I’m off to Morzine for the first time at the end of June, with a couple of mates, staying with Riders Retreats.

Can anyone recommend me (I usually ride red and Black grades here in the UK, but am aware that over there the grades are the same colours, but with bigger & bad’er features)

* some epic cross country routes that I can ride (20-30 miles all day’ers), (If its any help I LOVE riding up hill as much as I do going down hill – Sick I know, but hey, each to their own)

* The best “Must do” runs.

Cheers,

All of them
If your getting a lift pass then shouldnt take too long

Go up the Super Morzine and Zore lifts.
Follow the fireroad around to the “swiss super highway” singletrack down to the Mossettes lift.
Up the Mossettes
Down and half way down the fireroad until you turn right onto the walkers path to Col de Cou.
Follow the path.
Have a drink at La Pisa
Push:ride up the Col de Cou
At the top double back on self and take the fork that runs along the ridge line
Take this epic piece of single track back into Champery
Cabin out of Champerey
Down the Les Crosets DH
THEN
either back up the Col de Cou and over the far side down into Morzine
OR
back up the Mossettes, follow the fire road down and turn left onto the GR5.
Follow this and take the junction down into Les Linderets
Cycle past Les Marmottes and just around the first few corners (if you get to a goat infested village you’ve gone too far). On a right hand bend you can drop steeply down a grassy and rocky piste. Have fun down there.
Past Cascade du Montriond
Around Lake Montriond
Out at the road.
Go 100yds and take the right fork, go 100yds and drop left into a wooded valley
Follow the signs back into Morzine.
That should wear your legs out.

Or – go to the Tourist office and get a free map. Follow the PPDS route. It’s a long days pedalling but nice scenery.

As much as you like uphills you’ll still be better off using the lifts to cover uphill ground. I’m no super fit uphill lover but we were covering 40+ miles a day as the majority of the climbing was done on the lift, still did plenty of singletrack climbs but they were linking bits of trail.

For that type of riding a guide will be seriously helpful. They may have GPS devices with route loaded on that they’ll loan to guests too.

Our chalet owner took us out quite a few days and showed us trails we’d never have found on our own. I was wanting a fairly lift-heavy 10 days but got more and more happy to do the climbs etc to get to the trails he showed us.

First time I went and did without the guiding I did the Passportes which showed us plenty of the area and plenty of other trails we wanted to try. Doing that I ended up much more beaten up though using the main trails with braking bumps rather than mile after mile of natural singletrack, goat trails, cabbage patch (seriously!) and who knows what else!

My top 3 from last year were…

Col de Cou / Arete du Berroi (if you don’t mind riding thru a nature reserve) but was busy as heck last year, presumably cos so many people off here saw the vid.

PdS loop with a traverse along the Swiss side.

Mont Chery ridge, and the back side of Mont Chery.

edit: we used lifts, but there’s still a fair amount of up to pedal too.

DrSwank…. I’ll be having a lil look at that route tonight when i get back from work, cheers.

Keep em coming 🙂

The Bikefax Morzine and Portes du Soleil guide book has loads of great rides in it.

Whatever your plans, don’t include anything that involves using the Plenny Lift as it’s closed for the season:

Linky

You’ll still be able to get to Les Get by bus – hopefully that won’t end up being a queue nightmare – but the Plenny run and all the ‘off piste’ stuff off of the Plenny (which Riders’ Retreat would have been able to show you) won’t be accessible unless you ride from Les Gets (and it’s a bitch of a ride)

Just go to chatel. Job done

Just go to chatel Verbier. Job done

FIFY

My favourite is from Super Morzine/Zore across to les Brocheaux. Then up Les Mossettes in the chair lift. From there I either ride the fabulous downhill into Les Crosets a few times, or take the double/single track past Lac Vert and traverse the hill back the Les Lindarets.

From Les Lindarets I invariably take the lift up to the top of Chatel and spend some time playing on the Chatel graded runs. fluide, Panaromique, Blues and Rock and People are fab.

I also love the red runs over at Les Gets, at the far right – much better than then braking bumps on the main Chavannes downhill run, although one or two goes on Chavannes is obligatory. Over to the right (looking down from the top of Chavannes) the black trail, Canyon is scary but fabulous if its dry.

All of these trails are on the trail map which is free in the tourist office or at most of the cable cars.

If you’re there before the end of June, then the walking trails in Chamonix are still open to bikes and its only an hour by car from Morzine. Argentiere down to the valley floor, then across to the La Flegere lift and down the walking trails. Best trails I’ve ever ridden, although they’re off limits for in July/August.

The newish bike trail at Le Tour is also totally, totally fabulous.

Canyon is scary but fabulous if its dry

It’s not too bad really, even in the wet. There are a few sections that are pretty difficult (especially in the wet) but it’s probably only a red run by local standards. Either way, it is outrageously good fun!

If you’re there before the end of June, then the walking trails in Chamonix are still open to bikes

I have a feeling even this is changing. The walker’s trails on La Flegere have been officially off limits since they put the DH course in but then the top half of the DH course is now no longer being maintained.

Argentier trails are OK but as I recall they are full of water bars all the way down?

Chamonix authorities seem to be doing their best to reduce VTT activity in the valley to just the Vallorcine DH track, which I have heard is awesome but pretty serious.

Its well worth getting yourself a guide for the day

I had similar ideas about doing some climbing out there last year – i decided that it was a pretty stupid idea

The guided day had a fair bit of climbing in though – great fun!