If you lived in Sheffield, and had a long weekend, how would it work?

Depends on the timing of flights and how much you want to spend. Ideal for me would be finish work early, get to the airport, flight to Geneva, transfer to morzine, bed. Up and ride. Last day, late check out ride as long as possible, back to the airport and home. With good flights you could get say 3 days riding for one extra day off. Might be a bit useless on Monday though. You can do a DIY version with a hire car. You can tweak the timing and costs by staying somewhere like Thonon on the way in a much cheaper hotel.

With CASH!!
Fly, hotel at the airport and an early start once you build the bike up the night before, arrive for early list ride 2 days and then head back for the last flight with 1 night accom on Morzine?

How much is 2 days riding worth?

It would be a bit of a hectic weekend, that’s for sure.

I’d probably do it the other way, finish early on the Friday, having packed everything needed and ready to go. Straight to the airport, hop on a plane & have a transfer booked for arrival. Will be a late night, but make sure everything is ready to go for the morning.

Ride Sat all day, ride Sun all day, pack up Sunday night so you’re ready to go, have an evening flight booked for the Monday & blag a late check out from hotel/apartment. Get out and ride. This year we were finished riding at 11am & had a 3.30 flight, which was a bit tight, but manageable. If you had a flight at 7, you could easily ride until 2ish. Back, quick shower, chuck the bike in the bag along with kit, hop on the transfer, go home.

Would be a touch hectic (and expensive) for 2 & 2/3 of a days riding though…

Same as that… but i can’t say i’m feeling the love…

Especially when you get there and it’s walloping down with rain.

Me, i’d rather do Andalucia/Basque/Ainsa the same way, but more likely to get better weather.

Make sure you’re in season so that lifts and trails are open.
Hth

And what weeksy says. Chase the better weather for a weekend only.

I’ve done it whilst skiing and its not too bad (although I am east mids so Luton is 1hr away). Finished work early on the Thursday, 6pm flight to Geneva, collect hire car, get in to Morzine around 10pm. First lifts on Friday / Saturday, pack up Sunday morning, load car and leave at Les Gets, ride Les Gets side till late afternoon, back to Geneva for 5pm, flight around 6 ish . Home by midnight, work the next day.
If all you have is a weekend then why not go for it. Another option would be drive out with a riding buddy and go overnight, but then you’ve got to get from Shef to Dover, and that can take as long as Calais to Morzine.

ive done it on the planks but not the bike,

Flown late thurs, skied all day fri/Sat/sun and flown back Sunday night. I cover more ground than I do in a full week with the fam in tow!

But it would be too much hassle packing / unpacking the bike for me, sooner just drive up to the Tweed or something…

Hardly need any gear for a weekend skiing. One set of civvies, one set of thermals, salopets and a jacket. Any smellies get washed in the shower and dried over night….

But it would be too much hassle packing / unpacking the bike for me, sooner just drive up to the Tweed or something…

Having done lots of fly/bike weekends in the past it’s 50/50 a kit and mindset thing. With the right bag it’s not much more hassle than packing the bike in a small car. Had it down to 15-20 mins with the right 4 tools with me.

It’s very doable – my Daughter lives in Lausanne, so it’s a regular trip for us. Last flight you can get Thursday evening out and there’s a few late flights Sunday evening to Luton or Manchester.
Hire a bike – when you factor in the cost of taking your own, the agro of packing and unpacking plus the risk of it not turning up or getting damaged it’s worth it – and you can hire a smaller car.
Hire a car on the French side of the airport – it’s no more than the transfers cost for a weekend and it gives you the flexibility to head to somewhere over the other side if it’s raining – in my experience if it’s wet in Morzine it’s usually dry in La Thuille and it’s 90 minutes or so to drive.

Hire a bike – when you factor in the cost of taking your own, the agro of packing and unpacking plus the risk of it not turning up or getting damaged it’s worth it – and you can hire a smaller car.

I’d go along with that unless doing at least a week. For 1-2 days riding, hiring would be the way i’d go.

in my experience if it’s wet in Morzine it’s usually dry in La Thuille and it’s 90 minutes or so to drive.

Yeah but your hire bike is in Morzine and your car is too small to put it in anyway 🙂

Long weekend?

