Just got back from Les Gets / Morzine with a family of 6.

I’d echo above – red is way above what red trail centres in the UK throw at you, some sections of the blues are more technical than anything red at places I’ve visited like Llandegla.

Think through lift pass prices before you go to avoid standing around scratching you head at the Caisse on the first day. Multi-day passes do seem to offer best value, but if your clan isn’t hammering the cycling every day for full days then the 6 / 12 ride options might actually be worth it.

Lac du Montriond is beautiful for a ride / swim, the goat village at Les Lindarets is entertaining, and the burgers on the Menu VTT at Les Marmottes in Les Lindarets were particularly lovely.

Watch out for thunderstorms shutting the lifts. We were on a family walking day and got stuck with the car up at the Avoriaz car park, and the family down at Les Lindarets. I had to run up the road from Lindarets to Avoriaz in a deluge in baggy shorts, a shirt and a useless rain coat! Fortunately when the lightning got particularly close by I was able to thumb a lift for the last 2km with a very accommodating french family! It looked like plenty of riders got stuck down there that day.

SuperMorzine area is good, but the queues were bigger there than in Les Gets. I particularly liked the swoopy green “Soylent Green” which I believe is new this year. Getting up high onto the Pointe de Mosettes and tearing down the PDS firetrack from the top is fun in a non-technical way too.

We didn’t hire bikes – I was on a cheap 29er HT and son was on his Canyon Nerve trail bike. Probably significantly underbiked (it seems now we’ve got home that he’s also cracked his front brace on the Rebas from 13 days of consecutive riding there), but as you say hire is very expensive.

Plenty of other stuff to do with the family too – ice rink, pool, walking, just riding the lifts etc etc. Check out the Multi-Pass for decent value, though that comes into its own if you are there for longer than a week, or if your accommodation participates in the discount scheme which would mean it was only 2Euros per day per person for the Multipass. It gives free pedestrian access to lifts, pools, mini golf, etc etc. Might not suit your age range, but worked very well for us with a 7, 10 and 13 year old.

Enjoy!!

Cheers, will try those options out.

Surely the rim doesn’t deflect at all until there’s a rim strike with the tyre fully compressed (probably over a sharp-ish point load, rather than a well spread out load)

e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_OTbgvBgQc – you can see the wheel doesn’t deflect at all until the tyre is fully compressed.

I’ll jump in here as a keen observer too – arriving in Les Gets in 6 days time with a confident 7 year old, a less confident 10 year old, a learning disabled 13 year old and a supremely confident (but actually quite sensible and safe) 16 year old, so we’ll be testing out all that the whole area has to offer. Bringing 7 bikes with us so that even if we need to hire something a bit gnarlier for the 7 year old and the 16 year old, we’ve got “pootling about” bikes sorted (and an option for me to slip into lycra and pretend I am riding Le Tour ;-) )

Good info here, and I’ll also try to remember to post updates whilst we’re there for the record.

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With 7 bikes of various descriptions coming with us in two weeks time to the Alps, I definitely value having the name of a service that might be able to help out when we’re in Les Gets.

Thanks for posting!

How did that guy get his hand in between the chainstay and your wheel!?!?

True, but at £120 ordering 2 seems extravagant!!

Gift surprise isn’t an issue as he knows its coming, so I suppose that’s an option. The advantage of the smaller sizes is that I can get the cheaper non-“blackline” version in those sizes, but as I’m buying it with safety in mind I don’t want to scrimp too much!

Whatever brand you get, make sure you get a two legged kickstand. Single legged with all that kiddy weight on the back is a sure fire route to the whole thing toppling over. We had a two legged on and it was great as you could get the infant in and out without worrying about the bike toppling over.

I’ve used a bit of matchstick in stripped threads where full on strength isn’t particularly an issue.

However, after all that, gaps are likely to be small so the biggest upset of the day might be Yates overtaking Mollema, and even that looks unlikely.

