Well, as many of you may have gathered, i recently went to Morzine for the Passportes.

We did it by car and JEEEEZ, that’s a bit of a hike. Left the house at 3.30am and got to our place at 5.30pm. Bit of a long day, but plenty of banter helped pass the time really well. Instead of going out for a quick hour, we decided to get drunk instead, well, a little bit… the Peroni went down really well.

Next day we wandered round like lost souls, not really knowing where lifts went, where the runs were, what was the best, how we got lift passes. But with a bit of chatting to people who looked like they knew the script, we were well on our way very soon.

I was riding the Bionicon with 160mm front end and 170mm rear travel, Formula K24’s running 180’s both ends. I was soon to realise just how much use they actually were…. LOTS.

We started off on the lowest rung of the Morzine ladder, the Green Downhill. This was a strange trail…. VERY steep in parts, but a bit rubbish in all honesty… didn’t really flow at all. But that was probably as much the fault of our inexperience in something that’s just SO SO steep. So much so that within about 4 minutes my rear brake had gone insane due to heat/pads and was grinding and rubbing away and wouldn’t rotate. After fixing that, we made the rest of the trail and ended up very disillusioned with the whole run. It just wasn’t great, i think we were more expecting a bit more of a zig-zig down to give a flow.. instead of the quickest way down humanly possible.

We then jumped back on the lift and thought we’d give the Blue a try… That for me was much better…much much better. But for the others, they still came away with no smiles really on this run. It’s a very rooty DH run, tight and exceptionally techincal in the roots/rocks… but the Bionicon really did a fantastic job and was sure-footed and went down brilliantly.

One of the lads threw the towel in at this stage, his 120mm Stumpjumper really not having fun and inspiring him. So, we headed over on the small XC route to Les Gets. To be honest, the XC was more what we’re used to and that was actually really good fun 🙂
Once in Les Gets we were watching some of the younger cool kids showing off getting plenty of air-time and feeling a little out of our depth. But we jumped on the next lift and up to the top of the Red. Well, blow me down, this was SUPERB… really good, fast, flowing and fun. A couple of chicken-runs for the old boys who can’t jump… but really really good. By this stage i’d totally fried my pads, front and rear and the brakes were squealing away. However, we enjoyed it that much, we did the Red twice more 🙂

Evening beers, pizza and fun was beckoning. However, the rear of the Bionicon had snapped 2 spokes and was way way out of true. So a trip to Torico bikes in town. “my wheel is bolloxed, fix it please lads”… Well it cost me 5 euro and a pint of Peroni for the mechanic, it was sorted and perfect in 15 mins with new spokes and running true…

Day 2 brought the day of the ‘event’. It wasn’t actually as BIG as i expected, but when out on the trails, this grew with more food stations, villages and lots of riders. It’s almost impossible to go into detail of the full day, it was after all about 80km of riding, through countless villages, varying terrain and loads of great banter. There was a couple of cracking fast flowing DH type sections. However… God there were ROCKS… rocks rocks rocks… i think at times we did about 3 miles of rock garden !!!! certainly made my rock skills come on in leaps and bounds. One of the boys took an ‘over the bars’ moment and hurt his back/ribs… but nothing too serious.

The views were truely amazing, never having been to the Alps i was totally in awe of the whole situation. Friendly people, stunning villages and amazing weather.

The final descent was into Morzine (sort of) and after chatting to the guys on the trails i was a little worried.. It turned out to be a ridiculous gradient root garden.. just tonnes and tonnes of roots, with 2′ or so drops and jumps to clear the next roots… by the end of it, i’d boiled my brake fluid, the lever almost coming back to the bars. The thing that stunned me the most on this (and other) section, was the speed you pick up if you even let the brakes off for a second… the accelleration is just instant and you’re back to 30mph flying into the unknown LOL…. Scarey stuff at times.

Day 3, i was out on my own…. not something i wanted to do in all honesty… But, none of the other guys were playing, so i had little option. Up to Les Gets and 3 runs on the red, then back on the XC trail over to Morzine and on the Blue…. i was done.

The 3 days has brought me on as a rider a lot i think, increased my confidence a LOT… gave me sights i’d never seen before… and i had a bloody amazing time. However i can’t help but be a bit disappointed with Morzine. I was expecting a bit more fast, flowing and fun. (Like the Les Gets Red) and less off the tight techincal and rooty/mess/rocky stuff. The cracking fun stuff IS out there…. but it’s strung between 3-4 other rides to get to it.

