Foundation Trip · French Alps
Lake Annecy cycling holiday: your first week in the Alps, fully coached
A coached road cycling holiday on Lake Annecy, built for riders who’ve always wanted to ride in the mountains but weren’t sure where to start. Six days, two pods, one lakeside base. Nobody gets dropped.
13-20 September 2026
Dates
Lake Annecy, French Alps
Location
6 riding days
Single hotel base
2 ability pods
Max 14 riders
42-85km daily
1,100-2,350m
£1800
Foundation Trip · French Alps
Lake Annecy cycling holiday: your first week in the Alps, fully coached
13-20 September 2026
Dates
Lake Annecy, French Alps
Location
6 riding days
Single hotel base
2 ability pods
Max 14 riders
42-85km daily
1,100-2,350m
£1800
A coached road cycling holiday on Lake Annecy, built for riders who’ve always wanted to ride in the mountains but weren’t sure where to start. Six days, two pods, one lakeside base. Nobody gets dropped.
28 years
coaching experience
12,000+
five-star reviews
0 riders
ever dropped
Coaching that builds confident Alpine riders, not just routes
You can already follow a GPX file. What you can’t do yet – not confidently – is pace a long Alpine climb without blowing up two-thirds of the way up, read a descent you’ve never seen before, or string six big days together and still feel strong on the last one. Our coaches will help you gain the confidence you need to achieve that.
We don’t build the trip around how fast you are. We build it around where you are now. You’ll ride stunning routes around Lake Annecy with full vehicle support, but we do it in a way that gives you the skills to come back and ride it all again without us.
You’ll ride genuinely good roads – inland climbs, coastal recovery spins, a famous descent or two – with full vehicle support and with a group of like-minded riders with similar goals. But the point is the quality of the riding and what you take home: the control to ride consistently, day after day, long after the trip ends.
Leave knowing how to ride multiple Alpine days, back to back, feeling safe and in control.
Is a Foundation cycling trip right for you?
This is a Foundation trip – the place most riders should start before anything harder.
You should come if
- You ride regularly, probably with a club, and you’ve got your own bike.
- You’ve always fancied riding in the Alps, but the wall of climbing on most trips put you off.
- You can ride 75km, or three hours at a steady pace, on more than one day.
- You’re unsure about pacing climbs, nervous on descents, or new to multi-day riding.
- You want to understand what you’re doing, not just hang on at the back.
This probably isn’t for you if
- You’ve already ridden six big Alpine days back to back and want more climbing.
- You’re looking for a training camp where someone sets a brutal pace and you cling on.
What you’ll take home.
Six things you’ll do better by the end of the week than you do now.
Pace a long climb without going into the red
You’ll know what a sustainable effort actually feels like, and how to hold it across multiple climbs in a single day.
Descend with control.
Body position, braking, line choice – coached on real descents, often with video so you can see what you’re doing.
Ride safely and efficiently in a group.
Taking turns on the front, drafting properly, and saving real energy in the bunch.
Fuel a big day so you finish strong.
A fuelling plan for before, during and after – so you don’t bonk with 30km to go.
Plan and follow your own routes.
Building routes across the apps you actually use (Strava, Garmin, TrainingPeaks, myWindsock) and following them on your bike computer.
Set up your head unit the way you want it.
Your screens, your data fields, configured so the numbers help instead of distract.
Will I get dropped? Two pods, no-drop riding
“Will I be able to keep up?” is the question we hear most. The honest answer is yes – because the trip is built so that keeping up isn’t the point.
Two pods, two coaches.
The group splits into two pods by pace, fitness, confidence, fatigue and how much you fancy on the day. Each pod has its own coach. You ride with people moving at roughly your speed.
You can switch, day to day
Pod allocation isn’t fixed. Coaches are in constant contact and the support driver can move riders between pods, so if day one isn’t quite right, day two is. Some riders take a longer or shorter option depending on how the legs feel that morning.
We regroup at the top of every climb.
On the climbs everyone finds their own pace – the coach usually rides with those climbing slower. We always wait at the top. It’s rarely more than a few minutes (3–10). If the group splits anywhere else, the pace drops so people catch back on.
How each day works
01
Plan
We brief the next day’s ride the evening before, over a drink before dinner: the route, the climbs, the descents, where the coffee and lunch and bakery stops are, and the focus for the day. A shorter check the next morning outside the bike room – how’s everyone feeling, does that match the plan – before we roll out.
02
Ride
Coaching happens on the road, in the moment. On a climb, a coach rides alongside calling cadence targets – if you’re grinding at 55rpm, they’ll get you to shift down, spin at 75–80, and feel the difference. At the top of a descent, we talk through weight through the feet and line choice, then film it so you can see it. On the flat, we work on drafting safely – fingers covering the brakes, looking well ahead, no surging off the front.
03
Review
Back at the hotel, usually in the garden by the pool, an informal chat with the coaches. What worked, what to change tomorrow, what clicked for someone – share it. Small adjustments, every day, that add up by the end of the week.
Day-by-day itinerary: 6 days riding Lake Annecy
Every ride starts and finishes in Talloires – no hotel changes all week. Two pods (A and B) ride different lengths off the same route, with vehicle support daily and clear bailout points on the bigger days.
