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Off for two and a half days in August and I wonder what gems you lot really recommend?
No big jumps please, and not too much gnarr.
Something along the lines of the panoramic trail??
Ta
GR5.
Col de Cou.
Chapelle de Janquicourt.
tour of Mont Chery
Panoramic and the black XC trail or follow the pasport route
Not staying for the full week? 😉
I have a 30 mile loop that starts in Morzine takes in Les Gets, Mont Chery, Morzine, Swiss National, Linderrets, and the VTT Red into Morzine, proper days alps riding takes in used and little used trails 🙂
Col de Cou
Les Gets to Sameons Ride
@forge 197 - is that including climbs or is it lift-assisted?
See this thread - [url= http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/route-from-les-gets-to-samoens ]Les Gets to Samoens[/url]
Col du Coux (thread on here too)
Not sure what you mean by too much gnar, depends what you are used to. The Blue trails in Chatel are close to a UK trail centre black but are enjoyable all the same.
FWIW I would focus on Les Gets and Chatel, Morzine trails are very tired.
Les Linderets Black, all tech, no jumps, no berms, no tables. The reds and blues there are also very good. (you may know it as Avoriaz)
Green off Mont Chery is pretty sweet, as is the black if you want more conventional. Find you a local, they know there the good shit is.
As jambalaya says, morzine trails not great unless you love pleney, I can leave it personally.
The bike park at Chatel was good fun with several runs to choose from.
For a trail centre type trail - Panoramique followed by Serpentine (except for the 1 really wet sloppy berm), although I don't go to the alps for trail center type stuff.
I would have said the ridge from Col de Cou, but I'm not. Was heaving up there (20+ people, all Brits, when we did it), when the Chalet staff said it's usually deserted. Maybe the thread on here has turned a footpath through a nature reserve into a "must do" trail? Hope not.
Instead, I'll say the traverse cut in to the hillside, I think from Champoussin lift towards Les Crosets (I think that's where it was - if not it was Morgins towards Champoussin). Or the descent from Col de Joux Plane via Nyon Plateau through the trees to Morzine. edit: oh and Mossettes - Col de Chesery - Les Lindarets was fun.
Anybody do the new blues round Torgon way? From top of the chair to the left of Super Chatel, and end up back at bottom of Super Chatel.
Survived 7 days on hardtails too 😀 😯
Run of the Mill. So much fun, I loved that trail. Pretty well known, on the super morzine side.
Donkeys
IGMC
to this say i have no idea what the names of trails are.
either way. new bits in torgon side are AMAZING.
and all of Morgins. man i love morgins.
In Les Gets, the Chevannes red. Love it.
GR5
The rooty, very long PPDS descent into Morzine
Porridge (if you don't mind steep and off-camber)
Trail from top of Super Morzine lift
Les Gets gulley/canyon run (gnarly but not too steep)
The rooty, very long PPDS descent into Morzine
Finished off my brake pads. Lots of hot burning smells, and it wasn't all mine.
Nice descent though 🙂
Les Gets gulley/canyon run
A good trail..
In terms of runs that are at a similar level to the Panoramic green run then you're actually quite limited around Morzine.
There is a blue run from the top of Pleney down into Morzine but I've never seen it all that dry (flat and in the trees) and a couple of weeks ago when I was out it was like the Somme! Most of the blues over in Les Gets are fine if a little dull and repetitive.
Towards Lindaret there is the new Blue called Roots, to everyone else its probably known as the trail in the trees on the right as you go up the chair after the super morzine. Good fun, rooty, but fairly shallow gradient.
Then there is the blue from the top of the Avoriaz lift which is good fun. GR5 down from the top of the Mossettes lift.
The run down from Lindaret to Montriond lake (just follow the small PDS signs from the smelly goat village) is good fun but double track most of the way.
HTH
If you like Panoramic then link that in to the Chatel blues People/RocknRoll/Fluid - we had a very nice morning doing this on Wednesday. Don't do any red flagged jumps (one is 8-10 ft gap !) and the shore on the blues requires good skills, some of its starts of easily enough and ends in a big drop off. The Red under the chairlift was just super steep, the red off the the road was really excellent, steep root and rocky with modest drops (ex the one shore drop which must have been 12 feet).
Tour of Mont Caly (lunch spot in the one restaurant in village has spectacular views - see below). I did hear the red was partially shut and you were diverted on the the Dans Le Gaz black (not that hard, certainly easier than Chatel Reds).