I’m very very very pleased i went to Morzine… even more pleased i bought the Bionicon the day before i left LOL. The 29er would have been pure hell.

There’s 4000 more things i could write… but i’m out of time i’m afraid and have to finish cleaning the bike.

Weeksy, great to read the write up, always good to hear people’s experiences. The PPdS is a grand day out and a chance to explore and IMO makes a nice feature as part of a longer riding holiday and a go intro to Alps riding for us mere mortals. I love that drive by the way, there is so much to look forward to.

The brake overheating is totally due to comfort braking, ie dragging it. I know, I do it. The Alps does bring your riding on as you get challenged plus you get the time on the trails to improve. I’m guessing you didn’t ride te Mon Chery side of Les Gets and do the ride to (scenic fireroad)/from (Red or Black trail) my restaraunt recommendation at Mont Caly. I’m going to have to tell you, you would have loved it 8)

Some riding in the UK in a rocky area will help (Peaks/Lakes), uplift day at a trail centre to session some trails plus of course a day with the Jedi (done bfore the above so you can practice the skills he’ll give you) …

Now you just have to plan your next trip out, so many choices of venue, I’d definitely recommend a guided holiday if you can spare the time.

Weeksy – glad it all worked! I have to agree, that green down the Pleney is atrocious. My group stayed well clear of the moraine runs, even though we were based there. That red from the top of the Chavannes lift is really nice and flowy – great fun, even though it was the run I broke my collar bone/wrist on!!

None of my group are DH riders – we did ride the Pleney black one evening at 6PM when all the Stormtroopers had gone to the pub, and quite enjoyed it. The other runs which were nice were the red/blue berm routes in the Les Gets jump park.

Next time, I would rather get out and about a bit more, and probably get a guide, going when more lifts are open.

BTW seeing those photos aren’t the Alps a total sensory overload, how blue is the sky, how green is the grass, how clean is the air and just how good is a cold beer (or a glass of rose, white or red …)

Here is a photo from a couple of weeks ago above Montreux looking over the lake towards the Portes du Soleil where you were riding. You can take the train up here (Col du Jaman) and ride down to the lake, we were walking but saw a few riders out inc one on a yellow Transition DH bike.

[/url] Bol d’Or weekend 2012 by JambalayaPhoto, on Flickr[/img]

Glad you liked it Weeksy, and we were lucky with the weather on Fr/Sat; I’d not have wanted to do it yesterday.

There’s really all sorts out there in the Portes du Soleil area – there’s completely mad stuff in Chatel, which I can’t do, there are very long very rocky descents (Morzine switchbacks as a prime example – a real bike-breaker), but my absolute favourite is the 20-minute high-speed blast along the GR5 from the lake down to Les Lindarets, culminating with the full DH descent. If you’re not buzzing with adrenaline after that, you need to take up juggling with loaded shotguns or the like.

I was very proud of the fact that my 14 year old daughter took part on Saturday along with Mrs NickF and I, and other than being shattered at the end of the day (one of the lifts broke so we had a 3k uphill slog) acquitted herself brilliantly. I know that technically you’re meant to be 15 to take part, but it’s the sort of riding that we do as a family anyway, so none of it was totally new to her, and she’s a lot quicker and more technically proficient than a good number of the riders I saw on Saturday.

Wow… Nice one Nick. 🙂 Impressed.

We couldn’t have asked for better weather for the Thurs/Fri/Sat riding.. it was just exceptional.

I think in some way a guide would have helped lots, just helped us find the right sort of riding for what we really enjoy as a group.

There seems to be loads and loads we didn’t explore… but it’s tricky to just randomly pick up routes as you can’t always find out where they begin/end.

We did a really really gnarly (never used that word before) red section on the way back from Les Gets to Morzine, just off the road and into a rocky river type thing going on LOL. Almost crashed there i can tell you.

Although happily, most of my ‘moments’ were really low speed…

I was also exceptionally pleased that i did a LONG rock section (where camera guy was) without getting off it once…. In fact, i only bottled it once in 3 days and got off and walked a few paces.

Weeksy, I know the red rocky bit you are talking about – the rocky step down bits were, um, interesting!!!!! They prompted a stop at the mountainside bar on the was down!!

On the subject of brakes, my new Deores with 203/180 rotors were amazing – no issues at all!!

Love reading these types of thread.

