Electric Mountain Biking…

Cyclists riding up Cols is common place in the Alps – a weird sport to some and of course downhill mountain biking using the ski lifts to get height is a massive adrenalin sport too.

Electrically assisted bikes are improving year by year as both battery technology and the manufacturing of electric motors efficienct increases. We experienced the latest Rossignol kit last week from IZI BIKE at the entrance to Courchevel 1650 Moriond.

Electrically assisted means you have to pedal for the assistance to kick in (and makes it comply to a bicycle status – electric scooters for example are not allowed on UK roads) and there are 3 settings Eco, Trail and Boost giving different levels of assistance.

As inexperienced cyclists the road from 1650 to 1850 could be quite daunting but just in Eco mode it was a breeze.

From there the Plantrey lift and a little bit of Boost mode on the steep bits up to Col de Loze on the new tarmac cycle track.

Plenty of road cyclists at the top – we took our hats (helmets) off to them, amazing effort…

From the top of Col de Loze the tarmac run down to just above the Rond Point in Méribel is a great white knuckle ride – speeded up x 4 below…

and in real time below…

From the Ronnie there’s a mountain bike track down to Méribel where we had a quick pint to try out the new Jack’s Bar (ex Meribar) before taking Tougnete 1 & 2 to the ridge above St Martin de Belleville – the lifts from St Martin don’t run on a Wednesday when we were there.

From there we headed down the blue tracks to Lake Tueda just above Mottaret.

and up Pas de Lac to the Saulire summit, down the Creux track and along across to Plantrey then down to the Bouc Blanc for a late lunch followed by a pretty easy ride back across to 1850 and down to 1650. A total of 62km including lifts.

The hard tail version of the bike cost €60 for the day including insurance and helmet (further protective gear is also available). We only used 20% of the battery too – think we were too worried about running out of juice and could have use the trail and boost modes much more. All-in-all a great day out!

Update on the new Le Praz Gondola, Lake & Alpinium Building from S3V

The development work in Le Praz appears to be on track with the new, fast, 10 seater gondola set to open this December. Full details of the Alpinium Building with its underground multi-storey car park, tourist office, lift pass counters, running track on the roof etc are all in an earlier blog post here.

The new gondola will now continue right up to the Croisette building in Courchevel 1850 while also allowing skiing access down to Plantrey, Le Praz and Courchevel 1550. To facilitate this the Tovets chairlift has been shortened slightly.

Pedestrain access from the Praz gondola to the main road will be maintained via a clear of snow, illuminated, gentle slope pathway.

The gondola now passes just next to the Dent du Bergin building.

Work on the Le Praz lake is also continuing in parallel, a new liner, new filtration system and walkway is planned in to the centre of the lake (similar to Lac Rosiere). This work has been brought forward to limit the disruption to Le Praz – a lot of work is going on down there and there’s currently a traffic light contolled contra flow in operation with the World Cup Summer Ski Jumping only a few weeks away.

Looks like this could spell the end of Wake Boarding here unfortunately – no mention of this returning on the documents we’ve seen but maybe there is room between the walkway and the far side of the lake.

Major refurbishment work is planned on the Croisette Building in the centre of Courchevel 1850 where 4 gondolas (and nearly 5 now) meet.

More soon on more developments with a full, comprehensive catch up in the What’s New report in Spetember including the new Combes chair lift and piste linking Aquamotion to 1850, the new Creux Noirs Lift, latest on the La Tania Moretta Village development and La Tania gondola upgrade, tarmac from Col de la Loze to Méribel and Val Thorens via Cherferie, the return of Jack’s Bar, the new La Masse bottom to top gondola plans, cable replacement on Cime Caron, new cabins on St Martin 1 plus the new, long, long Orelle gondola to improve getting back out of the 4th valley…. that’s just for starters…!

First Pints of Summer…

Not quite as important as first tracks of Winter but a week ago Pub Le Ski Lodge opened for Summer 2019 right through until the end of August.

After much long and careful deliberation a three-way tie of Jason, Claire & Wombat has been declared. Early drinks before the official opening were found to be halves but travelling from Australia for the opening night boosted ex-Ski Lodge staffer Wombat’s credentials so a tie was called… Great to see Christophe and the family back “home” in La Tania!

Check out the Ski Lodge’s cracking Summer meal deal at lunchtime (12:00-14:30) with a starter, main, desert, glass of wine or small beer and Coffee for €16.50 Available every day except Mondays (when they open at 17:00) and Public Holidays.

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La Tania Swimming Pool Summer 2019

In what looks likely to be the last Summer for the open air La Tania Swimming Pool before it is filled in and the new piste and beginners area is re-modelled in the centre of the resort (some kind of temporary giant inflateable type of pool is being mooted as its replacement)…

Prices are as follows:
Adult: €4
Child (5-12 years): €3
Free entry for children under five

10 entries adults €35
10 entries children €25
Season pass adults €50
Season pass children €35

It is heated by the way and open every day (except Saturday of course when it’s shut like the lifts – it’s a mad French thing).

