We’re over in France in Aug near a place called Couches, it’s a good 3 hours from Morzine/Alps and I was thinking of one day over there and playing on some XC/semi-DH stuff.

I’ve only been to Morzine though and obviously surrounding areas via PPDS so don’t know where would be best to base myself for such a short day out.

Plan would be to leave Couches about 7 and get to Morzine/Alps for 10am then spend the day on the trails and head back about 5pm for a late evening meal and BBQ in Couches.

I’ll be riding my Spearfish as hiring something won’t really give me THAT much more as my tech skills are closer to Spearfish levels than 200mm DH bike levels. But the idea of hiring is always a possibility of course.

where to base myself for the day is the question though I guess.

10 laps of the plenny?

Pleney AM, Super Morzine Side PM finishing on the black under the Super Morzine

Personally, I would start in Morzine, ride across to Les Lindarets, and then on to Chatel. There are several excellent trails from Avoriaz down to Les Lindarets, and there are lots of lovely trails in the bike park in Chatel.

I’d consider the Lindarets bowl. You can drive to it and park up. There’s bars etc for lunch stops and water refills. Gives you access to the Lindaret descents from the avoriaz side as well as taking Chaux Fleurie over to the Chatel runs. You can also take Mossette lift up to top of Mossette and descend on the more XC-style run back to Lindarets or explore swiss side for a while with return via Mossette again. It’s not too downhilly, lots of blue and red options, and gives you XC options too.

Alternatively, Les Gets gives you the blues and reds of Chavannes, there’s the waymarked XC loop around the Plateau de loex and you can also take the bubble up Mont Chery and ride the XC loop around the mont chery. It may say the route is still closed, but it’s passable.

Personally, I would start in Morzine, ride across to Les Lindarets, and then on to Chatel.

In that case I wouldn’t bother parking in Morzine. It’s a crappy slog from the top of the Zore lift to the PPDS route into Lindarets. Better parking at Lindarets instead if you want to ride that and Chatel, plus fairly easy to pop over to the Swiss National

If I take Mrs Weeksy I could start in one place and finish in another if that would make things better even ?

Park in Les Gets, ride park trails in the moring and meet Mrs W for lunch at Mont Caly. Ride Stoner’s routes (thread link below) to Morzine via Col Ecrenanz. The get a wiggle on to get to top of Les Gets on last/late lift before riding to Lac Joux Plan (ice cream with Mrs W and view of Mont Blanc) before riding to Bourgeoise and descent to Samoens cute town centre where Mrs W collects you – enjoy a drink.

Personally I would not ride all day then drive 2/3 hours, you’ll be knackered.

STW thread link

Do you already know your way around well enough?

Linderets & Chatel Bike park sounds like a good plan anyway.

Either that or just Morzine & Les Gets would be fine for a day.

chakaping – Member

Do you already know your way around well enough?

Not so much in honesty. Been these twice but only ridden the once, trip 2 I spannered myself 3 days before leaving for airport ! So I did a bit of walking from Morzine to Les Gets.

Also Weeksy there are hundreds of small roads and tracks through the wine country of Burgandy which is on your doorstep. Have a search on uttawagavtt.com for routes, all quite up and down of course. We visit once a year to buy wine and for a holiday and whilst I’ve not taken the bike as we are normally very busy visiting small wine growers and generally eating and drinking it looks great country for xc.

Goes without saying JAmb, I put in a great week of riding in honesty when I’m there with 2-3 hour rides before anyone else gets up some days. Lovely quiet roads etc.

But there’s nothing to excite, there’s nothing certainly signposted that’s exciting, it’s basically farm tracks, and byways, which whilst are lovely to be out in and I’ve got lost for a few hours riding round some at times, they’re not Morzine.

Don’t bother with Morzine, head east to Morvan. There is a bike park there with uplift (it was shut on the Tuesday we were there…?!) but loads of uncrowded natural riding. And it’ll save you a shed load of driving.

Rode there in 2012 – if memory serves it’s home to the Clementz brothers: http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/Enduro-Bros-Jerome-and-Pierre-Clementz,27739/iceman2058,94

Edit: apologies, I’m thinking of Vosgues. We rode at both.

Saying that, Morvan has loads of marked routes of around a red grade, and public bike washes. To give you an idea of terrain, Lapierre are based just down the road in Dijon.

We started out from near Quarré les Tombes. There’s a good MTB scene there too, as well as some amazing WW2 resistance/fledgling SAS history, if that’s your thing: http://www.morvanvtt.fr

Pimpmaster Jazz – Member

Don’t bother with Morzine, head east to Morvan. There is a bike park there with uplift (it was shut on the Tuesday we were there…?!) but loads of uncrowded natural riding. And it’ll save you a shed load of driving.

Indeed it would matey yes, we often go that direction to Autun as it’s got the best pool and a few nice places to eat, so Morvan wouldn’t be a stretch at all.

Something to investigate

Understood and agreed on the tracks/bridleways weeksy, didn’t mean to be patronising

There is some decent vtt riding in the Northern part of Parc Morvan and an annual xc event in Saullieu – no uplift

Other uplift possibilites

Annecy/ Semnoz/La Clusaz
Metabief in Jura
Samoens itself

If Mrs W doesn’t mind the whole day then Les Gets will offer the most riding but its quite a long way, I reckon you won’t be riding by 10 with a 7am departure, more like 11.

