Sainte Foy Tarentaise : 12 August 2020
What’s the big deal with electric bikes in Sainte Foy? Doesn’t it defeat the object? We decided to find out for ourselves, and we loved it!
Here in Sainte Foy, Colin at Evolution 2 has a wide range of ‘VTT électrique’, (vélo tout terrain électrique), electric mountain bikes, available to hire in the summer. He is also a mountain bike guide with lots of knowledge and experience, so if you fancy a guided excursion, that’s a great option too.
There are lots of routes to choose from. You can ride through the forest, up the mountain, and connect to nearby and not so nearby villages. As you can imagine, they come in a range of difficulties, and distances! The ‘sentiers’, trails, are well signposted both on the maps and on the terrain itself, so it’s easy to plan your route and have a great day out.
This was my first attempt at battery assisted cycling, and I was cautious about losing the exercise and fitness element of the outing. I needn’t have worried as the bikes come with four power settings: off, eco, trail, and boost, but more of that later.
‘Casques’, helmets, are a general safety requirement these days, and I certainly wasn’t going to tempt fate by not wearing one. Some mountain bikers dress up like medieval knights in preparation for a jousting competition. They have protective equipment for all their joints and exposed fleshy areas. But I wasn’t planning on doing anything too crazy today, so besides my helmet, I limited my protection to a few smears of sun cream and my not-so-sporty-looking sunglasses, which I hoped would at least keep any flying insects from blinding me at a critical moment.
The bike was heavier than I expected, which is due to the battery, but as I was sitting on it, not carrying it, that didn’t matter. I set off from Colin’s shops, Evolution 2 and Intersport, and headed off towards my chosen destination, the historic mountain village of Le Monal.
I set off in the ‘off’ position, so it was just like peddling a normal bike. Then I engaged the ‘eco’ level battery assistance and experimented with the gears. I was still on the flat, and it all felt very easy. The speed to effort reward ratio was impressive, and I hoped it might continue that way as I approached my first uphill climb.
Rather than drop through the gears, I flicked the setting up to ‘trail’, and off I zoomed! Colin had told me to keep the same cadence, using the battery assistance settings to enable me to keep the same leg speed. You really can maintain leg speed cadence, but you fly up the hill at a quite remarkable speed, or should I say, with remarkable ease!
Well it was certainly working, so I decided to experiment with the ‘boost’ setting while the going was good. ‘Boost’ does exactly what it says on the label, and I found myself powering up the track with very little effort at all. I made a note to myself that I wouldn’t be needing any boosts on the way downhill!
The family in front of me was spread across the track so I telegraphed my arrival with a big friendly “bonjour!” to which those on the right moved to the left, and those to the left moved to the right. This seemed like a good time to test the brakes!
Skidding some dirt across the track was perfect testament to the brakes having done their job, and we all had a good chuckle. It’s worth noting that in France, the brakes are the wrong (other) way around. On a British Standard bike you apply the front brake with a squeeze of the right hand on the brake on right handle bar. It’s the other way round in France!
The great advantage of an electric bike, is that you travel much further for the same amount of energy expended. I wouldn’t normally run as far as the barrage above Le Monal, but it was easy to get there on an electric bike, and the scenery was stunning, even on a cloudy day.
The track was steeper as I approached Les Balmes, and I stopped to talk to the cows grazing on the hill above me on the other side of the river. Setting off again up hill in boost mode was ridiculously easy. No wheel spinning, and no pushing the bike until a flatter part of the track was found!
If I have a fault is it is that energy-wise I never leave anything for the way back down and this was the case again today it’s silly really because I find the downhill harder than the uphill. Possibly I’m just a wimp.
More experienced mountain bikers than me, say that there is no difference between electric and non-electric bikes on the downhill. I assume that means they are equally scary!
My overriding observation of this electric mountain bike experience was that you cover the distance more easily, and thus travel further. You see more, and the scenery is so spectacular in the mountains that this is the reason why I want one!
You can hire an electric bike from Evolution 2 in Sainte Foy, from €45 for 2.5 hrs.
Read other articles about Sainte Foy on the Time to Ski blog page