Nickf – can’t wait to do the GR5 in a few weeks, and am I right it would be ok for my Wife, who is pretty inexperienced ie you can pootle along. Also the DH into Les Linerates – can she bypass this via a fire road?

Well done fella. Its bloody great isn’t it?!!! Glad you enjoyed it

The learning curve in the Alps is a steep on. We were pretty cocky and headed straight up onto the black runs, and scared the shit out of ourselves. You soon get used to just how crazy steep and fast everything was. And after the full day of PDS my (XT) brakes were coming back to the bars. Completely fried!!! You don’t half sleep well at night once you’vebeen riding that stuff all day too

I told you that a hardtail was a complete non-starter, didn’t I? 😉

AND HOW GOOD WAS THE WEATHER?!?!?!

There was a thermometer on one of the lifts that was showing 35!

Glad you enjoyed it…. I had a bloody good time too. The chaps at Torico fixed mine too.

I’m so glad you didn’t try it on the hardtail 😀 leave that to the riding gods

Over in a couple of weeks on my semi-beefed up Soul. Will I die? 😀

Although keeping more to VTT rather than the big downhills.

Nice write-up, but one thing that struck me was that you would have been well to hire a guide for a day. There are absolutely loads of xc trails linked up by lifts, just around Morzine/Avoriaz/les Gets, but go further afield and it’s unbelievable. Ive been going out there now for about 10 years and I find the Dh tracks just boring. Big days out trail riding is what excites me out there.

mildred – Member
Nice write-up, but one thing that struck me was that you would have been well to hire a guide for a day. There are absolutely loads of xc trails linked up by lifts

A guide is £200 a day…. or £70 each…. Whilst i’d have paid it…. some others are not quite as lucky as me when it comes to affording it.

Overall, the trip with tyres, armour, brakes, fuel, food, beers, accomodation, tunnel, tolls… was VERY expensive ….

Nickf – can’t wait to do the GR5 in a few weeks, and am I right it would be ok for my Wife, who is pretty inexperienced ie you can pootle along. Also the DH into Les Linerates – can she bypass this via a fire road?

You can certainly pootle much of it, but there are a couple of sections where a reasonable level of skill comes in handy – you have to know when to get right off the brakes and let momentum take you through a rock garden, or how to deal with lots of loose stones, stuff like that. Then again, there aren’t that many sections like that, so your wife could always walk those bits.

Everyone ends up progressing very fast in the Alsps – my kids have ridden there for the last four summers and are now better riders on rocky/rooty/steep terrain than any others I’ve seen, other obviously the locals, who are all mad – and you’ll probably find that your wife gets exponentially better in the course of just a day or so.

Take plenty of brake pads, ensure that you have body armour – it won’t prevent broken bones, but it’ll reduce cuts/bruises massively – and if your wife is prepared to give it a go, she’ll be fine.

As for the descent to Les Lindarets, yes, there’s a long (and very boring) fire-road, but be warned that it’s a pretty bumpy descent and hard on the brakes because there are no turns, so unless you’re prepared to let off the brakes and fly down at 40+mph (I’m guessing your wife won’t do this), it’s not a lot of fun.

Down from Les Lindarets towards Morzine there’s a very rocky rock garden which I’d not recommend to an inexperienced rider, but drop down a bit on the road and there’s a nice run to Morzine through the valley floor and past Lac Montriond. At the end of the lake there’s then another nice off-road descent to Morzine itself, bringing you in past the swimming pool. I’d imagine your wife would be fine with all of that; though there are still some steep and rocky sections, they’re all very doable.

My first Alps trip:
Thursday – landed Geneva at noon and was out riding above St Gervais by 3. Took the Bettex bubble and then climbed to the top of Mont Joux. Singletrack forest descent was stunning but over in a flash and we then spent the next two hours climbing all the way back up. We saw two farmers during the whole afternoon, such a wonderful antidote to normal city life.

