Les Gets or Morzine

top man , thats why its cheep then !! should be ok , im planning riding 4 out of the 7 so hopefully enough to do with a bit of free rafting and lake dwelling thrown in .. thanks for the advice on parts Have spare mechs so will throw them in, may be overkill .. have crosmax WS so should should take anything other than a serious off .. first time and am out alone so did not plan on going too far afield hopefully a nice introduction to MTB holidays !

Even the DH’s though are rideable, most of them don’t have crazy silly jumps and drops, Le pleney (Morzine), the 4 x over in Les Gets are all rideable it’s jsut a case of how quickly.

We are doing ferry Folkstone to Dunkerque £69 Tunnel is a bit more expensive but obiouvsly far more flexible. Petrol in France isn’t silly expensive it’s just the same price as the UK, however if you go off the motorway’s it’s often about 5p (euro equivalent) cheaper. If you get the Via Michelin map as well it labels the petrol stations just off the motorway so they are super easy to get too and you don’t waste lots of time. We are driving to Chamonix this year and its’ going to be ace, spent the evening yesterday planning on the route and marking it all up on the map. http://www.viamichelin.com is useful as it gives you idea of fuel and toll fees.

One thing i remember about my trip last august, is for XC I should have taken my mud x tyres. Was expecting miles of dry dusty trails.

Depends on luck with weather out of 6 or so years we have been only had 1 muddy year and that was super horrific but hilarious!!

We went for the first time last year, and it rained all week. Still brilliant fun though, and we found the harder trails were actually easier than the lower graded ones in a lot of cases – big berms you could dig into the mud, whereas flat grassy corners were just slidetastic…

Les Gets has a green “family” DH, which is basically a short natural XC trail, with a few tight berms and lots of roots. Saw a fair few families way out of their depth and it was more difficult than a the odd blue or red dh. Evidently they grade on length and amount of possible “air time”.

I’m really wanting to drive over again soon, we flew last time and it was a PITA. Especially trying to get my girlfriend though Geneva airport in a wheelchair with a broken knee on the way back!

We used to drive down from Lancaster to go skiing once or twice a year and it worked out a similar price overall (for the 3 of us) as flying but you have the flexibility of choosing resorts and moving to others once there. We generally had an overnight stop around Macon on the way down and did the return in one go with 2 drivers, usually around 18 – 19 hours door to door. Always tried to hit the M25 at night too so as to miss the traffic.

We also used to stop in the valleys as you get proper little french hotels rather than the concrete monstrosities in some of the ski resorts! If you do hire a car from Geneva airport if you hire it from the French side it worked out cheaper when we booked, just make sure you return it to that side otherwise we got charged £90 for them to drive it the 200yds from the swiss side back to the French side 😕

Kona I know your pain! although I was lucky when Mr MC broke his knee the ambulance crew drove us across the tarmac. My trouble was collecting to big a** DH bikes from the left luggage in the train station (underground) and dragging them into lifts and up to check in. Evidently the lifts in Geneva airport aren’t big enough for a trolley with 2 bike bags on. Mr MC sat in back of ambulance flirting with the nurse!

On the discussion of driving down, we are planning on going down in 1 hit but stopping somewhere on the way back half way back towards the port. So can anyone recommend somewhere nice and pretty to stop on the way back?

I’ve just moved to Morzine with the kids and they have started school so I have lots of free time on my hands if anyone needs me to look around and investigate stuff. Have a car so I can get to other bits too. Not a job thing… it would just help to get to know the place. At the moment I’m investigating ski lessons for someone else. Let me know if you need anything!
Helen