I am looking at organising a week long trip to the alps for june next year. Any recommendations for locations to ride and stay? Obviously i have thought of Les gets and Alpe d’Huez but i was hoping the singletrack brethren may have some other ideas, i am looking for a bit of everything so some uplift, xc, enduro and DH to mix up the week a bit. Any accommodation recommendations nearby would be greatly appreciated.
cheers

Surely mailing the local tourist offices would be more effective?

Do you want guided or not? I always bang on about White Room, because they’re mint…

The whole division between downhill and enduro/am gets very wooly, even more so than in the UK… Frinstance if you took the trails and lifts at La Thuile and dropped them in Scotland or Wales, you’d probably call it a downhill venue, a lot of the riding reminded me of innerleithen dh.

Definately not a downhill holiday but there were plenty of bits where my dh bike would have made as much sense as my 160mm bike. And not an XC holiday but there was enough pedalling for me. Just sort of took the best of all 3 really.

juan 🙄

@juan. thanks for that comment very helpful. If you ask any tourist office they will say their area/town is the best. they are hardly going to say yeah its ok but 100kms down the road has better riding. i’d rather have it from someone who has been there and can hand on heart say the riding is epic.

@Northwind thanks buddy, not looking for guided really but like the idea. La Thuile is worth a look then.

or you could ask them all to provide you all with the number of trail available, the numbers of lift, where to stay, how much rooms cost if the hostel are bike friendly etc etc.

If you want a bit of everything and to ride unguided then morzine will be hard to beat. Check the opening times as it’s sometime on June.

I took a group of 12 out to Morzine at the beginning of july last year. Which was bloody amazing. Had some people on the xc bikes who went off on big mountain adventures, and the rest of us, who either had DH,FR or AM bikes rode all (I say all, there are so many that would have been missed) the Morzines trails, Les Gets, over to Chatel, up to Avoriaz and Also did swiss national track, and Champery world cup track.

Morzine is where it’s at, if you want to be at the heart of the MTB scene whilst you are there, But les gets would still be a good shout if it is cheaper.

When you say mix up…we had a guy ride everything on his orange crush including Champery. You will have an amazing time, no matter what you ride when you are out there. Great mix of trails.

I will be going out for more than a week this year for sure.

I found lots of chalets through chalets direct. (create an account for free, and fill out a form for what you want and how much you want to spend) Chalet owners will email you with their offers. We got a sweet 12 man, for 60 each with a hottub and loads of extras, which was outside morzine. We had a minibus that we just drove to the lifts each day. Worked out pretty well too.

joemcdaid – Member

@Northwind thanks buddy, not looking for guided really but like the idea. La Thuile is worth a look then.

La Thuile’s ridiculously brilliant. And close to Les Arcs, Thuile etc. Though, again with the guided thing, I don’t think we’d have seen the best of it without Yvan’s epic dust-trail to follow.

Surely mailing the local tourist offices would be more effective?

🙄

Personally, I love Meribel.

Good uplift access for the whole 3 Valleys.
Good XC if that’s what you like (lift assisted if you want, or not if you don’t)
Some good DH stuff.
Quieter than Morzine, you can go all day and only see a few people, and never wait for lifts etc.
Some amazing trails, loads of smaller villages to stop in around the 3 valleys area.
Cheaper accommodation than places like Morzine (generally)

Assuming the trails opposite Mont Blanc are open again then Chamonix for at least a day. The campsites are fine and the hotels rather nice if you have the cash.

I thought Morzine / Les Gets was poor unless you wanted full on DH .
Rutted and tired tracks full of huge stutter bumps .
Death or glory jumps and just silly fast and steep everywhere.
Wouldnt go back , not without a local to show me the singletrack. Im sure there must be miles of it . TBH better singletrack within an hour of my front door.
Pila is supposed to ace though