I do my touring in regular downhill boots – bit heavy granted! Also have some marker duke bindings which add to the weight… but it's all worthwhile when you get to go down in my opinion. But then I live in the alps and we get to go down for longer I suppose – for scotland I'd have thought some lightweight dynafit bindings and lightweight boots would be good – as you will be spending far longer going up than down..

don't forget that even a set of skins will set you back £100 or so on top of the skis + bindings + boots.. still, it's cheaper than mountain biking! and less maintenance!

Ski Lifts do a guaranteed price per person – think it's 35 each way per person.

or – as there's no real need to start or finish anywhere in particular you could just start in Morzine… not sure about picking up your number plates etc though – you could send someone up the road in a car to get them perhaps….

here isn't the oppertunity for the chain to work its way off.

what about bouncing around and the rear mech extends forwards creating slack and hey presto – off it goes…

I know – that price is steep – but if they work as well or better than a 36VanR and don't need to be serviced every other ride… all that time saved.. and that purple is nice..and you get a trade deal…(which, by the way, is still megabucks!) ……hmmmm.

got a blue pig – not weighed it..

suspect it's quite a lot though. currently got pike 426's, dual ply tyres, and other such hefty things on there..but then I do get about half my ascents done by ski lift though.. do rather like it.

To be blunt each hire bike I've seen there has been either shite or dangerous.

you've obviously not seen any of ours for the past few years..

I'm all for people bringing their own bikes – I certainly would, and did before I moved here – but there are many reasons someone would hire a bike when they're here: They can't be bothered to bring theirs and would rather not have to clean / maintain it / fix it when they get back etc. Or they simply can't bring it for whatever reason. or they want to ride a different bike – perhaps more travel, bigger brakes etc. And don't want to jack up / weigh down their UK bike by alpifying it.

Like I said – I'd bring my own, but some people prefer not to. Tarnishing all hire bikes as shite, dangerous, or naff is plain hire bikeist 😉

I'd say that a rental bike get's about a year or two's use in three months. Depending on the weather and so on.

It's a combo of being highly used, and highly looked after. Worn out parts get replaced and so on, but other bits, like the frame obviously don't – if they're protected by tape etc they can look like new at the end.

I doubt that the 3k road bike gets much of a beating each ride….

cheapest does not equal best! You may also find that for most hire places they'll have crappy XC bikes, better Freeride bikes and bling DH bikes.

However…we'll be hiring out Mondraker Foxys – prices are to be determined, but will be around 70 euros per day.

new website on its way as well.

Hi Steve – congratulations on the whole 'being legal' thing!

What's the deal with Iona's 'aspirant' IML status? Does "supervised" mean that you need to actually supervise her whilst riding? or is it more like the trainee ski instructor (or MCF instructor) status where you are allowed to go out and lead a group on your own because your boss is qualified.

I don't have the IML myself, but I guess there's a lot more 'aspirant' IML people about who could work in France under a fully qualified IML. And how does that work with gaining 'equivalence'? What qualifications will you be asking for for this guide you're after?

My feelings about the whole guiding situation are that the bar is set too high here in France, and too low in the UK. With the MBL I'm qualified to take a group of inexperienced riders across the wilds of Scotland and all the dangers that that entails, but I can't get paid to show someone the route to Les Gets from Morzine.

it's simple. bash the old ones out – push the new ones in. If they've never been touched since 2004 it may be a bit hard…

be careful not to just bash out the inner part of the bearing though!

Jungle will sell the bearings. as will any bearing place if you give em the right numbers..

Would the ensuite be avaiable the week I've just booked

Am afraid not. you've got the last room that was left that week..

well – to be more precice… the top two rooms have been turned into one bigger room with an en-suite and an extended lounge area…

Hi All – thanks for the nice words…

The B+B chalet has been re-fitted upstairs (last autumn) so now looks right posh 🙂

New bigger lounge:

New kitchen

More pics here[/url]

One room is en-suite, then there's two bathrooms for the rest of the rooms (4 more) downstairs.

And a sauna 🙂

OK – so what about in France where the Diesel is about 30% cheaper than petrol..

what should I buy? doing about 10,000 miles / year…

So many good trails – lots in that book.

Get yourself over the Col du Cou and into Switzerland.
Ride the track next to the champery world cup course.
Head off down to Monthey.
etc
etc

I had a heckler for a season in the alps, now have a Nomad. Same build on both (36vanR, DHX Coil) – the Nomad is a much more capable bike out here. But I'm not sure I'd have one if I had to ride up every hill rather than get the lifts…

So, on reflection – Heckler! Or a Blur LT would also fit the bill. A guest brought out his Blur LT – he spent most of the week on my Nomad mind, but he did say that they had a similar feel, like the Nomad was the bigger brother..

