Take the drive of your life

By Tim Richards

Jean Ragnotti is a gnarled, old rally driver and he doesn't seem to care that he's about to kill us both.

We're on a specially prepared ice-driving circuit in the French Alps and he's throwing us about like dice in a shaker as we tear through chicanes on hard-packed snow at 60 miles an hour.

Jean won the legendary Monte Carlo Rally back in the 1980s and, although fast approaching the age of 60, he hasn't slowed down at all. Today we're putting rally-prepared Renault Clios through their paces on the winter circuit at Alpe D'Huez in the French Alps.

I've spent years respecting the threat of icy roads. In the UK we get little chance to practise our ice-driving skills and we take a more timid approach, but Jean pulls up at the pits and invites me to swap seats with him.

The next ten minutes is a farce as I do my best to blend a macho disregard for the Renault with just a passing interest in staying alive. The humans end up undamaged, but that's not the case for the little blue Clio.

It wasn't much encouragement – before we had even started – to see damaged cars at track side ready to be towed to the breakers yard. On the positive side my clutch control improved enormously and I've never been gentler with the brakes.

But I mustn't mislead you. I was a bit lucky. Renault isn't testing on the Alpe d'Huez circuit every day in winter. Normally there is a little less performance in the circuit's usual cars and you won't get a European rally champion showing you the ropes.

Don't get me wrong, though, the standard fare on the circuit is always pretty big on adrenalin. The ice driving school normally charges around £80 for a three hour course; £130 for six hours and £220 for the full McCoy over 12 hours - and that one includes how to brake with your left foot. If you've got money, as well as clutches, to burn, then you can have six hours in a Porsche Boxter for £300.

And there is one thing working in your favour – the Ecole de Pilotage makes it very clear the circuit is "one way only". So thank God for small mercies.

But no one is likely to spend more than a day on the ice-driving circuit - so it's handy that Alpe d'Huez has a few more aces up its sleeve.

Once your adrenal glands are re-charged what about a bit of flying?

The altitude airport on the edge of the ski area with its packed snow runway will teach you how to fly a microlight. Or if you're finally ready to accept a more passive role then the 15 minute sightseeing flights over the mountains will set you back £50.

Like any good ski resort Alpe d'Huez also offers paragliding and hang-gliding from the peaks back down to the town. Take a couple of tandem flights with an instructor to start with and then branch out solo.

And then there are always the traditional winter sports of snowboarding and skiing.

The entire area around Alpe d'Huez operates 86 ski lifts with the usual proportion of major cable cars, gondolas, express and slower chairs and drag lifts.

The resort centre is at 1,850 metres and so guarantees a long snow season in the town itself, with the upper summite, Pic Blanc, at 3,330 metres and served by cable car; the Dome des Petites Rousses at 2,800 metres and the Signal de l'Homme across the valley at 2,176 metres above Auris en Oisans.

Access to the Pic Blanc can be restricted in high winds, but in good weather the top station gives access to the Sarenne Glacier runs. The black Chateau Noir and Sarenne runs are the longest and the most challenging in the resort.

Unlike some of France's bigger purpose-built ski areas Alpe d'Huez has charming, outlying villages which have small, historic centres and give you a clear "destination" to ski to as you tour the area. Vaujany is the lowest at 1,250 metres with Oz en Oisans, Auris and Villard Reculas at ,1480. So there's plenty of old fashioned charm as well as the newer spread around the resort centre.

If the weather closes in, which is rare because the entire Alpe d'Huez area sits on a large south-facing balcony of land, then sporty guests can use the climbing wall, indoor squash and tennis courts and swim in the sports centre.

I'm quite exhausted just remembering my week in Alp d'Huez, but there are the usual distractions are available . . . the bars, nightclubs, pizzerias and restaurants.

There's also a smattering of smart fashion shops if you feel you must exercise your plastic cards.

I stayed at the Hotel Vallée Blanche, a Crystal Holidays club hotel that means all its guests are British and it's also staffed by Brits.

Before I got there I suspected it might be a bit like spending a week in an English-speaking ghetto.

In fact unless your French is brilliant it makes for an easier time – over dinner and around the bar – to laze along in your mother tongue.

The food was very good and the bar staff make their own "exotic drinks". The Mars bar vodka was a revelation. I never expected the sweet, toffee-choc flavour to remain so distinct from the bite of the alcohol. The youngsters also produce a strawberry cream vodka by melting French Haribo sweets in a vodka bottle in the dishwasher. It was a triumph.

So this winter you must let the adrenalin flow. Try the gentler evening sports like ice skating or curling, go skiing and do a bit of the icedriving, but do me one little favour and spent five minutes looking around Alpe d'Huez's church. It's a small architectural gem with some wonderful modern stained glass.

And once you've done all that and if you've still got energy left – why not rent a mountain bike and tear down and then back up from Alpe d'Huez to the valley bottom?

It features in the Tour de France as the top mountain climb every year and 22 signposted hair pin bends announce how much you've climbed. If you manage it, you'll be the "King of the Mountains".

Let me know and I'll buy you a bottle of the Vallee Blanche Mars Bar vodka . . . that's a promise.

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• Tim Richards was a guest of Crystal Holidays at the Hotel Vallée Blanche. www.crystalholidays.co.uk.

He attended the ice driving school in Alpe d'Huez, GM Ecole de pilotage. Skid initiation training costs 190 euros; Master training: 290 euros.

On the Éclose circuit, where the Andros Trophy takes place. Open daily from 9am to noon and 5pm to 8pm. Sessions include those for beginners and advanced. Half-hour private lesson with instructor is 50 euros; Group lesson courses in three or six hour sessions.

For details, visit www.gmecolesdepilotage.com.