DOWNHILL

The reason we discovered Les Arc's in the first place. Les Arc's has two permanent downhill tracks with a third on the way and several other marked tracks that feature all the jumps, berms and rocks you could possibly want.

The premier downhill in Les Arc's is the Avalanche Cup Course – The Cachette – home track to several French proffesionals. It is a fast and gnarly man made 3km long track. It features huge 20-foot berms, rocks, roots, jumps and drop offs. The winning time at the last Avalanche Cup was 4m38s but a more average time is about 6 minutes if you can hang on to the brakes for that long. This track is a true test of any downhiller's ability!

Above Arc 2000 is a second track that is designed to be fun to ride. It is full of fast flowing bermed corners, tabletops and hips. This track is a fantastic place to start your day and many riders love messing about on the mellow jumps and just railing the berms all day.

The now infamous Black 8 trail is 20 minutes of pure vertical descending from Arc 1600 to Bourg St Maurice on the valley floor. This trail started out as a normal singletrack but has now developed into a freeriders dream with the addition of jumps and berms. The locals have been busy and there are now hits ranging from small hips to massive step downs. There is even the odd wooden ladder to test your skills. The trail is steep and technical in places, fast and flowing in others but always fantastic fun. This is only scratching the surface of what is available. There are literally hundreds of kilometres of technical downhill singletrack just waiting to be explored.

Finally is Project Vallandry. With the cooperation of the local resort managers, Alpine Highs are beginning a project that will transform Vallandry into the best mountain bike destination in the world. 2006 will see the introduction of the first in a series of new trails. This track will be aimed squarely at freeriders and downhillers. Rowan Sorrell of Cwm Carn fame will be helping to design a track that will not only be fun to ride but challenging for all levels of rider. You can expect lots of berms, jumps and technical sections all built specifically for freeriders.