We get plenty of solo visitors over the summer – they almost always hook up with other guests to ride.

I'd strongly suggest some sort of chalet trip where there'll be others around to spend time with off the bike planning what to do the next day on the bike. I don't think you get that so much in a hotel environment. At least with an MTB chalet holiday you know the other guests are there to ride just as much as you.

Guy

Just realised who you are Monsta – you did stay in our second chalet – and if I remember correctly, you and your partner kept yourselves to yourselves all week – hence missing out on our frequent visits to check up on everyone, share a beer, say hi, discuss the course, discuss the routes you could ride etc etc.

And by way of balance – here's something another guest, staying at the same chalet with you last year, emailed us to say:

just wanted to say that it was a fantastic week. Incredible riding, chalet was top, food top – will go down as one of my best riding trips ever.

Guy

Hi Monsta,

I'm not sure who you are, or which chalet you stayed at last year, so have no idea if you voiced your concerns and disappointments to us either at the mega or by email or phone since. We're sorry you felt that you didn't have a good enough week with us – let me answer each of your points here:

They didn't give us any guiding or even advice on other routes, despite the fact they were riding with their mule bar buddies

We can not guide, and did not advertise any guiding with this holiday. We could have arranged a qualified guide to show you the mountain for an additional cost. We offered advice and were on hand to be asked for advice. We are, however, allowed to ride with our friends.

They did give us this speil about having to be qualified to guide in france even though they guide in Morzine where their permanent chalet is;

The 'speil' is the French Law. We'd guide you if we could, but don't fancy getting arrested in the process. We do NOT guide anyone in Morzine, I don't know where you got that information from. Any company in the French alps that guides you without the proper qualifications is breaking the law. It annoys us as much as anyone that we can't do it.

didn't give us any help with a ticket situation we had (despite the fact they were fluent in french and the french were being, well, french) cos they were too busy riding with their buddies;

I don't recall any 'ticket situation' – but I am sure that we would have helped if asked. We were riding, that's why we're in this business – it's certainly not for the money – but I've never knowingly not helped a guest because I was 'too busy riding'.

didn't give us any tips on riding the course despite the fact they've ridden every year;

Simply not true. I recall speaking to both chalet groups about the course during the week. In fact, as you might imagine, it's a the main topic of most of the conversations we have with our guests that week!

their welcome thing was crap and the guy (I think his name was guy) arrived late when we all needed to be at registration;

Yes my name is Guy. I'm not sure what's crap about our welcome pack, most guests find it useful, if you could give some more constructive criticism, we could make it better for this year, but saying it's crap helps no one.

I arrived in resort at about 4pm – one hour later than we originally said you could get into the chalets – I apologised about that, but it shouldn't have stopped you or anyone else registering – you can do that all throughout the week.

there was no workshop or tools despite the fact we were told there would be (and hence didn't take anything apart from a multitool and ended up having to get charged to use one of the shops tools).

We had pretty much all the tools you needed, they were probably at our second chalet – I'm guessing you were in the bigger more central one? You could have asked at any time to borrow them at any time for zero cost.

The bottom line seemed to be: you're paying flow £700 for a week at the mega but you're actually not get any of even the most basic service you'd get for half the price at any other bike holiday company in the alpes. All you're gonna get is an over-priced chalet and that's it. Sort yourselves out. See ya!

The price is steep, I agree, but that reflects the costs of running a trip that lasts a week in Alpe d'Huez. We had just about THE best chalet in the whole resort, a great chef cooking for you morning and night. If you have that for just one week, then the costs are massively higher than running a chalet for the whole summer (hence our Morzine trips are much less money). I believe that we were on hand for any route advice, bike advice and would have done our upmost to help any of our guests out all week long.

Changes for this year are twofold:

Our guests are staying in one of two centrally located hotels (rather than chalets).

The price is a lot cheaper (from €440 / week) This is down to economies of scale (more people = less costs for everyone) and that the food and standard of accommodation is lower: We felt that there were more people after a cheaper place to stay with the trade off being that they won't be in a super luxury chalet, and will be provided with more basic meals – think Lasagna rather than Lamb Shank.

And Monsta, whoever you are, I am truly sorry that your holiday didn't live up to your expectations. I don't think we've ever had a complaint like this in the 4 years we've been running. And if you did contact us after the trip then Sara would have got the mail, but she's not around right now for me to verify. I don't recall any complains like this being voiced during the week when we could have rectified any shortcomings on our behalf.

