Benji reflects on Morzine’s past, present and future.
Words Benji Photography Mark and Sanny
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Morzine, we were all going direct the other way (to Les Gets).
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Yes, I am ripping off Charlie Dickens here. But sometimes you just have to accept that someone wrote the perfect introduction to the theme of duality, of contrast and compare, of experiences being different even though the circumstances appear identical at first instance. So kudos to Dickens. But he didn’t ride mountain bikes.
BITD vs YOLO
Before this very trip to the Portes du Soleil area, which you’re looking at on these pages, I hadn’t visited this part of France for quite a while. To be exact, 2009 CE. Back then, things were different. On a personal level, I didn’t have children. On a professional level, mountain bikes were quite different to what they are now. Spoiler alert: they were significantly worse. And ebikes simply didn’t exist.
Some things don’t change, though. Namely, the reasons why folk head over to this part of the world. For me, my specific reason for heading to Morzine was the riding. The trails. Sure, the uplifts are amazing, but I’m fairly certain I’d go to Morzine even if I had to get myself and my bike to the top of the trails by my own leg power.
A bit like a Full English Breakfast in Benidorm, the trails in Morzine are very much UK-flavoured. Just a lot longer. This is not some entirely different landscape that feels baffling or frightening. The dirt is familiar. The tree cover is familiar. The gradient is familiar. The number of roots is familiar. The general shape of tracks feels strangely comforting, predictable even. In a good way. I love the fact that I can ride pretty much everything on sight at a decent pace and not die (or stumble and stall and crash).
This does, though, very much depend on where you frequent in the UK. Morzine is not the South Downs. Nor is it the North York Moors. Morzine is very much the steep woodland tekkers-filled, maze-palaces like Forest Of Dean, Wharncliffe, Inners and co. If you’ve ridden such UK hotspots, chances are you’ve already been to Morzine. But if you’ve just relatively recently started to dabble in daytrips across the England/Wales/Scotland borders to session steep forested fells, you need to start planning your trip to Morzine right now. It is an amazing place to ride a modern mountain bike.
Bike nerding
Let’s talk hardware for a minute, then. Bikes: 2025 bikes versus 2009 bikes. I recall that by far the most capable I rode in Morzine the first time around was an Orange Blood (RIP). As you can see from the photos, this year I was piloting a Saracen Ariel 60.
Now then, in terms of comparing the two bikes, some things haven’t really changed. The amount of suspension travel is broadly similar. Well, the forks are both 160mm, but the rear travel is 130mm versus 160mm… however, let’s conveniently ignore that. The Blood was an outlier mixed-travel machine; most bikes back then were 160/160mm designs like the 2025 Saracen Ariel.
Other things that remain similar enough are chainstay length, BB heights, seat tube lengths, standover, 200mm-ish rotors, Maxxis tyres (you’d have to say that brakes and tyres on modern bikes are massively better than back in 2009). I’d also even go as far as to say that the head angles of both bikes aren’t wildly differing (66° versus 64.6°), but I suspect the fork on the Saracen rides higher in its travel than the Orange’s old RockShox 2-Step Lyrik.
It will come as no surprise to anyone that the main difference between 2009 mountain bikes and 2025 mountain bikes is size. And I don’t really mean wheel size, although a 29er is a very different beast to a 26in wheeler. The main size difference is the length of the two bikes.
The Orange Blood harks from an era where we didn’t even really know what ‘reach’ was in terms of geometry. So it’s hard to compare the two bikes by this most modern of metrics. But we can still compare two things: top tube lengths and wheelbase.
Size for size, the top tube of the Orange Blood was/is 75mm shorter than the Saracen Ariel 60. And the wheelbase was/is 122mm shorter. That roughly equates to the handlebar being three inches further forward and the front tyre contact patch being nearly five inches further forward on the more modern bike.
It’s amazing I didn’t spend the majority of the time on the Orange Blood fighting back endos. Oh, hang on. That is exactly what I spent the majority of the time on the Orange Blood doing.
When is a trail not a trail?
The bike park is the bike park. Blue/red/black graded groomed bermfest and tabletop jumps. That sort of thing. I’m not that into bike park stuff when I’m abroad. Yes, partly because I’m not very good at it, but partly because one bike park is pretty much like any other. And in 2025, we now have bike parks in the UK thankyouverymuch. Morzine’s Tutti Frutti is not all that different from something you could experience at Dyfi, or BikePark Wales, or even Woburn.
Perhaps I exaggerate, but you get my point. I don’t think the reason to go to Morzine or Les Gets is to ride the bike park. It’s to ride what we call ‘off-piste’ and what the French authorities confusingly call ‘freeride’. Seriously, any literature you encounter about bike trails in this part of France that says ‘freeride’ does not mean Freeride as we know it (i.e. North Shore, Red Bull Rampage, etc.). ‘Freeride’ means unofficial, unmapped, off-piste tracks.
For us, Rights-of-Way ruled Brit riders, it’s always been odd as to what exactly the legal status of paths is in foreign lands for mountain biking. And, let’s be honest, there is often a rather carefree attitude to it. We can always just plead ignorance, can’t we? Well, non. But that’s what occurs in the real world.
As it turns out, the 2025 season in Morzine looks set to be something of a Year Zero in terms of where bikes are ‘allowed’ to go. For whatever reason you choose to go with (rider safety, landowner misanthropy, general money-making mindsets) the fact is that, compared to how it was 2009–2024, there are more and more areas of the hillsides on either side of the Morzine valley that are explicitly stated and signed as being off-limits to bikes.
The truth is that anything that isn’t a mapped path has always been ‘illegal’ to ride bikes on. It’s just that up until now, the authorities haven’t done anything about it. And now they have.
