The 3 Countries Tour
The 3 Countries Tour is an adventure you will not forget. Five days of high altitude mountain bike touring with no panniers or rucksacks - our support vehicle carries your luggage, spares and personal things and meets us at the end of each day. We first had the idea for this trip in 1995 and spent many weeks finding the best route. A year later in 1996 we ran a few pilot weeks and in 1997, it proved to be a winner. Many of our clients had the best holiday of their lives.
The route takes us over four mountain passes in excess of 2000 metres in altitude, so there's lots of cycling above the tree line offering stunning views across the Alps. The route we've designed is a variation of the well known walkers route that circumnavigates the Mont-Blanc going through Switzerland, Italy, then back into France. Have a look at the graphs of each days riding.
A one week holiday, you arrive in Chamonix Saturday and spend a night there before setting off on the five day journey. First night is spent in Switzerland on the Col de Forclaz, the following night we are still in Switzerland in the tiny village of Ferret. The next day we cross the border into Italy and stay in Courmayeur at a refuge on the Italian ski slopes. The tour is fully guided so you don't have to worry about map reading and getting lost.
Accommodation is in mountain gites and is half-board. Gites are not tin huts, they are very comfortable stop-overs with good food, hot showers and real beds.
Because of the nature and difficulty of this trip, we can only make the Three Countries Tour available to people of good fitness and stamina. The whole route is only about 150km. That may not sound like a lot on UK riding standards but these kilometres are either steep up or steep down