Davos MTB Guide: Alps Epic Trail & Jakobshorn Lifts

Davos guards Switzerland's only IMBA Epic Trail, a 40-plus-kilometre descent from the Jakobshorn cable car to Filisur. Add four lift-served mountains, 700 km of singletrack and a direct train from Zurich, and Graubünden quietly out-rides flashier neighbours.

By the IMPT Travel desk · Published 2026-05-30

At 2,590 metres, the Jakobshorn cable car spits riders out onto a ridge that drops, eventually, all the way to Filisur. Between those two points lies the Alps Epic Trail Davos, the only route in Switzerland to hold an IMBA Epic designation and the spine around which a 700-kilometre singletrack network has been built. Davos is not a bike park in the modern sense, with its dirt-jump lines and lift queues. It is something rarer: a high-alpine resort that has chosen to invest in long, technical, scenically absurd singletrack, and to keep it open from mid-June into October.

The signature ride: Alps Epic Trail Davos

Awarded IMBA Epic status in 2014, the Alps Epic Trail runs roughly 41 km from the top of Jakobshorn down past Sertig, Wiesen and on to Filisur, with around 850 metres of climbing and close to 1,900 metres of net descent. Local trail builders describe it as the longest singletrack in Switzerland, and the upper section above Sertig is the postcard segment: alpine meadow, exposed traverses, then a drop into pine forest where the gradient bites. Riders short on time can split the route at Sertig or Wiesen and use the regional Rhaetian Railway to skip back to Davos Platz.

Other lines worth the lift ticket

• Bike Technique Trail (Jakobshorn) — a graded flow line beneath Ischalp, open mid-June to mid-October, suited to intermediates building confidence on alpine terrain.
• Teufi Trail (Jakobshorn into Dischma) — black-graded enduro, rooty and steep in the lower wooded sections.
• Gotschna Freeride — a 6 km, lift-served descent above Klosters with more than 200 banked turns, jumps and rollers; the closest thing in the valley to a traditional bike-park run.
• Jatzhütte-Ischalp — a red flow descent that links neatly with a second Jakobshorn lap.

Lifts, mountains and the TOPCARD question

Davos Klosters Mountains operates five lift-served peaks for summer biking: Jakobshorn, Parsenn, Pischa, Rinerhorn and Gotschna. Most cabins carry bikes from mid-June through mid-September, with Jakobshorn and Parsenn typically running latest into the autumn. The valley is also part of the TOPCARD, a regional annual pass that covers Davos Klosters together with Arosa Lenzerheide and LAAX — useful for anyone planning to ride the wider Bike Kingdom network in Arosa, Lenzerheide and Chur in the same trip. The Bike Kingdom's own season pass, by contrast, does not include Davos lifts, so the TOPCARD is the pass that stitches the two regions together.

In 2021 the network was used to set an Enduro World Record of 20,845 vertical metres ridden on singletrack in a single day — a useful data point when weighing whether the lift density justifies the trip.

Getting there without a car

Davos is one of the easier high-alpine MTB destinations to reach on rails. From Zurich Airport (ZRH), SBB and the Rhaetian Railway connect to Davos Platz in roughly 2 hours 30 minutes on the faster services, with one change typically at Landquart or Klosters. Around 38 trains run the route daily. Bikes travel with the rider on a standard SBB Velo ticket; reservations are required on Rhaetian Railway summer services for the steeper sections. From Davos Platz, the Jakobshorn lower station is a short pedal across town.

Train access matters beyond convenience. Replacing a short-haul European flight with the rail leg cuts the per-trip carbon footprint by an order of magnitude, and the Landquart-Davos line passes through the UNESCO-listed Albula corridor — worth the window seat on the way down off the mountain.

When to ride

• Mid-June to early July: lifts open, alpine wildflowers, but high traverses on the Alps Epic can hold snow patches into late June after big winters.
• July to mid-August: peak conditions and peak crowds; book accommodation early, especially around the World Economic Forum venues which run summer events.
• Late August to mid-September: the sweet spot — stable weather, dry loam in the woods, thinning crowds, lifts still on full timetable.
• Late September to mid-October: larch colour, cold mornings, reduced lift frequency. The Trail Crew Davos closes formal maintenance around mid-October.

Events on the calendar

Davos hosts Bike Revolution, a three-day marathon and enduro festival, scheduled 26-28 June 2026 with its start-finish in the Jakobshorn car park. The town does not currently host a UCI World Cup downhill or a Crankworx round — those sit elsewhere on the Swiss circuit — which is part of why Davos retains a quieter, less park-rat atmosphere than some better-known European destinations.

Where to base

Davos Platz puts riders closest to the Jakobshorn lift and the train station; Davos Dorf sits nearer Parsenn and the Klosters-bound lifts. Klosters itself is the quieter, more wooded base and the natural choice for anyone prioritising Gotschna Freeride. Many of the larger hotels offer secure bike storage and wash facilities as standard — a question worth asking at booking rather than on arrival.

First-person run of the Alps Epic Trail from Jakobshorn down through Sertig, the opening third of Switzerland's IMBA Epic route.