I know there's been a few posts about the alps but wanted to get a few opinions.

I'm off to morzine in july with a few people that have been going for 2 years and all they've been talking about is big burly bikes how mental some of the runs are, and more travel = good.

I've never done an uplift day and i'm more xc than downhill (have done cwm carn dowbnhill once and i came off badly)

I've currently got a SC superlight with rev u turns and was thinking of upgrading to something with more travel. I demoed a zesty at the weekend and i've got to say I wasn't that impressed. Felt more sluggish than mine and to be honest didn't really feel the extra travel. I find this strange as i rode a scott spark in the peaks last year (did mam tor and ladybower) and it felt incredible.. very confidence inspiring depsite having a steeper head angle and less travel than the zesty!

Also concerned i'm gonig to destroy my bike. I've got 180 rotors on the front and ztr 355 rims! and can't upgrade to 203.

I know you can take any bike there.. but what are the majority of the runs like? Should I think about getting a 2nd hand burly bike?

INterested in your experiences of morzine

If they are on DH bikes, get one too. Theres a huge variety out there, but it is rough in places.

There isn't any need to pedal the bike uphill for any long distances out there, so you can get away with something a bit heavier- you'll be riding every day with a lot of descending and its hard on kit and riders.

Agree, if your mates are taking big bikes out and intend to ride many the more DH orientated trails then you'd be better off sorting a bigger bike.

Most trails could be riden on any bike, most of the good DH trails are better enjoyed on a proper DH bike and a couple of runs there are totally mental, even on a proper big bike 😯

Think most are on anything from a kona deluxe? 140mm to a 575 with 36 160mm fox's and a blade?

Most are talking about getting bigger bikes at the moment but i don't think that's gunna happen.

They keep raving about a route called the pleney?

The pleney is flippin fantastic, runs directly into Morzine, it's the old WC track, mega fun but can be speed bump hell if timed wrong.

You could ride the pleney on anything really but to ride it really fast you need a big bike.

There is much more to Morzine and the surrounding area than the plenney, love the place 8)

Here's a game for you and your mates, see how many times you can ride the pleney none stop, top to bottom, until your arms fall off lol… Think we got to 8 and then died into the pub with mega arm pump. great way to finish the day off 😆

If your mates take those bikes out then just take your own, you all should ride a similar speed but be warned, you will break something on your bike, it's pretty hard out there lol 😀

If you are buying a lift pass then big bike for sure. I don't remember ever wishing I had less travel and that's with 8" each end. You spend so much time descending on rough tracks compared to the UK, you will knacker your bike and yourself if underbiked. I would rather be on a hardcore hardtail than an XC full suss.

Buy a lowish priced DH bike and sell it after your trip.

What do people recommendfor a 2nd hand downhill or freeride bike?

Might trawl ebay a month before i go

That's the other thing. I'm so used to riding my superlight i reckon a bike with zome serious travel and slack head angle will feel weird

Done it with a Meta 55 – handled everything we rode but we didn't do many of the blacks – they looked pretty mental!

I think your superlight would be ok is you took is steady but thats not really the point so if you have the cash buy a second hand DH bike and sell when you ge back.

i did everything on a stumpjumper hardtail with 100mm forks. and i didn't die. my mate on a bouncy bike couldn't keep up so i don't think i was too sluggish either.

EDIT: not quite everything. but it handled everything i threw at it…

I was out in morzine 2 years ago on my bullit and I got overtaken on pleney by a guy on a jump bike with rigid forks..

If you've got the wedge, get a dh bike , I've got 2. I'm still slow and crap though.

Do you need one? My first morzine experience was in 2005 on a 5 year old giant nrs with 3.5 inches travel, I discovered that my skinny xc tyres were rubbish and fitted the biggest tyres my frame could take (2.35's wahey) and had the time of my life.

I reckon you'll be fine on the sc, use the experience to fuel your upgrading mission. If you want to spend any money buy 2x 203mm discs and adaptors to up your braking. Cheap and effective. Brakes are everything out there.

I don't see the point in battering your probably beloved superlight. For around a grand or less you could pick up a Giant glory, Specialized Demo, orange 223 etc. As long as you don't kill it you can probably sell it for similar on return. Oh good brakes are a must!

For a grand there are numerous usable weapons out there.

My mate bought a 2005 sc bullit with 66's, hayes (ok not great but ok with 203's), hone cranks, x7/x9, mavics on hopes etc for £800. Went like a dream in morzine this year.

It depends on what you are going to do while your there and the reson for going. I've been a couple of times. The first was with a DH bike and was fun but a bit repetitive. Pounding the pleney and the les gets wc tracks just gets boring, and when it rains, jesus! 😯

Last year when i went, i went with a load of trail riders, bought a route book (although the les gets tourist board map is excellent!) and did a load of xc routes. It was really good fun. It was all lift assited and we were able to cover imense distances! On the rest days we could just do some DH that was near by.