No basketball/football court this Summer and the official webcams in the centre of resort, at the Bouc Blanc and Col de Loze are all currently out of action (latania.co.uk ones at latania.co.uk/webcam)

Saturday 13th July sees fireworks return to La Tania after it all kicked off when there were none on New Year’s Eve last year for the first time in 25 years. It’s French National Day celebrations so there is a Game of Thrones themed sound and light show at 10:15pm followed by a DJ Set from DJ Coco (where’s DJ Fred?!) in the centre of resort. Usually a pretty spectacular show if the Le Praz ones are anything to go by – building work in Le Praz means it couldn’t be held there anyway…

Team La Tania at Glastonbury

A few Charity Day T-Shirts, Sebastian’s Action Trust crew and even the Dub Pistols…

Écrin Blanc Residence at Aquamotion Prices Revealed

The new accommodation connected via underground tunnel to the Aquamotion complex between Courchevel 1550 & 1650 is set to open on 20 December 2019 along with a new chairlift linking the Écrin Blanc to Courchevel 1850 (and a bit of new piste we presume).

There are 127 rooms and suites sleeping up to 500 guests with 3 restaurants and a 200m² terrace at the bottom of the slopes. Ski shop on site, 7 meeting rooms, 800m² reception area and kids club “At the base of a slope leading to Courchevel 1850 and directly connected to Aquamotion via a private tunnel, Écrin Blanc will provide you with the best skiing and après-ski service“.

Cheapest price for the cheapest room (Cocoon Room for 2) is €344 per night on a Sunday in mid January or down to €297 in April. School Holidays have minimum stay requirements when the same room rises to €720 per night (the 2 bedroom suite is €21,000 for half term week). Prices include taxes, breakfast and Aquamotion access. More at ecrin-blanc.com

Makes a La Tania luxury catered chalet holiday sound like a right bargain mind…

New Security Scanners at Geneva Airport Installed – no need to remove liquids & laptops!

Already installed at a few European airports including the Luton Fastrack Security queue and coming to London Heathrow soon, the new ClearScan systems are now in place at Geneva Airport.

The L3 ClearScan^® cabin baggage screener uses CT technology and advanced algorithms to deliver the highest level of explosives threat detection at an unprecedented false alarm rate. The aviation security system is designed to detect solid and liquid explosives, as well as home made explosive devices offering the highest level of passenger convenience, allowing for liquids and electronics to be screened while remaining in cabin baggage.

The term “computed tomography”, or CT, refers to a computerized x-ray imaging procedure in which a narrow beam of x-rays is aimed and quickly rotated around the item, producing signals that are processed by the machine’s computer to generate cross-sectional images—or “slices”—of the object.

Another England Away Trip – Our Summer Distraction

The Nations League was always hard to like, understand or fathom out how to qualify and how it helped to Euro 2020 Qualification but… it ended up in a couple of games in Portugal as La Tania does Football once again.

Easy and relatively cheap to access, stay, drink, eat and even get tickets for then add in the Portuguese hospitality, sunshine and SuperBock – this was always going to be a great trip (except for the football as usual of course).

Some idiots of course caused some trouble on the Wednesday night and the press loved to sensationalise it as usual, 7 England “fans” arrested in total over the whole week – compare that to the 300 plus at Notting Hill Carnival for example… Issues with access, stewarding, Bluetooth ticketing (a first when paper copies didn’t exist at all) , policing, line up arguments, tactics etc are all distant memories now – a good time prevailed over all, even if it was a made up competition really! Next Euro 2020 – Probably Wembley x 3, Rome, Dublin and bloody Wembley again for S/F and Final. Maybe. A bit cheaper than Qatar for 2022 though….

The 3 Valleys Biking Weekend 13/14 July 2019

Sat 13 July sees the classic downhill from the Saulire summit to Brides Les Bains – 17.5km length, 2100m vertical with top riders taking around 20 minutes!

Sun 14 July is the “Rando Tour” with starting points at La Tania, Courchevel, Méribel and Brides, 15 to 75km open to all standards and dedicated ski lifts open for bikes.

Also on Sun 14 July is the new “Cyclo Tour” with a race up to Col de la Loze from either Courchevel (tarmac) or Méribel (soon to be tarmac too).

More info and registration at:
http://addicttour.les3vallees.com/

Le Praz New Lift Work Continues Apace & Lake Being Drained

The old gondola station has already been flattened and work continues rapidly on the new €27m Alpinium Building, 500 space underground multi-storey car park and new gondola lift up to 1850.

There’ll also be a tourist office, lift pass office, function rooms with bar and kichen facilities, kids play area, 120 ski lockers and public toilets The new 10 seater gondola will now arrive near the top of Tovets chair (which will be shortened) – making an easier walk up to La Croisette area and will be over 25% quicker taking less than 6 minutes to get to the top.

The gondola base station will integrate in to the new base building which will have sports facilities and a running track effectively on the roof and the 2023 The Alpine Ski World Championships will have the Men’s races finish here.

As part of the work the lake is temporarily being drained too which means no wake boarding park this Summer but the new faster, bigger, better lift will open this December for Winter 2019 / 2020.

When completed we hear that the lower level of the car park will host an electric go-kart circuit from May through to November.

Thanks to Claire from the Drop Inn at Le Praz for the pics. They’re open all year and don’t forget Tapas Tuesdays….