The sun was shining as our group met in Le Châble to collect our electronic bikes for the ‘rando gourmande’, a day of e-biking, sampling local wines and beers and enjoying plenty of traditional Swiss food. There were different routes to choose from at the Verbier E-bike Festival, with varying degrees of difficulty set out with red flags to follow and plenty of e-biking guides in their blue t-shirts to help with directions. Verbier and Le Châble have many car-free bike tracks to enjoy, and our route from Le Châble to the villages of Bruson and Vollèges took us past farmer’s fields, animal pastures and along the river, also enjoying some ‘off-piste’ paths through the forest too.
Electric bikes are very popular in Switzerland, where there is always a hill, if not a mountain to climb. E-bikes can run for between 50 and 100km and enable everyone to take advantage of Verbier’s cross country trails, breathtaking panoramas and unspoilt nature. Verbier has been continually investing in a bigger and better infrastructure for all bikers to enjoy. The E-Bike Festival was a great opportunity to try something new, meet other people who enjoy the mountains as much as we do, and to remind ourselves of the great outdoor spirit that exists in this international mountain community.