[url=[url= http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5443/6914277628_00df764e99_c.jp g" target="_blank">
Les Get Samoens has some excellent riding, lots of roots in the woods, take care as it's a cliff top path for some of the way and then a great VTT marked trail mixing rocks/roots and switch backs. View from La Bourgouise is wonderful (even better than Mont Caly restaurant). Buy a map (Samoens one) if you want to do this ride and study the thread. We arranged a taxi back to Morzine although you could probably book something in Samoens to get back to top of Joux Plane fro where you can rejoin the Les Gets trails.
Note you can ride easily back to Morzine from Les Gets on the road and likewise down from Linderets via the lake at Montorind which is stunning with the big cliffs behind. Note the touristy goat village of Linderets is good for an after ride beer/ice cream, just ride to center and look for Terrace Bar at the back on left hand side, super sunny and nice view. This means you don't need to catch the last lifts back to Morzine so you can ride till 5, have a beer and trundle home.
Have fun. It rained last Saturday but trails dry quickly, it was super hot, over 30 degrees in the villages.
Les Gets gulley/canyon run
+1
Some of off piste stuff on the Super Morzine side that finishes in Montriond is great too, very steep and rooty with nice tight corners.
Note you can ride easily back to Morzine from Les Gets on the road
or turn off the road just after leaving Les Gets, and follow the burgundy PdS MTB route signs for a nice easy ride thru the trees etc.
As @anytherocketeer correctly points out you can do PPdS links from Linderets and Les Gets to Morzine wherethe road is easy as little pedalling but it does have some lorries etc on it.
For reference - [url= http://www.chatel.com/documents/Carte_vtt_Chatel-2.pdf ]Chatel VTT Map[/url] - the red Air Voltage was the great technical run I mentioned, Ride Humble made us feel like that and wasn't much fun to be honest.
[url= http://www.vtt-morzine.com/pdf/plan_vtt_morzine.pdf ]Morzine - Les gets[/url]
Must stop reading threads about the Alps, it's making me jealous.
Away from the braking bumps GR5 was great on the Soul. Also really enjoyed the rooty decent back to Morzine from half way along the Avoriaz ridge from the top super morzine chair lift.
Glad I wasn't the only one there on a Soul.
Braking bumps were kind of insane in places. Complete way down run outs and round entire berms.
Fun though.
We're either of you there with your other half on a Hardrock, saw a couple on a orange soul, black hardrock ? I'd been thinking of taking my BFe out to see how it would go and in many respects I'm glad I didn't. It would have been fine on the two days we spent away from the prepared trails but on the "pistes" it would have been hardgoing, I stopped referring to braking bumps and started calling them braking ruts.
Black Soul and a Blue 456 between us (2 weeks ago).
Rocks weren't a major issue. Braking bumps just became tiring in the end, especially those in totally nonsense places.
People blue in Chatel is possibly my favourite trail anywhere. Great fun - especially if you're on a hardtail.
Oh and the panoramic green around the top for some mega style racing if there's a few of you.
Were out at the moment and so far (4 days) in we're loving the:
Black off mont chery
Supermorzine river run
Fluid and people at chatel
Les gets, although often criticised, is good fun.....all the berms start to feel a little repetitive but on the whole the jumps etc are well made and good for all levels. Seems to make everyone feel like a riding god! Good place to warm up for the rest.
Lots to come yet though....
We have just got back from a week in Morzine after the Mega. We haven't been there for a few years but had always stopped off on a road trip to ride there.
From a purely DH perspective, we got to know an awful lot of the trails that arn't signposted, but have gradually become 'official' over the years & sadly we won't be going back there again.
Pretty much all of the official stuff is smashed to bits with no maintenance appearing to happen (same old story then) & a lot of the trails have what looks like an attempt to armour them a bit and as a result have turned into big bermed motorways. with huge lippy tables everywhere. There are only so many foot deep braking bumps I can ride down a straight, into a berm, round the berm & out the other side. Some tracks resembled a MX track they were that rutted & chopped up.
The best official tracks I rode all week were the blacks in the Pre La Joux bike park as they have some fairly hefty jumps/gaps so people tend to stay away, as a result, they haven't suffered like everything else. Unofficial, the same old trails are still fairly decent although an increase in popularity means they are also looking a bit worse for wear.
It's looking very tired there.
@LGB - I highly recommend lunch at Mont Caly (a short pedal from Dans Le Gaz) and/or the Samoen's run. You can get an even better view of Mont Blanc from the top of Bourgouise which is a pedal round road from top of Les Gets then rutted double track. This is start of LG/Samoens.