There is a place twenty minutes from Martigny where you can ride the same corner thirty times in an afternoon, for free, until it finally works. That is the Fully bike park, and it is the reason our beginner skills day happens there rather than on a mountain trail.
Here is what the park is, why repeatable ground teaches faster than beautiful ground, and what we do with it.
848 metres of track, three levels, free entry
The park opened in spring 2024, built in nine weeks by a local association of volunteers, and it offers 848 metres of track across three difficulty levels. Access is free and open during the season.
That last point matters more than the length. A free park means you can come back on your own, the week after a course, and put in the repetitions without booking anything. Very little in mountain biking works that way.
Why a bike park teaches faster than a beautiful trail
On a mountain trail, a corner you get wrong is a corner you meet once. You ride on, you carry the mistake with you, and the next one is different. Progress needs repetition, and a trail refuses to repeat itself.
A park does the opposite. The same berm, the same roller, the same small step, one lap after another, with the ground staying exactly as it was. That is what lets an instructor say the same thing three times and let you feel the difference on the third.
It also lowers the stakes. Nothing is exposed, nothing is far from the car, and a foot down costs you nothing. People try things at Fully that they would never try above a slope.
What the three levels are good for
The easiest line is where position and braking get built: base position, attack position, weight front and back, one finger on each lever, and the gaze going where you want the bike to go.
The middle line is where the turns get real: bermed and flat corners, line choice, and the difference between braking before the corner and braking in it.
The hardest line is where steps, rollers and small jumps stop being obstacles and start being options, and where a manual or a bunny hop becomes something you use rather than something you watch on video.
Our beginner day happens here
The beginner skills course, technical 1 to 2 out of 4, runs at Fully: CHF 129 for the day, five students maximum for one instructor, from 9.30 am to 5 pm, with video analysis at lunch. It suits someone who can ride a bike but for whom off-road is new, and someone who has just bought a mountain bike or an e-bike and wants to start properly.
The intermediate course moves to Verbier or Villars, where the terrain gets steeper and the switchbacks real. Private lessons run at Fully too, at any level, when the goal is to work on one specific thing. We described what a day with an instructor changes here, and the course page is here.
Getting there
Fully sits at the entrance to the Valais, and the park is easy to reach by car or by public transport from Martigny. For us it is twenty minutes from the Exo'base in Orsieres, which is why we can run a half-day private lesson there without half the time going into the drive.
What to bring
A bike in working order, a helmet, and gloves. Knee pads are strongly recommended for a bike park, and a full-face helmet is worth it on the harder line.
If you do not have the gear, or not the right bike, we rent full-suspension mountain bikes and e-bikes with the protection to match, set up for you on the day. Coming to a skills course on a bike that does not fit you is the most common way to waste one.
And after Fully
A park is a place to learn, not a destination. What you build there is meant to leave with you: the point of the exercise is the mountain trail afterwards, with the corner you no longer put a foot down in.
That is what the shuttle days are for, from technical 2 out of 4 upwards, where a day is counted in metres of descent. If you are not sure which level is yours, the levels page settles it in two minutes.
Dates
The course dates are online, Fully for the beginner days, Verbier and Villars for the intermediate ones. And the park itself is open to everyone, for free, whether or not you ever ride with us.
Chris