I suppose I was imagining penalty = “how comfortable you are climbing steep stuff on the TT bike”. It’s not going to be “ideal” for climbing on, and given that you would spend more time climbing than you will in a good aero tuck, surely there is “some” penalty? But having never ridden a TT bike I don’t know how much the impact of lack of “comfort” would bring.

4km to 14.5km climb, ascent 650m. Surely no-one would think it was optimal to ride a full on TT bike for that? And in the first 4km you’re not going to get enough benefit from it to outweigh the penalty on the climb, even if there are flatter sections in the climb.

But traditionally if you want to attack later on you’d stick one or two riders up the road as a spring board. My take is Quintana is either ill or not in form and today will just be a hanging on effort.

I’ve watched the TdF for years on and off (not as an afficiando) and never really understood this. Is the idea that they get ahead, use more energy than their colleague who they are trying to help whilst they get away, but then take a bit of a breather and fuel up whilst it all comes back together again with their leader then trying to leap across onto their wheels before they are caught, at which point the breakaway pairing have to put in a second effort? I can sort of see that, but it sounds a risky strategy if it fails as you’d end up with two riders from your team with less to give when it all comes to the sharp end.

If any decisive action is going to happen today, its going to happen on the penultimate or final climb. No reason for Movistar (or any other team) to expend more energy than necessary before they hit the two big climbs, whether or not they are planning for an attack. Movistar wouldn’t get Quintana (or Valverde) out in a break early on (Sky wouldn’t let them go I’m sure), so why waste their efforts?

No water bottle bolt holes that can be used as a ventilation option?

Didn’t need to bleed it when I fitted my sons to his internally routed canyon. Unscrewed at the bottom of the post, routed cable through, connected back up, adjusted length of hose at the lever end after all was put together, just lost a few drops in that process which was easy to top up with the supplied kit. No hassle since.

No, they’re 32mm on the Recon Gold, same as the Rebas. Yes, the top cap fits.

Ditch autopause and take control. Stop it when you stop for a proper break, and just suck up the loss in average mph when you’re stopped at traffic lights / junctions.

Thoughts with Nice. Well put by all above.

What are the start times for each individual rider today?

Quintana has got to show his hand at some point otherwise he stands no chance. He’s got two TTs ahead where he’s bound to lose some time to Froome, so unless he can look to get at least 60s today surely his goose is cooked.

With the top taken off Ventoux today, Froome can afford to spend energy today making sure Quintana doesn’t get a gap, knowing that it won’t hurt his TT as much as it would have done if he had to dig deep for the full climb.

Wind could play a big part in this too. Given how well Sky have ridden and taken the initiative compared to Movistar’s frankly abyssmal reading of the stages so far, Froome is likely to be better protected.

Suspect the problem here is the stupid restrictions of iPhones. You could try one of the cloud storage apps like Dropbox, OneDrive or Google drive which offer offline storage for selected files and that might be a route to be able to send via Bluetooth from the iPhone, but as you can’t even send a photo via Bluetooth from an iPhone you might equally struggle with gpx files.

The issue with buying anything at that age is that they grow out of it so quickly, and actually don’t complain about the quality at all!

I bought a Frog 62 for one of my sons because he is very diminutive, and is likely to stay very short for a long time. He also has inherent muscle weaknesses so weight of the bike was an issue, so it makes sense for us to buy him a lightweight kids bike that may last 3 or 4 years. But for the rest of my kids its decathlon bikes FTW. Cheap, reliable, generally well enough put together but heavy, effectively disposable but possible to hand down between the family. The kids don’t seem to care too much!

Is there such a thing as a bike manufacturer? Surely they are all “bike assemblers” or perhaps “frame designers” as all bar the frame (and even that in some cases) are bought in parts which are then combined to create the bike.

Don’t think you can do it on GC.

See http://www.scarletfire.co.uk/crop-edit-ride/ for a suggestion.

So is the 3km finish line concept ignored if there isn’t a crash, but comes into play only if there is a crash / mechanical?

How does that work then if you’re in the bunch at 3km, then the bunch splits in two with (say) a 5s gap but you get a puncture or snapped chain? Do you get the time of the lead group or the 5s down group, or do those lucky individuals who weren’t quick enough to avoid the 5s gap benefit from your misfortune and everyone’s time ends up being the same?