As for your bike it would be able to do it, but you would be limited to green or possibly blue routes, much more than that and you would struggle, depends on what type of rider you are and what you are capable of? If you are looking for a new bike anyway then consider something with more travel than yours, i've read that the new 140mm travel FSR's are meant to be very good as are the Scott Genius (150mm) and can be extremely light that help maintain the 'quick' feeling.

A good piece of advice i had off someone on here made a lot of sense, in that all your doing out there is riding just as you do here, the hills are just bigger! If you see something you don't want to do, do the same as you would here and either look at it a few times and don't do it, or think **** it and go for it, either way its still the same 😆

My wheels/fork take a max of 185 rotors. I think if i can save up some money over the next few months i'll get hole of something bigger.

If not superlight it is. I'm not paying £300 to hire a bike out there!

Talk more with your mates about the sort of riding they're planning to do.

I took a DH bike last year, and even though we were just doing DH runs it was still a chore because we were riding over the hills between the resorts of Morzine, Les Gets, Chatel and Avoriaz.

If I were going again I'd want a 7in freeridey bike with two chainrings (for DH-type stuff), or a 6in AM bike for longer XC sort of rides.

Another thing was my DH bike was badly set-up and I wasn't used to it, because I'd left it a bit late to buy and build it and only done a few runs at Aston Hill on it beforehand.

trickydisco – if needs be, decent tyres, decent sized brakes (185mm will be fine but the rear too as you'll be dragging that a lot) and apart from that you could be away.

but like chakaping says, a 150mm travel bike would be better if possible

From what your friends are taking I wouldn't take a dh bike, there are sometrails tat require a bit of flat/ uphill riding to get to so you'd be at a disadvantage there and to be honest the only trails you need a dh for will probably be too intimidating to try (unless you've done lots of DH riding in the past) I took a 130mm bike this summer and it was fine doing everything within and slighly beyond my skill range but I'll be taking a 140mm prophet this year which should be more capable.
Having said that it's easy to buy a dh bike for £800 (for a failry decent one) and sell it after the trip, not having to worry about can my bike handle this but get used to the bike beofre you go, I was much less confident and consequently slower on a vp free than I was on a familiar trail bike.

Hills go up as well as down in the alps just like anywhere… (Though over a bigger distane than over here). Had 4 trips there on a SC Superlight with full xc set up and put in some classic mountain biking! Upto 140/150mm travel would be ample if ya planning on riding up as well as down with added lifts to speed things up. The xc/trail riding is as good as the dh specific runs, take ya pick…

I reckon you'd be better on a bike you know, but with bigger tyres than a DH bike. I did the Passportes a few years ago on a 5inch trail bike with Minions on it and it was perfect. Theres so much epic singletrack, with the odd DH run, which is absolutely fine on a normal trail bike. It just means you can't go as stupid fast as the proper DH bikes.

I got so much out of it, improving my riding on my trail bike out there, where if I'd hired a more burly bike it just wouldn't have been the same. I'm in Morzine in july and taking an orange 5 and reckond it'll be perfect for it. (same week as the Tour de France passes through!)

I went first time round with a Klein Attitude. I wouldnt recommend it though. I then biught a GT LTS DH for £400 on ebay. It only had 100mm travel, but worked fine until i broke the pivot.

I think a SC Heckler, Spec Enduro etc.. is big enough for your needs if you arent too experienced in DH. But if you arent really into it then you might find hiring a good option. I think you need to go on ebay and see whats about. Whatever is around 130mm+, big brakes and is a bargain will do.

I use a SC Blur LT (130mm) with massive tyres. I'm not Steve Peat, but I do give it a good try and it hasnt failed me yet.

You will at least want some burly wheels and fat tyres. Even the fire roads out there are covered in stones that range in size from 'pea' to 'house brick'. Most of the trails are steep enough that if you don't have confidence in your wheels to take a few knocks you'll be going too fast for comfort and dragging your brakes within seconds every time you point the bike down hill.

Don't get too hung up on the xc ethos of riding the ups. It's a holiday after all and if you're doing the downs justice they'll be a good workout themselves. I made a point of doing one of the big ups last year and after spending nearly two hours ascending 1000m realised that I was better off letting the lifts do the work and having the time to see much more of the area. If you really want to climb take a road bike and do some of the classics.

Used to guide there ten years ago, ran 180 front and 160mm rear Hope C2s (remember them) so you had to back them off at the top so they didnt lock up halfway down the mountain. As far as i am aware the mountains havent grown and brakes have improved so you will be fine with the brakes you have.

