Mountain Biking in Pra Loup

Pra Loup sits on a plateau overlooking the Ubaye Valley. Located just under 2 hours inland from Nice, the Mediterranean climate is warm and dry with a freshness that comes from the altitude. The trails are generally bone dry throughout the summer and you’ll notice that locals know how to handle a bike through a dusty berm!

Pra Loup’s proximity to Val d’Allos, Les Orres and Mongenèvre opens up some great possibilities for a biking holiday in this southern region of the French Alps.

The Mountain Biking

Downhill

The Pra Loup Costebelle cable car whisks you up to 2130 m and the start of the trails. You can access 5 graded downhill tracks from green to black and 2 bikepark runs.

The green trail, accessible to beginner riders and young kids, is a wide meandering trail that is just pure fun. From the top of the cable car, the trail winds down through high alpine terrain and meets the bottom of the bikepark. From there, an easy descent takes you back down to Pra Loup 1600. A great trail for discovering mountain biking.

The blue trail is actually just a means of accessing the bikepark or the black downhill run, so if you’re not an intermediate rider, just be aware that at the end of the blue run you’ll need to take the footpath down to meet the green, or you’ll have to ride the red bikepark trail. At the bottom of the bikepark another short blue section links in with the last part of the green trail.

The red trail is a Pra Loup highlight. It traverses the mountain from 2130 m and descends through varied terrain from fast, high alpine singletrack to switchbacks through the trees. Throughout you get awesome views over Pra Loup town and the Ubaye Valley. To be consumed without moderation!

Praloup has 2 black downhill trails that were used at different times for the old boys to battle it out in the masters’ championships. Both tracks are fast and technical mixing forest sections with open alpine terrain. The trail labelled number 5 on the map is the more challenging, taking a more direct line with plenty of off-camber corners, jumps and technical wooded sections.

Freeride

You can access Pra Loup’s bikepark from the top of the Costebelle cable car. Designed by motocross and mountain biking legend Jean-Michel Bayle it has a red and a black track with northshore features and jumps, gaps, drops and see-saws.

Cross country

Praloup, being located in the heart of the Ubaye Valley, is a great base from which to access the valley’s 340 km of waymarked cross country trails. Strike out straight from the resort on one of the graded loops, or ride the 14 km red to Barcelonnette and hook up with the epic 100 km Transubayenne which spans the whole Ubaye Valley.