I should probably read the rules…

It will be a lower COG when in the banked turns.

Do people really buy that stuff? When my boys were growing up, I couldn’t see at what point they’d benefit from a balance bike (apart from the learning disabled youngster in my family, for whom a larger bike with only balance to worry about was a useful stepping stone, but even then only for a couple of months).

Maybe I’m just old school, but it was trike > bike with two stabilisers > bike with stabilisers adjusted away from the ground > bike with no stabilisers in about 3 months for all of our kids.

“Ornamental, with the emphasis on ‘mental”

At least the seller has a sense of humour

Actually on the car I have the number plate and lights are not likely to be obscured with kids bikes on the back, especially not the lights (fiat multipla). I can live without the number plate being visible as that doesn’t impact safety in any way, though I accept that it may not be lawful.

But I was as much concerned to understand if the French for example have a blanket ban or rule on bike carriers requiring lights hooked up, even if for practical purposes they are actually visible.

But all points on the thread well made and understood. I’m not one to compromise safety.

Cheers – by going through Canyon directly it seems I’ve got three of them winging their way to me. Odd they aren’t on the website though for sale.

ref. keeping on in the backpack – my sentiment exactly, I had put it in previously for son to use, but I think over time he’d cleared out his pack and put stuff “safe” elsewhere. Plus on that evening anyway we’d only gone a couple of miles from home for a 20 minute blast, so no packs present!!

I’ve hung onto the old hangers too, as whilst they are not good, they are at least usable in an emergency.

LOL! If only I had such skills to craft something such as this.

I think its such a niche piece (only fits one model of the Nerve) that there just isn’t much demand for it from the aftermarket suppliers.

As an aside, Canyon got back to me very quickly and said they’d order some. Then I got the paperwork from this morning on this, and it turns out they’d ordered the wrong one themselves (I think they got confused as I needed Hanger #29 for a Nerve and they thought I needed a hanger for a 29er Nerve…)

Let’s see what the next exchange of emails turns up…

No joy there either.

Worth worrying about? Yes, this is the second hanger he’s gone through in six months…

But joy of joys, the spare hanger I’d ordered last time turned up in sons stock drawer so back up and running and we can wait for canyon to get stock in.

Yes, I know they are out there. It’s just that it surprised me that when I got one last time direct from Canyon at 14 Euros each (steep, but affordable) and that they were for a current bike (I believe the 2016 Nerve AL 6.0 has the same odd hanger) that I couldn’t find one on their site, and it made me wonder what I might do if it did ever come to pass that I couldn’t get a hanger for a £1000 bike. I can convert the frame to a thru axel for a better wheelset I think, which (in the context of £40 for a hanger) might be a better value option some day!

Boggart Hole Clough? Delamere? It feels like my life is being stalked here…

Cheers, I must admit I hadn’t looked at Superstar, but fairly sure they don’t have it – the part is this one http://pilo.co.il/d564-derailleur-hanger-for-canyon-aka-29#.V3EoofkrK70

I’ll email them though to see if they ever plan on stocking it!

Frog 55? A bit cheaper, 8sp vs 6sp. A tad heaviver though (8.8kg vs 8kg?)

I’ve got a Fiat Multipla (higher than an XC90) and despite being only 5ft8 I can get all four bikes (including one kids bike which weighs more than the others) on the roof without too much difficulty – standing on the sill, leaning against the door. Even easier if the car is parked kerbside. No step necessary!

To be honest, I’m having a go just to see if I can do it. Whether it becomes something necessary for me, I don’t know. Particularly at £6 per presta valve, vs £1.50 for a new tube.

Though to be fair, we go through tubes like there’s no tomorrow in our household, and in the past when we had a slime-filled inner tube we got some much needed respite from thorn punctures, so perhaps it will work.

Caution noted about CMs vs 19mm rims, already aware of that concern. I don’t intend to be running on minimal air pressure in the tyres, but if I get too much burping on those that might well be the end of my tubeless experiment.