Friday we rode the PPDS. Started late due to a mechanical that required a shop visit but were soon touring the Alpine tracks in wonderful sunshine. I only started MTB about a year ago so this kind of riding required some quick learning. I had a fairly major off on my first descent. I grabbed too much front brake and washed the front at about 15mph. The bike went flying off the edge of the trail and got lodged in a tree about 20 feet down. Apart from gashes from the chainring, a sore hand and a bruised shoulder I was thankfully OK and miraculously the bike was fine (Boardman FS Team 2010)!
Riding with my great friend Ben, a very experienced biker with incredibly natural skill was so muh of a help. My confidence came back and I managed to use the first stack as a learning experience rather than an off-putting feak out!
I looked ahead a lot more and listened to Ben’s advice.
The rest of the day was a feast of varied trails, breathtaking landscape, welcome food stops and a real sense of adventure. Although fit (I ride road a lot) I found my brain was fried by mid afternoon; processing all the new skills on the often challenging terrain was a massive overload. It was a huge amount to take in for someone with so little off road miles under their wheels.
I thoroughly enjoyed 85% of the riding, endured 10% and was positively freaked out by 5% (the very steep, loose rocky bits). I expected these ratios to be a lot less favourable but following someone who seemed to read the tracks with such confidence and grace put me at ease and I felt fine once I’d learned to look well ahead.
The event itself was first class; incredible infrastructure, an amazing route, enough of a challenge to feel like a big day and loaded with more variety of terrain that I could imagine. Brilliant!

Saturday we climbed from Le Cuchet in Combloux all the way to the Croz Bollet. Huge effort of steep climbing and hike a bike (no lifts at all). Very different from previous day but a really great adventure of different sorts. I have ski-toured the route, so knew the way up. Ben couched me down the VERY steep top section and I was surprised how much fun the ultra-slow, bum off the back wheel, balance and line-choice style of descent could be. On the way up I kept thinking “I’m never going to cope with riding down this”! Again, hats off to Ben and his confidence inspiring, no-nonsense approach of taking it steady, looking ahead. Another brilliant day.

Sunday it rained but having dropped Ben at the airport I headed to Les Gets and retraced some of the PPDS routes. The conditions changed the riding massively and forced even more learning about planning, commitment and smooth flow. I did the 15k black XC route, then headed to Avoriaz and made sure that I took the descent into Morzine very steady so as not to repeat my Friday crash. The roots were a major challenge in the wet – the off camber ones requiring a massive amount of weighting the outer foot and leaning the bike in (the French locals made this look really easy). By the end of the last Red back down to Les Gets I was caked in mud but felt so much more connected to my bike than a few days before. If only I had another week or two out here I think I’d really start to get it.

I’ve spent a good amount of time in these mountians, ski touring, climbing and road riding and I am so excited to discover a new way of enjoying what this place has to offer. It really is an extraordinary part of the world. Majestic, powerful and awe inspiring. For me, pedalling up gives greater reward to the downs but using some lifts to link together a big adventure on bikes is definitely something I want to more of. So much fun to be had.

Thanks to STW for telling me about PPDS – I booked it on a whim following a report on here. Having thought that I may have made a big mistake an bitten off more than I could chew, I’m pleased to be returning home with a desire for more rather than a vow of ‘never again’!

Thanks also to Ben, who lurks on here, for making it all seem easier than it was.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFXRpvyvwo0[/video]

You clearly didn’t do the Sunday PPDS which is best summarised as “wet, misty, wherethefeckarewe, muddy”.

A few highlights in the attached video.

Thanks for that nick. Yes, we took that nice route down past Montriond last time we were there after taking the vtt down to Linderates from the Avoriaz ridge. i think the missus walked some of the rocky bits, but she’d be fine now.

Over in a couple of weeks on my semi-beefed up Soul. Will I die?

Although keeping more to VTT rather than the big downhills.

Ditto, but next week. Other guy is on a 456.

Also more VTT.

PS Nice write-up – can’t wait to get there. Only ever skied there before.

AND HOW GOOD WAS THE WEATHER?!?!?!

sunday before it got really crap!

017 by ianvincent, on Flickr

I have to say I thought the passporte was a bit of a let down, not many decent bits and too much fireroad. The Freeraide classic at deux alpes is way better.

Oh i’m glad we missed that !!!

You don’t need a guide, the lift stations have good trail maps with XC routes marked on them, and there are good markers all the way around, like you can do the PDS route all year round as it is so well marked, it’s just a lot of the fun of it is riding it in the masses, with the free cheese, ham, chooclate and wine and ODing on the stuff!

I love the place as it certainly does push you on as a rider, but as already talked about a lot of it is a way higer level that pushes people too far out of their comfort zones and into stupid hospital inducing accidents (not all the time though).

Glad you enjoyed it, it’s a fab place but Chatel and further out have some phenomenal stuff too that’s all rideable it’s just about taking your time.

@DrRSwank – great short vid. The “Dump and Run” is great!

You’re right about Sunday – very different kettle of mess.

