Wife’s booked a suprise week in morzine…good girl 🙂
daughter 14
Son 17

We’ve never been so like a bit of advice on best type of riding to do when there for all of us, wife’s fity triathlon type & swinley blue/red is fine with all of us, so basically looking for swinley type riding with lots of fun down with lift passes?

Is it best to take our own bikes as bike hire looks pricey
Guided bike tour for the day a good move?
Booking with alpine elements

Thanks

I’d take your bikes. Approach trails with caution…there is a blue called the family trail which we bailed onto after finding the top half of one of the reds a bit full on, its still a fairly technical run with lots of fun to be had!

And don’t faff around with 12 run lift passes etc, just cough up for a multiday pass that works on all the lifts, we started with a 12 day pass each as it wasn’t a pure biking holiday, when we ran out we went for multiday pass as we wanted to go further afield into Switzerland. Ended up being a few quid cheaper but not worth the hassle of trying to keep track of what you’ve used/which lifts you can use.

Don’t go thinking you like swinley red and head off down the reds in morzine. The colours are quite a step up. We tend to take newbies up the super morzine then head across to avoriaz and the tour route down to linderets. Then ride down to lake Mondrian and back along the river. Its quite tame but gets you out there and gives a sense of the trails. If you are feeling fresh you can do a extra loop up the lift and down the blue or green on the way. If you fancy a rest there’s plenty of mountain restaurants.

Once you’ve got your eye in go for a bigger tour or hit the bike parks.

I’d take your own bike although there are some top notch rental bikes available.

There’s also loads more to do in town and the rafting is fun too.

Great!..thanks for the info guys & just looking at having fun so tame is fine with the clan as long as we’re smiling it’s all good.

Cheers

Read these two threads

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/morzine-montriond-area-greenblue-ish-options-for-kids-and-non-riding-things

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/help-please-morzine-for-the-non-downhiller

What bikes do you have ? Always good to be on your own bike but the rental ones will be more Alpine, they are expensive options though for the whole family.

A guide could be around €300 for a day from MCF the official school, not sure that’s worth it although you’ll probably get a bit of coaching too.

As above don’t go down any red trails till you’ve found your feet, the area is nothing like Swinley which in comparison is as flat as a pancake.

As I posted on other threads the restaurant at Mont Caly has a great view, access via Mont Chery lift at Les Gets and you should find the red route round the back of Mont Chery ok once you are settled. Also on a clear day the road pedal round from Chavannes loft at top of Les Gets to Lac Joux Plan is worth it for view of Mont Blanc and an ice cream.

If you are ok at map reading the little Chapelle Jaquicourt in Les Gets is a nice gentle xc type ride using lift for uplift. You can do it on the way back from Lac Joix Plan

Just got back from Les Gets / Morzine with a family of 6.

I’d echo above – red is way above what red trail centres in the UK throw at you, some sections of the blues are more technical than anything red at places I’ve visited like Llandegla.

Think through lift pass prices before you go to avoid standing around scratching you head at the Caisse on the first day. Multi-day passes do seem to offer best value, but if your clan isn’t hammering the cycling every day for full days then the 6 / 12 ride options might actually be worth it.

Lac du Montriond is beautiful for a ride / swim, the goat village at Les Lindarets is entertaining, and the burgers on the Menu VTT at Les Marmottes in Les Lindarets were particularly lovely.

Watch out for thunderstorms shutting the lifts. We were on a family walking day and got stuck with the car up at the Avoriaz car park, and the family down at Les Lindarets. I had to run up the road from Lindarets to Avoriaz in a deluge in baggy shorts, a shirt and a useless rain coat! Fortunately when the lightning got particularly close by I was able to thumb a lift for the last 2km with a very accommodating french family! It looked like plenty of riders got stuck down there that day.

SuperMorzine area is good, but the queues were bigger there than in Les Gets. I particularly liked the swoopy green “Soylent Green” which I believe is new this year. Getting up high onto the Pointe de Mosettes and tearing down the PDS firetrack from the top is fun in a non-technical way too.

We didn’t hire bikes – I was on a cheap 29er HT and son was on his Canyon Nerve trail bike. Probably significantly underbiked (it seems now we’ve got home that he’s also cracked his front brace on the Rebas from 13 days of consecutive riding there), but as you say hire is very expensive.

Plenty of other stuff to do with the family too – ice rink, pool, walking, just riding the lifts etc etc. Check out the Multi-Pass for decent value, though that comes into its own if you are there for longer than a week, or if your accommodation participates in the discount scheme which would mean it was only 2Euros per day per person for the Multipass. It gives free pedestrian access to lifts, pools, mini golf, etc etc. Might not suit your age range, but worked very well for us with a 7, 10 and 13 year old.

Enjoy!!