There is a lot to be said for riding a bike you know and are comfy with. I had a great time in 2003 going back on a Planet X hartail cos it was my only bike at the time, Im going back again on a 456SS in July.

If you want to make it a bit more DH friendly try a bit shorter stem, wider bars and some bigger tyres (if youre mostly lift assisted, make it Michelin DHs or some super tacky Maxxis)

Reading your first post it would seem that you (by your own admission) are not some DH loon so repeated runs of Pleney ( the old Avalanche Cup, not WC course) will boil your piss after a couple of times as its a mass of braking bumps and MBUK kids on their first holiday from mum and dad. Head up on the lifts out of Super Morzine, over to Avoriaz, you can cruise DH into Switzerland and ride at Morgins then back to Chatel and have a fantastic lift assisted but 99% DH (not DH courses) day out which your SC will be much better suited to. Enjoy your trip.

When I went last year, I had a heckler, mates all had downhill bikes, it was head angle that gave me the biggest problem rather than travel. There is a lot of very steep stuff out there, if your mates are on downhill bikes thats what they are likely to be hitting. I am not a downhiller so didn"t dio them at speed, but often felt uncomftorbal due to the head angle rather than needing any more travel. Perhaps a slacker head angle would have meant more speed and therefore a need for more travel.
There is also plenty of riding not needing downhill bikes, buit if you are in a group best to stick together.

Depends totally on what you're thinking of riding. If you're going more XC/DH lite you'll be fine with what you have (last time we went everyone in our group had either hardtails or XC FS bikes, but we weren't hitting any of the dedicated DH trails). If you're going to do the dedicated DH trails a lot you'll probably need something bigger.

Back in 2003, had my first trip to Morzine with Endless Ride. Did a combination of XC and lift assisted. Included the Les Gets downhill course! On a Superlight. It was fine, high water mark wasn't the bike, more my riding I think.

I did put some bigger tyres on it, and had swapped out the SIDs for some Fox Float 100mms.

I'm sure the games moved on a lot since then, but unless your mates are shuttling all day every day, I reckon you could still have fun on your SL.

Having done the PPDS last year, I'd agree with what peeps are saying re depends what you plan to ride together.

Nowt on the PPDS (including the Pleney downhill) that we felt underbiked on. Between us we had an Orange 5AM, Orange 5, Commencal Meta 5, & Spesh Epic, and the only change most of us made was trying out superstar kevlar brake pads which were v good. We already had decent sized rotors/brakes on the bikes anyway. I guess on a bigger bike you'd just go faster on this stuff. Great fun anyway.

There is much harder stuff, and if your mates are rad gnarly DH doods planning to exclusively session this at mega speed, get big air etc etc, a beast of a bike starts to make sense.

Tricky,

You really need discuss what type of riding your group intend to be doing. I rode my first year on a Stiffee and coped fine – if a little battered!

You can spend the week caning the DH runs but there is plenty of Trail as well. We have a day with one of the local guides (awesome guy can let you have his details if you want).

I've riden the last few years on a Hustler with 140mm travel and I've had a blast.

Last year I took my Shocker DH aswell to use on the Mega Avalanche but ended up just using my Hustler.

180/5mm front rotor will be fine. Make sure they're working properly and they'll be plenty. Steve Peat runs 160/140mm rotors on his DH bike! Take plenty of spare pads.

If no one else in your group is getting a DH bike then don't you get one. If you don't want to take your SL then why not get a 5 or 6 inch Trail bike? A Spesh Pitch or Giant Anthem X / Trance X can be had second hand for not a lot of coin and would be more than capable.

As a foot note, a Lapierre Zesty or Spicy may feel a bit dull over here but they are designed for the Alps.

I have never been myself but would assume that if you and your mates have a chat about what you intend to do that will help you decide-probably no point getting some beast of a bike if you will only really benefit from it for 1 or 2 scary runs and spend teh majority of time on trails where you would be happiest on your superlight!

if you do decide to get something beefier try the classifieds-jedi had a demo 9 on there. or maybe southerndownhill or pink bike for fr/dh bikes

thanks for the replies. I've only been riding a lot with one of them (he's got a 575) and i've ridden with a couple of the rest. Certainly didn't feel out my comfort zone in the peaks or lakes.

I think the group is quite spread. There's me and my mate. I'm on the superlight and he reckons he's bringing his hei hei supreme with V's!

So i don't think we'll be doing endless DH runs. The rest have got all the armour and have been 2 years running. I think the group might split up a bit.

I'll either beef up my wheels/tyres or get somethnig 2nd hand (seen an 07 reign for 650) and sell it after.