We hire bikes. and will have a brand new fleet of top notch bikes this summer. Dert is closed, and has been for a while. There may well be a new shop opening this summer though…
flowmtb.com

Go to chamonix, then ride to Morzine- http://www.ridemorzine.org/2009/09/chamonix-to-morzine/%5B/url%5D That route is not outlawed, but will be busy in July.. And involves a bit of pushing and shoving. Well worth it.

But do ride the trails in Cham – they're bloody marvelous.

740 mm bars, 50mm stem = spot on for me.

Never felt like I was going over the bars though, surely a longer stem will enforce that feeling more so?

There's a company called 'action sport loisirs' – http://www.marrakechbikeaction.com/ – they're based in Marrakech and can take you out for a day or a week.

They've got some decent Kona's for rental (2009 models, in good shape) and can speak English.

It's run by a Swiss guy, but he's got a couple of Moroccan MTB guides as well.

Drop them a line. And mention me (Guy from Flowmtb.com)

nice one.

I'd say that the prices we (and the other guys) charge are pretty fair – the price seems pretty high, but when you consider that you get a 4×4 plus driver (around 1k euros for a week), plus a guide, plus all meals included, plus no faff about which route to ride, where to stay, am i going to get ripped off etc etc… and uplifts to the good stuff, and not carrying your kit around is a big bonus. but all that costs money.

Chicken tagines is a bit of a sore point – but that's the staple, if you want more variety, or more expensive food, then the price goes up. We try our hardest to not get that every day, but lack of communications (mobile reception, email etc) means that you often can't warn ahead that we'd rather not have chicken tagine!

As for self guided – it can be done – so long as you speak a bit of french you'll be fine. If you want to ride up the mountains as well as down, and carry your own kit then you've got no worries.

Finding places to ride however will be hit and miss- and I for one wouldn't want to climb for half a day in order to risk not finding that awesome singletrack descent down the other side. But for some people that's half the adventure, and fair enough.

As for maps – you can get 1:100,000 maps from good map shops (stanfords) and a 1:50,000 around Imlil from the same place. They'll give you an idea of where the mountains are and where there might be a good trail, but as always, the best ones just aren't on there..

One more bit of advice – there's pretty much always a mule track between two villages – so long as the 4×4 road DOESN'T go a direct route, the mules tracks will – and those are the trails you want to be riding (if you want the rocky techy stuff)

We're finalising our plans for this spring and autumn and should have a trip up on our site shortly – it'll be around 900-1000 euros for a week. And will be **** awesome 🙂
and look like this[/url]

Guy
flowmtb.com

Yep – we have bikes for hire. They are expensive to hire, sure, but ours are brand new each year, they're not cheap bikes (£3k each).

We reccomend people bring their own bikes, sure, but if you've got more money than time, or don't want the hassle of packing / un packing / servicing / cleaning etc, then it's money well spent in my opinion.

google is good at these questions:
try this[/url]

I just got a camera into France from HK – cost me the VAT and a fed ex handling charge.. depends on the value of the product etc etc.

buy some sam hill 5:10s – they don't look 'speacial' – they're on offer on CRC and they're the best damned flat shoes I've worn. No grip issues at all. And that's on a hardtail as well.

there aren't too many (any?) people I know who live here year round and ski hard who wear glasses..

fine for pootling around the pistes though.

and never. ever. glasses + helmet. you just look stupid 🙂

well there would be ski touring going on. I ride pretty much every day in the summer (perk of the job) – work at home, can spare an hour or two each day not doing some active sport to walk the dog as well.

hmmm. interesting thoughts people.

that's right – you either wait until Jan 11th when they go on sale on activeeurope.com

or you book a place to stay with us and get a place from us. today!

And you get a good start position for the qualifier..

sounds doable to me. cheers for the answers.

should I swat up on torque measurements and so on?

I guess I should also practice wheel building a bit more… with a proper spoke tension calculator etc. Last wheel I built has survived a summer under me on my hard tail in the alps… can't be bad!

Watch them pass in Morzine, get the chair up, blast down and watch them again in Les Gets? C'est possible?

Not a chance.

It's not that far and not that steep – I could probably ride to Les Gets before you could do the up and over route..

Should be a busy week here in Morzine… even more fun if France make it to the worldcup finals as well…(with england beating them, of course)

ta!

insurance policy is about to be tested…

makes the 30 swiss franc 'donation' to rega.ch (swiss air rescue service) seem worth while to avoid any chance of paying for the chopper.

in my book a potential broken skull = helicopter. 🙂

because two times not very much isn't very much either…?

I love my Blue Pig…
piggy

And am sure the Alpine is wicked as well.. just Mike didn't have any when I was in need 🙁

FYI The Blue Pig is a plywood pub near Hebden Bridge:

it looks cold there.

I prefer it being a bike in the alps 🙂