This article formed part of our comprehensive guide to Les Gets, Morzine & Avoriaz published in issue 162. Our comprehensive guides to these destinations are among many others in our Destination Guides section.
Mark took one look at the soaring Alpine peaks and opted to use an ebike for his trip.
Words Mark Photography Sanny
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My bike for the duration of our stay was a Saracen Ariel E. It had all the same angles and geometry as the Ariels ridden by Benji and Sanny, and we rode all the same trails, including an hour or so in the park on the black and red runs off the famous Morzine Pleney lift. Of course, I also had all the advantages of being able to get to the top of the fire road climbs we had to endure to find the really great trails further afield without breaking much of a sweat.
The ‘lifties’ are accustomed to eMTBs on the lifts and apart from the extra effort needed to get it on its rear wheel, loading on the chairs was no different to a normal bike. It may seem a strange situation to be uplifting an ebike, but to me it makes perfect sense.
Going solo, ignoring the lifts?
Like many before us, we considered the option of saving on a lift pass and instead using the motor to uplift. But there are some issues with that approach in practice.
The lifts are very long, and by the time you’ve ridden to the top, you will have taken a very big bite out of your battery capacity. From the top of the lifts, we took more trails that really did benefit from the motor. In other words, it’s not always downhill from the top of the lift. If you have a low-fat ebike, it would be easy to end up with no power right when you need it. This was certainly the case on some of the trails we really loved outside of the main park runs that involved plenty of climbs.
The Super Morzine Gondola takes around 15 minutes to get to the top. We were caught out in heavy rain that meant the down-lift gondola closed early, and we had to ride down the road. Riding down the road took us over 20 minutes. Riding up would empty the majority of your battery if not all of it and would take you well over an hour, even if you boosted your way up.
Most of our big adventures involved a single uplift for most of the day. A single journey on the Les Gets lift costs just £8, which would leave you with a full battery and save you at least 30 minutes of riding time. A lift pass for six days, valid across the entire Porte Du Soleil region, is just €171 if bought online. So, skipping the lifts is not much of a saving in the grand scheme of things.
Singletrack Tip!
Don’t skip the lifts just because you have a motor. You will not save much money and you will waste a lot of power and precious riding time.
By using the lifts, I charged the Ariel E only once in our four days and never finished a day with less than 3 out of 5 bars of capacity, but it still allowed me to complete big 20–30km days without totally wiping myself out.
Bike Check: Saracen Ariel 50E
- Price: £2,999 currently
- From: Saracen
The little eMTB that could. Except there’s nothing little about the Saracen Ariel 50E (apart from the price tag). You may have seen our Saracen Ariel 50E review of this a couple of years ago. Regardless of what innovations have happened in the ebike world since this bike first debuted, the Ariel 50E always, always, always reminds us that an ebike needs first and foremost to be a bike. The E is important but if you have top grade E bolted into a sub-par bike, you have a sub-par bike. For less than the price of most analogue mountain bikes that you may be looking at, the Saracen Ariel 50E gives you a level of go-anywhere capability and liberation (yes, liberation) that is insanely good value for money. Loads of range, fabulous descending chops, genuinely class-leading climbing body positioning and geometry (mostly due to those excellently long chainstays). This model is a Medium size which, unlike the larger size 29ers, comes as a mixed wheel mullet. The finishing kit doesn’t contain any howlers. Well, apart from the rather modest travel dropper post). Good gears, great brakes, nice wheels, good tyre choice, good cockpit dimensions and a truly lovely saddle.