Tricky pop some mud tyres in your box for whatever bike you decide on, when it rains the mud is real sticky…. If you get as lot of rain it could save the holiday from disaster.

so repeated runs of Pleney ( the old Avalanche Cup, not WC course) will boil your piss after a couple of times as its a mass of braking bumps and MBUK kids on their first holiday from mum and dad.

Or fat old Brits who think that travel is a substitute for ability.

I've done the Alps more times on a HT than I have on a FS TBH, and it's still fun. If you can handle the Peaks or Wales, then you'll be fine, "some" of the hills are steeper, and "some" of the techy bits are techier, but it's still just dirt and rocks, just on a slightly bigger scale.

Don't worry about it.

and definiately do the Linderets down to Chatel run – 14 km of fantastic riding, all downhill, but not DH… Link it up with Morgins and back round and you have a truely epic ride and some great tasting beer at the end.

I run Stans Arch rims which are 355's but with an extra cross peice in the boxing. They've been fine and I'm 15+ stone with my kit.

I would recommend some knee, elbow, forearm and shin pads as the rocks are big and loose!

Steve Peat did run small rotors at the World Champs this year, but then he does use the brakes a lot less than you would, so don't read too much into comments like those!

I plan on going with my Cove Stiffee, 140mm travel 2010 revs.
Large tyres etc.

I think youve got a couple of options.

Firstly if you are planning on the more XC routes your SC will be fine once it's "Beefed" up with a short stem, wide bars and big tyres. Personally I would also try and get a hold of a second cheap wheelset as it is notoriously rough on equipment and it would be shame to spoil what you've got.

With the money you've saved you can hire a DH bike for a day or two. I hired a proto DH with BOS front and rear for 70euros for the real big/steep/techy stuff.

The other option is buy something cheap(£1000 approx) and sell it when you get back. The alps are notoriously hard on equip so in some ways it makes sense to save your pride and joy. If you go down this route I wouldn't bother with a pure DH bike unless you don't want to go exploring and stick very local. The best trails tend to be further afield and require linking up lifts and traversing sometimes varied terain so I would say something about 7" front and rear, ideally single crown with a double and bash. A single crown helps with the switchbacks, a double will let you climb too.

The advantage of this setup is that those unmarked trails you find and explore are less likely to throw up any really nasty surprises.

I would also suggest at least one uplift weekend with your chosen setup before you go.

Finally make sure you've got the biggest, most reliable brakes, because of the sheer steep angle of some of the trails mean you have to brake ALOT. Don't scrimp here, you will regret it when you have either crashed due to the dreaded "lever to the bar,no brakes" moment, or are watching your mates fly by while you wait for yours to cool.

Steve Peat did run small rotors at the World Champs this year, but then he does use the brakes a lot less than you would, so don't read too much into comments like those!

Indeed.

And people saying things like "Nico Vouilloz did the Mega on a Zesty".

Yeah, but he's Nico Vouilloz!

Don't just do the 'sheep' thing and session the pleney and a couple of other runs. Get out and explore – there is a ton of singletrack around, most of it better than the pleney and more technical for that matter – check out the chamionis side of the port de soli. Smaller queues for the lifts there as well.

Your superlight and Revs will be fine. My first time there I was on an S-Works Enduro with 130mm coil revs. Last year did it with the Enduro again but with 160mm Fox36's but the rev's were fine really the first year.

2009 year a mate was on a 3" sus frame with 130mm revs and he rode the wheels off the thing and had a great time throwing it down the black runs. 2008 one of us has a META 5.5 and it was fine too.

Unless you've got piles of cash spare I'd just uprate the discs to 203mm make sure the brakes are bled and not the type to overheat.

We've found Xt's to be great.

Get fatter tyres too and maybe stronger rims.

Don't forget a full face lid, leg and arm armor as a minimum. You don't want a silly tumble to ruin your time there.

take spare brake pads as they are expensive out there but saying that, I've now been twice and I've not needed to do a pad change whilst out there – sintered pads in the XT M765 calipers. maybe I just don't brake much.

time for my 2p which is the same as everyone else i think – fat tyres and your brakes will be fine. save pleney for mid/end of the week – queues will have disappeared as the kids will finally have got bored of the track.
I think you'd be fine. last easter i rode over in Switzerland on the footpath style trails there and did it on my 4" trance. held up fine and i was going for it. my 180 front disc and 160 rear with m4 brakes cried for a lot of the descents but thats because i dragged them too much and it was just steep all the way down and nothing to really naturally slow you down.
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You can do it on the SC with fatter tyres and the same brakes (superstar kevlar aren't half bad) if you want. don't be too worried.
a second hand freeride bike would be handy. all depends on how you ride.