Yeah she’s informed me she’s up for it, so the day out is now viable. She’ll have our 7 year old for the day, so maybe if I could integrate something in with him for some more gentle stuff as he’s only a Swinley Blue kind of guy as you’ve possibly seen in other sections. So I could do some riding alone, meet them, he could do some etc.

Cheeky (best) way would be one night in Hotel in Les Gets/Morzine – we stayed at Grand Tetras and they do a 3 bed room

That utawaga site is pretty good for xc amd xc-plus type routes – note timings are way beyond me at least 50% longer

Autin
Couches

awesome stuff, thanks fella… much appreciated.

Food for thought for sure.

For the sake of simplicity (because losing an hour getting lost will suck)

I’d start in Les Gets, have a play on the Mont Chery side, then over to Chavennes for a play.

Then from the top of Chavennes XC route to Morzine.

Got to have a run on The Plenney for old times sake – cross town to Super Morzine – for a play on the bike park on the lift above that one (forget the name).

Then XC to Avoriaz down that trail along the ridge, lunch in that place that does a mixed grill with red sausages.

Then drop into Chatet for play in the park.

Back up to Avoriaz – drop into Lindrets to say hello to the Goats.

Drop back into Morzine – XC from the top of Pleney back into Les Gets for Tea and Medals.

I planned to do the same solo 2 years ago when I only had a day to ride, it’s a lot to cram in and seemed a bit rushed but I was enjoying it – but just as I was about to get on the Super Morzine life I had a call from Mrs to say she’d binned it on the luge a was missing some skin so I went to her aid instead.

Also I’m aware I’ve used “simplicity” and then reeled off a huge list, but I’ve found these the easiest to follow, best sign posted routes in the area. If you don’t like Goats as much as riding you could miss Lindrets, take the lift to the top of Avoriaz and XC down directly into Morzine or take the road if you’re tired and/or like doing 50mph on a MTB

Thanks again… All great stuff.

Just need to decide now on using the Spearfish i’ll have with me, maybe fitted with Smorgasboards or I guess hire something like a Pivot Mach6 from Torico. I guess using the Spearfish will keep the costs down and there’s nothing for example at BPW I can’t ride on it that I actually WOULD ride on something else 🙂 I’m a general XC mincey type rather than a super gnarly DH type.

I ride smorgasmord on Canyon Nerve.

Covers XC through to sub-gnar reds.

Other than the black under the super morzine lift there’s nothing I would say is properly gnarly on the marked DH trails (ignoring the mad jumps in chatel and mont Chery and the Champery WC track)

Some of the off piste stuff is proper mental though

Another vote for Les Linderettes valley. Take in the GR5 from the Mossettes lift, quick play at chatel and back via avoriaz

id be tempted to get there earlier and have a nice pedal up & back down in time for first the lifts to open, prolong the day a bit…

pedal up what tho i do not know….

Is your missus letting you play in the Alps?

boobs – Member

Is your missus letting you play in the Alps?

Yeah, she’s all good.. I think she’d ideally like me to come back in one piece though this time.

mahalo – Member

id be tempted to get there earlier and have a nice pedal up & back down in time for first the lifts to open, prolong the day a bit…

It’s a 3+ hours drive from Couches, so getting there earlier with a wife who likes sleep and an 8 year old isn’t happening at all.

Anyone from these here parts around on the 15/16th August then ?

I’ll be there.

Stoner – Member

I’ll be there.

Ace, i’ll shout you closer to the time matey if you fancy a bit of non-gap jumping type day 🙂 ? I’d expect it will be the 15th, but I can sort of pick and choose really as it’s only the 13th we have plans (wifes birthday), the rest until the 20th I can pick depending on the weather and the amount of beer the night before 🙂

I’m far from super fast, but I’ve got a decent level of fitness and an average skillset.

I’ve just booked a hire bike from Torico for the day of the 15th Aug. It’s likely to be MASSIVE overkill for my skills, but you can arguably never be over-biked 🙂 Not when you have a lack of skill.

did you go for the Pivot Mach 6?

eightyeight – Member

did you go for the Pivot Mach 6?

Nah I went all out for the super skills compensator 🙂

Having been before it doesn’t necessarily mean i’ll do harder stuff, but it does mean that the hard stuff (for me) is made a bit easier. As I’m not doing a 100km Passportes ride, i’ll have the DH bike and it can drag my arse round.

I used Torico last time for some wheel repairs and they were ace, along with being English speaking etc so makes sense, also knowing where the shop is etc makes things easier.

ha, the phoenix? Noice.

I too suffer from a distinct lack of skill. Four days is 356 euros, so a bit of a hit to sky rocket.

The Pivot looks like a perfect choice.

jambalaya – Member

The Pivot looks like a perfect choice.

Arguably… I may swap on the day depending how I feel and like the bigger boy, we’ll see.

I wussed out. Just booked the Pivot Mach for two days, plenty of bike for me.

BoardinBob – Member
Personally, I would start in Morzine, ride across to Les Lindarets, and then on to Chatel.
In that case I wouldn’t bother parking in Morzine. It’s a crappy slog from the top of the Zore lift to the PPDS route into Lindarets. Better parking at Lindarets instead if you want to ride that and Chatel, plus fairly easy to pop over to the Swiss National

You’re absolutely right Doh! Starting in Les Lindarets is what I woudl do. Both the Lindarets bowl and the Chatel bike parks are very easily accessed, so no faffing around.

Ready 🙂

Just ordered this

I find that strangely arousing.