Well, here we are. The final day of a great holiday where the sun shone for us once again.

Risoul is maybe not somewhere you might be familiar with. It’s about 50 minutes south of Briancon and feels much more the type of place a French weekender might choose to ski from during the winter. Lifts start at 6,150ft (1875m) and the slopes rise to 8,000ft (2450m) so there is plenty of elevation available.

Steve’s better half joined us on the drive up the valley and took the minibus back down the mountain, ready for us later in the day.

It was pretty chilly on the morning chairlift’s, especially as we hadn’t anticipated how long they would be. On our first visit to the top we got a long view over the back of the mountain to Embrun and the Lac de Serre Poncon, a reservoir under which a drowned village lurks, to appear as water levels drop.

It was windy and cold at the top and looked very much like a lunar landscape. Our first run was off the side on a red marked trail, on what was little more than a goat track crossing a wide open space.

Rain on our rest day and overnight at times during the week had dropped a lot of water on the region. This made the goat track – which ended up as a single line over meadow grass at times – feel pretty slippery. At least by this stage of the week we were better tuned into both bikes and terrain, so smooth braking and line choice helped a lot.

In fact the wind and sunny weather seemed to dry the trails pretty quickly. They were changeable at the start for sure – as highlighted by the Prof hitting the deck pretty hard on the next run – but by lunchtime were feeling a lot more consistent.

Awesome bike park trails

It has to be said. Risoul has some fantastic bike park trails. Massively bermed, flowy, steep, a little technical in places. It has it all and the routes down the mountain are long and tiring.

Our first descent (on that slippery red) was nearly 3 miles long, the second nearly two miles of high speed blue berms to a chairlift to take us back up to 8,000ft (2450m). From there, a mile of pedaling (briefly downhill, followed by a lengthy drag back up to 8,000ft) had us all gasping for air.

The reward was a lovely 3 mile trail back to base camp. This started with high speed berms, then a long flow section followed by lots of technical trail through the forest.

Superb!

French lunch

Lunch was the only real let down of the week for me. The restaurant we picked at random proved to be typically ‘French’ (it’s not Steve’s local patch and he had no recommendations).

I said at the start I felt the resort was focused more on the French market and the restaurant experience confirmed it for me. Very slow service, so-so food.

While I am normally quite laid back at this sort of thing, and prefer to avoid stereotyping, that only goes so far.

It annoyed me because we wasted time we could have been riding and it frustrated me because the day was otherwise great. Would we have squeezed in another run? Quite possibly. Would it have been a run too far? We’ll never know.

While he waited, Steve actually did squeeze in a run. Given his speed, that loop would have been way quicker than us but even so, 2 hours had elapsed by the time we set off again.

Ironically we picked the world’s slowest chairlift, taking 14 minutes to raise us 500ft (150m). A rate that JR at least could probably better by riding up…

Returning to the bottom, we set off on another chair back to the top of the mountain for our final descent.

This was much more like it.

In total we dropped nearly 4,800ft (1500m) back to the minibus, beginning on the red goat track we used at the start of the day.

The goat track was still sketchy but much improved from the morning. Instead of turning off, we continued onto some pretty steep and technical trails that showed us why it was marked as a red.

A quantam nail

Just as we were getting going the Prof stopped with a ticking noise from his bike. We initially assumed this to be nothing but the inevitable outcome of his FAFO philosophy to bike fettling.

The noise turned out to be a nail sticking out of his tyre. Somehow the nail was held IN the tyre by the nail head, while the sharp end somehow pointed OUT. With no other obvious point of entry.

Luckily, the fix was relatively simple and Mark could also use his electric pump to reflate the tyre. It seemed quite effective to be honest!

Once underway again we found ourselves on trails that were definitely at the more technical end of what we’d faced that week. Narrow gulleys, steps and lots of rock kept concentration levels high.

I chose an occassional schlep on foot and got the occassional pat on my bum from the rear wheel but really loved the long, long descent down the valley.

Reaching the bottom felt something of an achievement. The main thing in people’s minds being we’d finished the week on a high with no significant injuries.

A great week

During the course of the year I was telling my sister-in-law I was alternately going to Briancon with one company, or Bourg St. Maurice with another. Neither of these claims were quite right as it turned out, which tells me I’m working far too much!

Writing this series has been really helpful. Looking back has put the whole week into context and I would say – for me – Briancon was exactly what I was hoping it would be.

Initially I was… let’s say wary… of what I had signed up to. But nothing ventured and all that.

It turned out to be pitched perfectly to my sort of riding. Fast bike park trails? Great! Tabletops and kickers? OK(ish). Technical trails? Oh, yes please!

I know it would have been very easy to rapidly get completely out of my depth but our guide pitched things just right. Lots of rideable trails with enough challenge and variety made it perfect.

Similarly, I enjoyed everyone’s company. Five distinct personalities (Lol!) but no abrassiveness, a hot tub and private rooms seemed to work out well.

It’s a shame that Steve is ending his fully catered/fully guided holiday package but the Bike-Alp chalet is available summer and winter. If you are interested it’s worth getting in touch with him.

Special thanks need to go to Lloyd for handling the arrangements because that made my life so much easier.

In particular, the offer of a lift down in his car and a drop off at Turin on our return was greatly appreciated. Thanks also to Tony for the loan of his full face helmet (I owe you a drink!).

Thanks again to Lloyd, John, Elliot and Mark for a great week.

About the author

Matt is one of the founding Molefathers of the Muddymoles, and is the designer and main administrator of the website.

Having ridden a 2007 Orange Five for many years then a 2016 YT Industries Jeffsy 29er, he now rocks a Bird Aether 9 and a Pace RC-627.

An early On-One Inbred still lurks in the back of the stable as a reminder of how things have moved on. You can even find him on road bikes - currently a 2019 Cannondale Topstone 105 SE, a much-used 2011 Specialized Secteur and very niche belt drive Trek District 1.

If you've ever wondered how we got into mountain biking and how the MuddyMoles started, well wonder no more.