Day 1 (Sun)
Lake Annecy loop · group calibration
The full lake cycle-path loop. A relaxed opening ride where we read everyone’s pacing, cadence, bike fit and group riding, and settle the pods for the week. Easily extended for stronger legs
Pod A
42km/250m
Pod B
42km/250m
Day 2 (Mon)
Col de la Forclaz
Your first proper Alpine climbing day. The focus is cadence selection, pacing a longer climb and learning what that effort feels like – plus your first big descent, coached.
Pod A
55km/1,050m
Pod B
40km/800m
Day 3 (Tue)
Semnoz introduction
A long, sustained climb – big enough that its sheer scale can rattle people. We’ll use pacing discipline, cadence management and a few psychological strategies, then a long descent to build confidence.
Pod A
78km/1,450m
Pod B
60km/1,300m
Day 4 (Wed)
Bauges rolling hills
A lighter day, deliberately placed between the big ones. Group flow, recovery pacing, descending and a fuelling review – and time to revisit anything that needs work.
Pod A
72km/1,100m
Pod B
55km/700m
Day 5 (Thu)
Croix Fry/Marais · queen stage
The big one. A pod takes on the major mountain day via the Col de la Croix Fry; B pod rides a genuinely achievable col route – challenging but manageable. Everything you’ve learned, put into practice.
Pod A
85km/1,750m
Pod B
64km/1,100m
Day 6 (Fri)
Col de Tamié · finale
A strong final day: steady Alpine climbing and controlled descending, finishing on the Albertville cycle path back to the lake. Big enough to feel earned, judged so you finish fresh.
Pod A
82km/1,350m
Pod B
60km/850m
Why Lake Annecy is ideal for your first Alpine cycling trip
Lake Annecy packs an enormous range of riding into a small area: flat lake roads, rolling terrain, and sustained climbs of 1,000m and more – Tour de France ascents one day, a gentle spin along the lake path the next. That mix is exactly what lets us introduce Alpine riding properly, without throwing you at long, steep climbs on day one. The roads are good, the traffic is light outside the holiday peak, and September is stable – typically warm days, settled weather.
Local Knowledge
Tom, who runs this trip, lives here and rides these roads every day. That means knowing which roads are quiet at which times, how the surfaces ride wet or dry, where a gradient kicks up when you don’t expect it, and where the views, the coffee and the best bakeries are. It also means we can sequence the climbs across the week, manage fatigue, and change the route on the day if the weather or the legs call for it – the things that turn a good week into the right one.
Your coaches
Coaches first. Racers second. This week is about riding with people who’ve made the mistakes and have a library of tools to help you ride better.
Tom Saxlund
Founder and Head Coach
Founder of New Generation, ski instructor, and a road cyclist of more than twenty years. He races European Granfondos in his age group – including a second place at the 2025 Marmotte – but he coaches first.
His mistake, so it’s not yours: he’s bonked badly in long events, had heat stroke so severe he didn’t know where he was, and crashed his bike doing it. Which is exactly why fuelling and pacing are the first things he covers.
Duncan Halliday
New Generation’s Swiss Director
A ski, snowboard and surf coach, and a racer across road, gravel and mountain bike. He’s finished top-ten on GC in multi-stage races and stood on podiums in graded races in Ireland.
His mistake, so it’s not yours: he bought his first bike without a fit, ended up on a frame too small, and made everything – steering, descending, sheer effort – harder and riskier than it needed to be. Now a quick bike-fit win is often the first improvement we make.
Where you’ll stay near Lake Annecy
Home for the week is the Hôtel du Lac, a three-star hotel in the middle of Talloires – an old, charming lakeside village where celebrities used to summer. You’ll stay in en-suite twin rooms, with a pool in the garden, secure bike storage, and the lake a short walk away. Talloires itself is walkable end to end, with everything from a quick bite to a two-star Michelin restaurant on the doorstep.
What’s included in your Lake Annecy cycling holiday
Included
- Return airport transfers – Geneva to the hotel on arrival, hotel to Geneva on departure
- 7 nights at the Hôtel du Lac, en-suite, breakfast daily
- 6 days of riding with coaching
- Support vehicle every riding day, with mechanic and spares
Not included
- Flights
- Your bike, or bike hire (we can arrange local hire, roughly €350–450 depending on the bike)
- Lunch and on-ride fuel
- Evening meals
Getting there
Fly into Geneva airport. Transfers provided to the hotel.
Fitness level
You should be comfortable riding 75km, or three hours at a steady base-pace (zone 2), on more than one day in a row. If you can do that, you’ll fit in fine.
What to bring
Summer riding kit, plus a waterproof, long sleeves, a thermal top, long and short gloves, overshoes, a hat, and two bottles.
Lake Annecy cycling holiday: your questions answered
With two pods, a no-drop structure, a support vehicle and routes we flex every day, as long as you’re comfortable riding 75km or three hours a couple of days in a row, you’ll fit in fine.
Possibly. Have you already ridden six big days back to back? If so, look at our other trips: Málaga (Performance) sits at around 420–540km and 7,650–9,600m; Alpine Classics (Expedition) at around 370–490km and 8,800–12,450m.
No. We work hard to keep things inclusive – clever route planning, well-placed coffee and lunch stops, more than one ability group, and sensible use of the support vehicle when it’s actually needed.
Very unlikely. We’ve had riders from 22 to 75.
Either. We’re happy to help arrange local hire if you’d rather travel light (roughly €350–450 depending on the bike).
Book your Annecy Alps Cycling Holiday
Ride the Alps the way you’ve always wanted to. Six coached days on Lake Annecy. Two pods, nobody dropped, and the skills to come back and do it all again on your own.
£1800
Trip Dates