Ideally – fly Thursday after work, I don’t know about Sheff, but from Bristol there’s usually a 10pm flight to Gen, you might want to get a hire car / van rather than use the shuttle at that time though. Arrive blurry eyed, build bike, have a beer, sleep.

Ride, Fri / Sat / Sun, again ideally, if you’ve got Monday off, ride Monday and get the late flight home, but it’s logistically tricky as the hotel will likey want you out 10am so you’ve got bags to deal with and you’ll need to shower post-ride of course, but there’s always the lake(s) 😉

If you’re thinking of driving it you’re probably off your head – but I notice it’s only 20 mins more drive from Sheffield to Dover as it is Cardiff to Dover, so not impossible, it’s how hard you want to push yourself. It’s 12 hours driving, plus crossing if you keep you foot in.

Check the weather forecast and if it’s iffy hire the bike by the day in Morzine – then hire a bike in La Thuille if you need to go there. It’s really not that complicated!!

I did pretty much exactly this earlier in the year, but going to Verbier. Child care favours meant we had to keep it as short as possible. We left our kids with Grandparents Thursday pm, collected them Monday am. It was part of Mrs G’s birthday present, so I was trying to do the organisation on the sly. I also benefited from being able to get some cheap BA flights.

It was a mission, but to make the most of the time we booked early arriving/late departing flights and a guide for when we were there. I wanted to take our bikes (free for me with BA), but hiring them would save a lot of effort (although add to cost).

It could have all gone wrong if the luggage did not come out quickly on Friday, or we missed a connection (we used the train transfers). We allowed more time traveling back on the Sunday pm. Again we were lucky we managed to get the bikes on the bus both times, as there is just room for two bikes on the buses that between the train station at La Chable/Verbier resort.

We were out there in September, so this was very much the shoulder of the season and less lifts were open. We had planned to ride as many natural trails as possible, so we hired a guide so as not to waste time and to see the best trails. Having the guide was absolutely worth the money. I am not sure if transfers would have been easier peak season (i.e. sharing the cost of a van transfer with others).

Friday:

Heathrow (6:45 depart!) to Geneva (9:20 arrival).
Collect bike bags/luggage.
Jump on train (I had bought tickets online before). Departed 10:02, but station is literally in the airport. The most stressful part for me was making this connection.
Arrive Verbier (one train & one bus connection) 1pm.
1pm build bikes up – Mrs G goes and gets us a sandwich.
Meet guide a 2pm.
Ride all afternoon.

Saturday:

Ride all day.

Sunday:

Ride till 12:30.
Rest is sort of the reverse of Friday.
Grab lunch, pack bike bags up, showers. Hotel fine for late checkout.
Get connecting bus back to train.
9pm flight home.

Would absolutely do it again, but if we had a day or two more it would be much more relaxing.

I’ve done the ‘long weekend in the Alps’ Snowboarding a few times but not with bikes, but many places in the alps seem to be catering more and more for the last minute / long weekend customer as more people try and catch the good weather [or snow] window without taking too much time off work. This tends to be very popular and easier for folk from London and the South East though.

As others have said driving from Sheffield to Dover is pretty tough and leaves you knackered for the Calais to the Alps leg. Unless there is a group of you that can share the driving I would avoid.

From Sheffield to Geneva by air you are also pretty much looking at the best part of one full days travelling at each end, so your travel/’time on the bike’ ratio isn’t going to be great:

Both Leeds Bradford and Manchester have low-cost airlines that fly to Geneva, but when travelling with oversized luggage in my experience you are best turning up nice and early for check-in … especially when flying from Manchester – it’s worth getting an overnight hotel for a really early flight even if you technically only live an hour away from ‘Ringway’!

Transfers from Geneva with bike are pretty straight-forward and maybe preferable to a hire car as hire cars are often only economical when there are a few of you and then they are too small for all the luggage!

Can’t comment on the bike hire situation, but I would have thought that having your own gear/set-up was pretty important – it certainly is for me.

So in a nutshell I’d say it’s doable if you are cash-rich and time-poor. Otherwise I reckon there are probably better places and ways to spend your cash and/or time on the bike

Can’t comment on the bike hire situation, but I would have thought that having your own gear/set-up was pretty important – it certainly is for me.

Time before last i met up with STWers and rode a Pivot Mach6 i hired, it took me a good few hours to get used to it.
Last year i had my T-130 and felt right at home on the first trail.