunny summer’s day it is difficult to imagine the area being covered in snow.

The lift takes up and over the runs that await you. It takes you over a labyrinth of trails that run down under the lift and gives you a great view of the challenges that await you when you get to the top. In fact, there are 3 different trails weaving their way down the mountain under the lift, and even more amazingly, they don’t actually cross each other thankfully.

Les Nauchets

This video covers the left hand trail at the top section of that runs down under the under the lift. These top trails take a real hammering but when I was there, it was really nice and dry, and they were really solid. The top of the berms were cracking a bit but it really gets you in the mood and you will probably do them a few times.

The trails under the lift don’t seem to have a name, but there are 2 blues and a black, this is the video that covers the blue trail that runs down the right hand side, Lots of challenges and rollers to keep you focused and at times there seems to be riders coming straight at you until their trail veers away.

The next challenge is which trail to take back down to the bottom of the lift, there are 2 options and as most people go up and down this area repeatedly you will end up doing both. The first one you will see is called the The Shore and is probably the most popular because of its location.

Consequently, it takes the biggest hammering from thousands of chunky tyres, but the hard baked berms and run through the trees gives plenty to concentrate on and in the second section drops into more trees before the fast run back to the lift. When you do these trails in the wet, they are much hairier, as the soil is a type of clay and you slide all over the place on the steep berms,

The Shore trail

The alternative is the Triple 8 trail which is by far my favourite, it is on the same fire track as The Shore but involves about 5 minutes of pedalling to get to it. It starts with a drop off the path, so you are flying downhill from the start in and into the first berm.

This is just a fantastic trail to get your pulse racing; it’s steep winding and really challenges your courage and brakes. It feels like you’re on some sort of Helter Skelter ride as the berms get steeper and tighter and you are holding on.

Triple 8 trail

On my first visit here my brakes overheated on this run, that added to the excitement and ultimately 3 broken ribs as I didn’t realise that once brake fluid has overheated it loses its effectiveness and I had a horrible crash the next day when they weren’t there when I needed them most !

Unfortunately, the Go Pro on the front of the handlebars is looking ahead at the berm so isn’t looking down the mountain, consequently it doesn’t really capture how steep it is. Try to imagine it’s vertical and the only thing that’s stopping you going straight down the hill is the berms, if you do the black run, you just go straight down the hill!

After hammering the runs, it is time to head back. Normally I do the route around the mountain into Morzine for a change as there is a brilliant section at the top but the end is a bit boring down a fire track and the queues out of Morzine can be huge so I skipped it as I had still had La Chatel to look forward to.

The run back is called Tomahawk. This run starts at the very top of Les Gets at Nauchets lift and runs down to around halfway where it meets up with La Roue Libra. The first section is fast as you come off the fire road and into the trail with through berms and tabletops, my mate The Mechanic ended up in the undergrowth here after misjudging his speed. It then runs under the Chavannes Express lift across open country before diving fast into the trees and a load of tabletops that will have you much higher in the air than you expect before twisting back through the berms.

Tomahawk Trail

La Roue Libra

As this is the run home, the trail gets busier here so find a free run without being hassled by a Young Turk or finding yourself behind a slow coach isn’t easy. You then join La Roue Libra It follows on from the Tomahawk route in the top section and takes you down through a long winding and very fast set of berms into the jump park near the bottom. It is a really fast ride but due to the wear it is easy to lose the trail in the labyrinth of short cuts that have been worn in over the years. As evidence of how busy it is there are couple of overtaken manoeuvres on the way down.

Jump Zone

Finally, you hit the Jump Park. This is a short run at the bottom of La Roue Libra and you come across it suddenly and can easily get caught up in the congestion of people waiting to go. There are 4 starting routes, which are basically, big ramp jump, small ramp jump, big ramp drop off or small drop off. This gives you the speed and you can impress the guys going over the top in the lifts as you go down, the table tops seem to launch you into the air without any effort and you depart Terra Ferma whether you like it or not, as you see in the video, the runs meet at the bottom which can be a bit dangerous if someone doesn’t give way !

Normally this section runs you down in the Les Gets giant berms, but as the Downhill World Cup had taken over the resort, we were re-routed away so no video this time.