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After 2 awesome years of heading out to Morzine for 2 weeks in the summer, we're considering looking for somewhere new. I'm sure this is a common question so apologies if this was asked recently and I haven't noticed.
Current options we've considered are;
Whistler (+surrounding area) - expensive flights and pass but it's Whistler right?
Tour of various bike parks in France/Italy - might miss the home base you get staying in Morzine
PDS again - poor us, right?
I know nowhere in Europe offers the same variety/quantity of trails as the Morzine area, but are there any resorts I can't think of that would offer enough riding for 2 weeks without huge amounts of travel? Bearing in mind that some of the stuff in PDS is a bit lacklustre (Les Gets for example) so we normally spend roughly half the holiday chilling on the good stuff on Plenéy/Super Morzine (and Champéry oc).
Any suggestions welcome! We appreciate the minimal pedalling in the PDS but don't mind supplementing lifts with some climbing to get to the good stuff.
Cheers
We’re out here at Les Arcs and the trails are much better conditions wise than Morzine I probably won’t go back to Morzine and I’ve been 7-8 times. No brake bumps, huge trail network and very bike friendly does it for me.
Last time I went to Morzine was 2016, was back this year for a week. Blues/Reds take a battering as they do every year. The off piste stuff is everywhere, but its generally pretty steep.
You can head further out: Crosets, Chatel, Morgins, Samoens, Lindarets. There is easily enough for a couple of weeks out there.
Considered the german bike parks?
Are you after Self-catering and self guidiing or the full package?
Either way, Bourg-Saint-Maurice has lots to offer, Les Arc and La Plagne on your doorstep, Tignes/Val d'Isere are just a short drive up the valley, and La Thuile is just over the Col.
Last time I went to Morzine was 2016, was back this year for a week. Blues/Reds take a battering as they do every year. The off piste stuff is everywhere, but its generally pretty steep.
You can head further out: Crosets, Chatel, Morgins, Samoens, Lindarets. There is easily enough for a couple of weeks out there.
Considered the german bike parks?
Ridden every lift in the PDS pretty extensively, Morzine and the Swiss stuff by far the best IMO. (Super Morzine for flow trails, Plenéy/Switzerland for the steep stuff) Definitely enough for 2 weeks just fancy a change!
We’re out here at Les Arcs and the trails are much better conditions wise than Morzine I probably won’t go back to Morzine and I’ve been 7-8 times. No brake bumps, huge trail network and very bike friendly does it for me.
Les Arcs have enough trails for 2 weeks do you reckon? Was one I'd kinda considered as part of a bigger road trip.
Are you after Self-catering and self guidiing or the full package?
Either way, Bourg-Saint-Maurice has lots to offer, Les Arc and La Plagne on your doorstep, Tignes/Val d’Isere are just a short drive up the valley, and La Thuile is just over the Col.
For sure self-catered and without guides - beer in the alps is expensive!
Depends on the sort of riding you want to do really.
The PDS does give a wife range if lift access but it doesnt really make use of what's available with regards to the real estate. The cheeky trails are what makes it IMO. Thee main stuff is horribly battered, and pretty boring, in reality.
Les Arcs is amazing for alpine single track. Plenty enough for a week of a lot of riding, you may end up repeating if you did two weeks, but the trails are really good.
Whistler and surrounding area, well I'd you're happy to put the work in and pedal, there are literally so many world class trails, its ridiculous, but the value does get a bit out of whack as you do have to self propel yourself to everything in the valley, and surrounding areas. The bike park is good, but it also suffers from traffic, so long lift lines are the norm, and trails can be a bit haggard, but still better than the PDS.
I still rate Finale Ligure as one of the best places I've ridden, so many natural trails, basically like Les Arcs but with much better weather, the med at the bottom of the trails, a town with nightlife and loads of great places to eat/drink. There arnt many places you can ride such good trails, with a silver sand beach and blue sea at the bottom. Lucky enough be going to both Whistler and finale this year, but it think for sheer quality of uplifted (non park) riding, finale is tough to beat as a package.
