“You should go, Chris – enjoy the trail!” Cyril says. I push down on the pedals of my Cube Stereo 140 eMTB and rocket off along the hillside singletrack at what feels like terminal velocity and disappear below the treeline.
As I wrestle back control from my over-enthusiastic steed and kill the electronic assistance, I race through the woods, my nostrils filling with the crisp scent of pine needles and wild mushrooms.
The tyres make a soft whir as they spin over the autumn leaves blanketing the trail, and my heart skips as the rocky features hidden beneath them repeatedly jolt the bike off-line.
Tight switchbacks are followed by 12in-wide wooden planks acting as makeshift bridges over glacial streams.
The voice in my head that normally screams at me to slow down is silent and I realise this is probably the most fun I’ve ever had on a mountain bike.
As the trail crosses a mountain road, I reluctantly pause in a layby and wait for the others. We ride together into the next village, where our driver Martin is waiting with the van. Cyril extracts several brown paper bags.
“Time for lunch!” he exclaims, handing out homemade pasta, sandwiches, carrot cake and freshly picked green plums. A nearby dog licks its lips and stares enviously at the feast. ‘I could get used to this,’ I think.
Travel sickness
Five years ago, our host Cyril and his friends started Guil E-Bike, a shop and guiding company at the heart of the snowballing Alpine eMTB scene.
After a couple of hours’ driving, we arrive at their HQ on the edge of the Queyras national park and get set up with our bikes.
Having been up since 2am, we’re not exactly desperate to go riding, but there’s an hour before dusk and Cyril’s keen to ensure everything’s ready for tomorrow.
Pedalling out to the neighbouring town of Mont-Dauphin, we head up through the portcullis of a spectacular hilltop fort dating from the 1690s.
We join a narrow mountain road, engage the motors and begin to ascend. Looking sulkily up at the peak towering above, I get the familiar dread that comes before a brutal climb.
Next thing I know, we stop at a viewpoint and I’m stunned to learn that we’ve ascended 500m without breaking a sweat. In fact, with cobwebs dusted off and the wind in my hair, I feel great. No wonder electric mountain bike fever is at its height here.
Suitably revitalised, we head down to dinner. Our hotel, Le Glacier Bleu, is cosy and rustic.
Over a beer, we’re introduced to 18-year-old ripper Constantin, who’ll be riding with us for the week.
Snowpiercer
The next morning, Chloe announces that the first snow of the season has fallen overnight and, our fires stoked by a breakfast of local goat’s cheese and honey, we bundle into the van and head into Queyras. In a layby above the snowline, we kit up, and the cold takes my breath away.
I throw on two Merino baselayers and a jersey beneath my jacket, and frantically try to blow some circulation back into my burning fingertips.
We ride up onto the Col d’Izoard, a craggy ridgetop with panoramic views over the chocolate-box town of Arvieux below.
The blissful, otherworldly silence is broken only by the pop of gravel and crunch of snow beneath our wheels, and by young Constantin: “Look, animal!” he shouts excitedly, pointing down to a chevreuil (roe deer) wandering the treeline below.
We press on, my tyres skittering and skating on the snow-blasted scree.
The trail changes to a soft bed of pine needles as we descend into the forest. Sheltered by the evergreens, it’s not long before we stop and hastily shed layers.
The forest is humid and fragrant, and the autumnal sunlight pierces the canopy in dazzling sabres as white-capped mountaintops peek through the trees.
My gaze is torn between the steep, rooty trail beneath me and just about everything else.
As we race further down the valley’s steep incline, every stop for a drink is a welcome opportunity to pull out my phone and snap away eagerly.
I don’t think I’ve seen anywhere like this before; profoundly beautiful, wild and completely unspoilt by humans.
The trail ends at Lac de Roue, a millpond-still lake at the valley bottom, its surface a mirror image of the mountains above.
Cranking our electric bike motors into Turbo, we hit a gravel road and ride along at full whack to the village of Souliers and, thankfully, its drinking fountain, which dispenses a stream of glacial meltwater into our depleted bottles.
Escape goats
We climb over a hillside meadow, speckled with bright yellow flowers. The sun’s blazing and the ground seems firm and dry, so I wonder why there are so many little flecks of mud flying off my front wheel.
Then I realise it isn’t mud at all, but hundreds of tiny grasshoppers, frantically leaping away from the spinning tyres. A sweltering ravine drops away below us.
Tabletop rock slabs are stacked up at dramatic angles, and basking lizards scurry about as we ride them.
Eventually, we reach the bottom and stop for lunch.
“I think I’ve lost my phone,” Constantin admits, bashfully. After using a locator service to pinpoint the exact bit of the trail where it fell out of his pocket, he rides back up, retrieves it and we’re off in the van for a ride around Saint-Véran – the highest village in Europe, at 2,040m.