On the Avoriaz side of Morzine, there doesn’t appear to be anything for mountain bikes below the Super Morzine Gondola. And on the famous Pleney side of the valley, there are two large sections of forest – one on either end, as it were – that are similarly blocked off to bikes.
Don’t freak out too much, though. The central larger section of Pleney woodland remains the relative free-for-all that it’s always been. And while the removal of full-descents (bike park or ‘natural’) from the Avoriaz side is an undoubted shame and loss, it does serendipitously open up that direction away from Morzine to a different type of mountain biking than you might previously have bothered with in this area. Something called ‘pedalling’.
Let’s shred pedal!
I’m being rather facetious here, but with the reduction of viable ‘off-piste’ trails that has taken place in Morzine, it’s going to mean that you may not be that satisfied with just hammering (what’s left of) The Pleney for a whole week anymore. It’s going to be necessary to spread your horizons and do some exploring into other valleys. Basically, to do your own scaled-down version of the Pass’Portes du Soleil.
Back in 2009, attempting any sort of exploring or navigating in this part of the world was a feat for the bold and/or foolhardy. The mapping is not Ordnance Survey. And even if you have a technically sound map, the reality is that you probably can’t read it quite as well as you should. Because it isn’t Ordnance Survey. You can find yourself following a parish perimeter dashed line believing it to be a path on the ground. And no one back in your chalet will know where the flip you are.
God help you if you’re trying to fathom the lay of the land via the weird 3D-but-not-3D fold-out pocket maps that you’ll find in the lift stations and tourist info office. They may work when skiing. But on bikes? You’ll get lost. Badly.
Happily, in 2025, we have technology to genuinely help us. In conjunction with a decent paper map, mobile apps like WhatsApp, Strava and Trailforks can be used to help back up your navigation, as well as keep people aware of where you are at any given time (via Strava Beacon or ‘Share Live Location’ function on WhatsApp).
This time in 2025, we happy three used a combination of decent quality paper mapping, Strava Heatmap and WhatsApp to explore our way around Avoriaz, Seraussaix, Lindarets and ultimately round to Montriond and back to the ’Zine.
OK, so we did find some stuff that was a little above our pay grade in terms of switchback tightness, but for the most part, we found some truly amazing riding and had a real adventure. All without feeling like we were ever taking anything approaching a serious risk.
Hire and higher
Of course, the other thing you could – and probably should – do is get in touch with people who know more than you. Whether it’s asking the bike shop owner for some retail advice when you hire a bike from them (more about hiring bikes shortly), or going all-in and booking a bike guide for a week, it’s not an expense that you’ll regret. You really will get so much more mileage on high-quality trails ridden with help from the professionals. Which is pretty much what it’s all about after all.
As well as knowing where the best riding is and how best to stitch it all together, a guiding company will also be invaluable when it comes to fuelling yourself. As well as knowing the location of various unlikely but amazing places in the middle of nowhere to pop into mid-ride, they will also know where the best quality and best value places are to eat and drink back in town.
Returning to the option of hiring a bike instead of taking your own. I would strongly recommend hiring one. As well as making your travel logistics 4,000% simpler and cheaper, a decent hire bike from a reputable bike shop can be a real blast. And it’s not your pride and joy that you’re smashing down the pistes with gay abandon day after day.
My advice would be to do your research and contact the bike shop well in advance. Find out what bike models are available, in what size, and get one booked. I would also strongly recommend taking some familiar parts along with you to swap in. Definitely take a short stem with you. Probably some higher rise bars too. I’d also recommend taking some familiar comfy grips and a saddle. And a properly filth-capable front tyre, in case of weather. Also, don’t forget a shock pump.
And if you do take your own bike instead of hiring one, take/install the above components too!
The future
By the time you’re reading this, the 2025 summer season in Morzine will be over. What will 2026 and beyond look like? Is The Man (Le Homme) going to close off even more ‘off-piste’ zones to bikes?
We can’t promise anything. But from what we’ve learned – and felt – from talking to the various parties involved is generally much more positive than negative. I personally feel like they aren’t going to close down any more zones. The area is kept alive by tourism. And with the snow sport tourism window getting ever shorter year on year, it’s the summer season that needs to be retained and ideally increased.
The lift operators, in particular, know that the whole ‘off-piste riding’ is the sole reason why a large number of Brits flock to Morzine. They aren’t going to come for just the bike park runs. With this in mind, it may take longer than we’d like, but the signs are that the currently closed-off-in-2025 zones may end up with some of the trails in there becoming ‘adopted’ and official-ised. And in the bigger, bigger picture, there are rumours of bike zones going on the Point de Nyon (a serious and seriously cool-looking mountain) with an uplift running directly from Morzine centre.
Bike Check: Saracen Ariel 60 Pro
- Price: £2,499 currently
- From: Saracen
We were especially pleased to bag Saracen as principal bike supplier for this adventure. Ever since the launch of the very first Saracen Ariel back in 2009 (which is still being ridden by a friend of ours), we’ve always got along well with the geometry, suspension action and the general air of can-do-it-all everyman’s bike. The Ariel 60 certainly continues this tradition. It really is one of those bikes that you can take along on any and every mountain bike excursion you feel it doing. The climbing stance is really sound. As too is the descending position. Yet crucially, it’s one of the few longer travel trail bikes (diet enduro bikes?) that still feel nippy and engaging when rollicking along contouring traverses and such like. We have absolutely no idea what this bike weighs because scales do not tell the whole story. Ever. All we know is that no matter how sunbaked, knackered, dazed or confused we found ourselves, we never ever wished we were on any other model of mountain bike. Whilst you can get an even cheaper build of Ariel 60 (the other bike in this feature), it certainly pays to, er… pay for the Pro model – if only for the superior Fox dampers.
Check out our comprehensive guide to Morzine in our Destination Guide below