The Red and Black runs at Morzine are more fun the faster you go. Last time I was there was four years ago, TBH we didn’t even know there were any blue or green runs. We always just start our holiday with a pootle down the classic pleney run to check if anything has been changed and then charge down it at full tilt! That’s our go to “chillax” track when we can’t be arsed doing much that day.

Good times had by all, I came off my bike 7 times in 10 days out there once. One at about 40 mph, which I swear to god, was a motorbike style high side followed by cartwheeling down the track about 30 yards!

but as already talked about a lot of it is a way higer level that pushes people too far out of their comfort zones and into stupid hospital inducing accidents (not all the time though).

Then stay away until you become a more competent rider instead of whinging and having tracks altered like we’re increasingly seeing?

You’re right about Sunday – very different kettle of mess.

Started out so fine, ended up for me a wet, cold, greasy mess on the Pleny.

Nearly 9 hours to get round the bloody thing. And the weather looks like it’s settled in for the week.

Then stay away until you become a more competent rider instead of whinging and having tracks altered like we’re increasingly seeing?

Not an entirely constructive comment – the terrain in the Alps is very different to the UK, and the only way I’ve got better at riding in that area is to ride that area more. I’m still far from great – massive jumps and drops aren’t my sort of thing at all – but if I’d left all of the harder riding until I was better I’d still not be attempting them.

I’d say the average black mountain bike trail is easier than it’s equivalent ski run (that’s in the Alps, Uk trails are often graded black due to the distance and not the technical challenge). You wouldn’t expect to ski every black run without a decent amount of experience and a lot of the riding most of us do in the UK doesn’t really prepare you for the Alps.

Great thread guy’s thanks for sharing the experiences.

There again, the black xc route at Morzine seems to be graded on its length.

What the cost of the lift passes this year?

18euro.

Is that just a day pass on one lift?
what’s a weekly lift pass for the PdS region?

That’s a day pass all lifts in PDS.

Searching on the web, looks like its 100 euros for a week pass for the pds, its gone up a bit since I was last there a couple of years ago. I am going for a couple of weeks, and I seem to remember that its 7 days use, not 7 consecutive days, certainly hope so wanted to mix in some other activities as well.

http://en.portesdusoleil.com/mountain-holidays-offers.html

Shows consecutive and non consecutive options this Yr for 6 day’s

We just bought a 2 dayer as got a free day inc the PPDS

Carl

Least it’s significantly less than the Winter ski pass prices. I was paying €178 for PdS a few years back, must be over €200 by now?
Dolomiti Superski set us back over €240 this year!

Can’t wait. T-3 days and counting. Someone better take that rain back with them!

2nd year this year, absolutely loved it (esp as now knew what to expect, having done a few bike parks in the interim, and doing it on a NP Mega with 180mm forks… nice!)

When we got to the bottom of that rooty bit (we decided that doing it at speed was the best option!), the general feeling was one of “how the hell are the bikes still in one piece”, what a rattle that was. And I agree with the OP about the 1′-2′ drops leading into more roots. Mental!

The rocky singletrack from above Champery into Les Lindarets (my favourite bit of the whole trail, love that singletrack!), I was second down behind my mate, 2 distinct sounds:
1) As if he’d ridden into a crockery shop and smashed all the plates
2) him shouting “this is not a good line!”

Brilliant fun, also glad did not do on Sunday!

Kev

Any one else do the decent in Torgon, the technique rather than facile was excellent, didn’t complete the PDS managed 40.5 miles but we had a laugh and one terminal mechanical for one of group we did Sunday !!

Swiss national dh today and some other parts over the way 🙂

The descent into torgon was the best bit of the passporte. I think I was the last person to do it on Sunday as they closed the lift due to the crap weather. They were turning people back when I got to the intersection torgon/chatal.

Forge197 – top effort that man to do on Sunday! We were in morzine with the kids on Sunday and saw muddy, bloodied riders with broken bikes and ripped clothing limping through the town. Grim! Hard to believe the day before I had sweat pouring off my nose in Mozine as I tried to change brake pads!

Did not manage Torgon loop, you reckon it’s worth it then?

Next year might do that and miss out the massively cack fireroad/road Chamepry sections (but sadly miss the dificile options, whicha re fab!).

Kev

Torgon was worth while doing in my opinion, we missed other bits out but still cracked out a stirling days riding was a bit wet at times, weather was awful.

Ianv that must have been the guy on the bike at the intersection asking which way to go.

Been two very muddy days bought wet screams today they’ve been ace much fun