Champery, Les Crosets, Morgins or Torgin?

Will be there from the sunday midweek so keen to know what other trails are on offer in these locations.

ta

I’d say Chatel is about the most central location for Passportes. If you have a car it’s only a quick blast over the border to Morgins – that can save a lot of time as it’s a boring road slog over from Chatel.

Morgins itself did used to seem pretty dead in terms of bars restaurants and accomodation- it seems a bit more lively in recent years. Croset still looks pretty dead. I can’t really comment on Champery or Torgon are like to stay in – but they are way out on a limb and would be limiting if you wanted to see the rest of the PDS.

I’d agree with oliver for that list. Chatel is OK as a town and is handy for getting to other riding areas. Any reason you are avoiding Morzine? It’s got the most going on without being too busy and its a great central location

Champery is switzerland so might be more expensive than a French town. I started in Champery, nice big lift with zero q’s to the top but then I had accomodation at a mates and it was gratis.

Thats the only 4 locations with spaces left, and we don’t have a car I’m afraid. Only there for 4 days, so I’m thinking that there will surely be enough riding to keep us going?

Torgon is a tiny pimple of a village with one small expensive bar an overpriced Pizza restaurant, and a shop of a similar standard. One small, slow lift that may not be working apart from on the PPDS days.

My mate’s missis works at a privileged kids summer camp there in the summer, the location is chosen, I assume, to ensure there’s little mischief the kids can get upto. The staff however have managed to cause a small amount of damage to a Lamborghini and got caught on CCTV breaking into, and humping in a hotel swimming pool amongst other things.

thats torgin out then!

How easy would it be to get from Chatel to any of the above? (without a car?)

I did passport a few years ago and got a great deal on the mountain lodge hotel in les croset. the village was totally dead, but the hotel was great and made up for it, plus there’s no lift queues out of les croset. if your after restaurants, bars, cafes, nightlife etc give les crosset a miss.

I’s pretty easy to get from Chatel to Torgon, it’s getting back that’s the problem! I know the Torgon lifts are only meant to open certain days – should be okay during passportes though. Morgins to Chatel is only a couple of miles or so on the road, but there’s a bit of a climb, especially in the Chatel to Morgins direction. You can use the Super Chatel lift and a fireroad descent to cut some of this out, but it’s not a well signposted route. The route from the back of Morgins over towards Croset is pretty spectacular to look a t a nd not too challenging, You can drop into Champery from Croset pretty quicklly on the WC DH track (if you’re brave) or via a long sweeeping gravel road if you’re not. You can come back from Croset via the summit of the Mosettes lift either via dropping down towards Lindarets or heading back to Morgins down the Sassex valley.

Thanks Oliver, really useful. Would chatel be better locations for 4 days that champery do you reckon? We’re looking decent uplifted singletrack, nothing to extreme, and somewhere for a few beers in the evening

If Chatel is the better option, then I’m guessing the starting point for the passports will need to be Morgins. We’d need to ride there in the morning and after the event finishes. How long roughly will this take (2 miles doesn’t seem so bad!)but if its up a 16% hill we may have an issue.

I’d stay in Chatel and start from Morgin as it’s only over a road climb and whether you ride that hill at the start or finish doesn’t make much difference.

Oh and personally I think Chatel is the nicest place to stay in the area due to the size of the village and proximity of good natural riding plus the bike park up the road if you must

If you’re interested in staying in Chatel, try looking on chatelweb.com it’s good resource for the town.

Champery – Is way down in the bottom of the valley, you have to take a verrry long gondola lift to get up out of the village and this is the only lift open in the summer, as far as i know the only real trail down into the town is the WC track. In my opinion its a bit out the way!

Les Crosets – I would say is actually the best place for access to the trails, you will be able to ride straight to your door, its a town thats actually up ‘in’ the resort amongst the runs, you pass through it going between lifts and runs. From there you take one lift up and you are into France and away into the Les Lindarets (which then gets you into chatel or away over to Morzine side). Definitely the best place location wise to be close to riding but there reaally is buggar all there, just a scattering of houses.

Torgon – I am assuming you mean Torgon not Torgin? This place is a bit of an outstretched of the portes du soleil, its away out on its own and not very accessible to the rest, wouldn’t even consider it to be honest.

Morgin – Riding wise has easily some of the best runs coming into it, only one lift up out of it though, and in terms of lifts I would say it does not give you great access to the rest of the resort. You can actually get there from the top of the Mosettes lift via a few fire roads but you would have to ask for a bit of local knowledge (I’m sure I would remember if i was there but can’t off the top of my head!), so getting back to the place isnt a problem. Getting from here to Chatel is SUPER easy, its about a 10min cycle up the road from the town, its really nothing.

As above would recommend staying in Chatel just as there is a bit more going on outside of wanting to ride, Chatel itself is not actually where the famous ‘Chatel Bike Park’ is, its about 5km up the road however there are free buses that take you there. Only thing is I imagine they will be PACKED if you are there when the race is on!!