Spinning along a farm track, we suddenly discover our route blocked by a herd of goats and sheep. With no farmers in sight, the animals are guarded by three enormous Pyrenean mountain dogs.
The dogs form a protective wall in front of me, bare their teeth and begin to snarl and snort. I get as close as I dare before widening the gap as quickly as I can.
Leaving the tyre-biters behind, we head for our second hotel – a classic Alpine affair, complete with roaring fire and gigantic bowl of fondue.
Riding electric bikes hasn’t burned nearly enough calories for us to deserve this sort of diet, but I’m certainly not complaining as I fall into a deep, satisfying sleep.
In the morning, we cross the border into the Italian region of Piedmont at the 2,744m-high Col Agnel pass.
Today’s ride begins atop the Colle di Sampeyre (2,284m). We begin on an old military road known as the Strada dei Cannoni (cannon road) and plunge onto a sloping ridgetop.
Hurtling along, I’m so distracted by the elderly farmer tending his fields of génépi – an Alpine herb used to make the local spirit of the same name – that I have to yank hard on the brakes as we reach a stunning cliff-edge viewpoint.
Sticky end averted, we drop into a steep forest trail. Just as I’m getting into the groove of twisting through the woods, we pop out onto a cobbled street, which winds through low archways beneath the clifftop houses of the picturesque village of Elva.
With a hasty espresso from the local cafe inside us, it’s back to the task at hand.
The next section is high-mountain singletrack, with sharp rocks and huge mushrooms dotted about the grassy trailside.
This section is narrow and technical, and manoeuvring a heavy eMTB through these thin stone gullies proves exhausting.
Once again, we stick the motor into Turbo for a short climb along the hillside. Stopping to catch our breath, we find our jerseys and gloves covered in dozens of spiky seed pods.
Earn the après
After lunch, the van stops somewhere new and I ask Cyril where he’s taking us next.
“There!” he says, pointing skyward. A harsh, jagged crag towers above us.
I’m still not used to this whole ‘enjoying the climbs’ thing, but 15 minutes later we’ve climbed up to the Plateau of Gardetta, a remote high pass littered with ruined bunkers from a huge battle between France and Italy in the Second World War.
The melancholic atmosphere is a striking change from the warm, autumnal valleys we’ve ridden so far.
If it wasn’t for the occasional marmot, we’d be completely alone up here. With the sun fading fast and the abandoned gun nests falling into shadow, it’s time to call it a day.
Our next hotel is at the bottom of a long, boulder-strewn trail of slippery tech and I’m holding on so tightly, I can feel my wrists going numb.
Cyril can tell I’m on edge here. “Go loose!” he shouts. “Let the bike do the work.” His advice is solid, but easier said than done.
Eventually, the rocks abate and I can ease up for the final, super-fast roll to the end.
This time, I feel like I’ve fought for my food, and Alessandro, the manager of Le Marmotte, is happy to deliver an eight-course meal in the traditional Occitan style – including slow-roasted local venison washed down with a glass or two of the local Barbera.
The next day, we find the landscape blanketed in a pale mist, which swirls between the boughs of the pine trees on the mountainside.
As we climb into the van for one last ride, an odd, low-pitched groan echoes around the valley. “Deer,” Cyril explains. “He's looking for a mate.”
When we reach our riding location, Rocca La Meja, the rain has started and an icy wind whips up the biting spray into our eyes.
“It’s like Wales on steroids!” Andy enthuses. He has a point, as we don waterproofs and roll into the slate-grey landscape.
This descent is completely different from everything we’ve ridden this week – an off-piste pump over mounds and moguls. It’s free and easy stuff, aside from the odd panicked swerve to avoid a marmot hole.
Arriving at our final hotel, Albergo Della Pace in the village of Sambuco, I’m eager to hit the sauna.
This has been some of the most varied, challenging and satisfying riding of my life, and an an electric mountain bike made it possible.
The lowdown: Queyras and Piedmont
Where are they? Queyras is a national park in the southern French Alps, between Grenoble and Turin. The Italian region of Piedmont lies just over the border to the east.
Getting there: Turin Airport is a couple of hours’ drive away, with many UK airports offering direct flights. The guys at Guil E-Bike provided all transport to/from the airport, hotels and riding locations.
Who are Guil e-Bike?
An eMTB guiding and touring company based next to the Queyras national park in France. Cyril and Martin were friendly, knowledgeable and generous hosts.
They happily offered bike and kit hire, an inside-out knowledge of some of the most incredible, little-known MTB trails we’ve ever ridden, transport around Queyras and Piedmont, and lifts to and from Turin airport.
For more info, check out Guil e-bike.