OP is a fool. There is absolutely nothing about Les Gets that is lacklustre.
He is obviously a squid that can’t whip jumps or shlarp corners.
Finale Finale Finale !
If you like that kind or riding of course
Whistler and the surrounding area is the best place on Earth to ride a mountain bike. Yeah it's expensive but it'll change your life if you let it. I've been all over Europe but nothing takes away the Whistler itch.
I know what you mean about Les Gets being a little dull. There's only so many berms and crappy lumps/jumps you can ride over. There's tonnes of stuff away from the sign posted trails though.
There's no way you've tapped all the hidden stuff in Morzine if you've only been there twice. It's also easily tagged onto a longer trip to La Thuile, Aosta, Pila etc.
It's a question that I think everyone who's been to Morzine for the "umpteenth" time has asked.
I think I've been 5 or 6 times, tbh I love it, I love the Town, the bars, the lakes, the views of course everything that goes along with riding to make it a holiday. I don't know of a better summer resort in the Alps.
Whistler was amazing, it really was, but in some respects to me it was the anti-PDS. The Park is out of this world, you can't knock it, the amount of maintenance they put in means you hear locals moaning about braking bumps that wouldn't make raise an eye-lid in Morzine, but it's just 2 lifts stacked (I think there's more now) feeding a massive park, you can't do that huge valley to valley to valley thing you can do in PDS. The town will seem familiar to anyone who's seen any Mountain Bike film ever, but it's busy, a bit cliquey and all served with a huge slice of North American Service with a Smile. The trails out of the park are great, but no lifts. Some people like that, some don't, but I do think you can argue that if you're on Holiday, you might fancy treating yourself to some free climbs? Oh yeah, and going from Europe, it's very expensive.
Les Arcs was cool, we had bad weather when we went which is much rarer than PDS I'm told. The tops of the lifts were up in the Snow and about freezing and it rained most days. The sign posted trail network is pretty good, but it's a bit more spread out and patchy than PDS you need to ride a lot of 'liaisons' (sort of featureless connecting trails) to get about and the trails don't follow the lifts so you might go up one lift, down a trail and arrive at another lift so a bit of homework it needed to get around, this is either really fun, or a bit of a pain depending whether your having a great day on the mountain, or it's getting close to lift closing time and you realise it's a looong way home via the road! They say the best stuff is off-piste, but with the whether so bad and the trails so steep, rocky and rooty I don't mind admitting it went from fun, to challenging to scary fairly quickly for a mincer like me. That's all circumstantial though, the thing that made me not rush back it the Holiday element of it, the various little towns that make up the resort are really quiet in Summer, lots of places are closed until the winter so you might get 1 shop, 1 cafe and 1 bar/restaurant open. Bourg, the town at the bottom of the Mountain is busier, but it doesn't strike me as much of a Holiday town, it's a pretty long drive from the resorts to get there.
I don't think I've ever felt bored in PDS, maybe in the early days, I think we first went in 2006 or 7, there wasn't nearly the same amount of trails then. You had the Pleney and a bit of a shady sort of Enduro trail down from the top of Super Morzine, Mon Chery which was terrifying back then, Chavannes which was a lot more involved than it is now and a couple of unofficial and really hard trails. Other than that you had a bit of a trip over the Chatel Bike park and the French Cup track by Lindrets and the Swiss Cup track wherever the hell that was. Actually not so much bored as battered, they all turned to bog the moment it rained and you'd expect to crash at least once a day.
Mon Chery which was terrifying back then
That used to be my favourite official trail in Les Gets. Then they machined the life out of it and turned it into a berm to berm water slide like everything else.
BITD you can take the lift all the way to the top of Mont Chery then ride the ridge South and join up with the xc route round the back of the mountain that has been closed for the last few years. Really epic views, lots of down and nothing too sketchy.
I'd echo hob nob. Bourg st Maurice/ Les arcs /la plagne and it's close proximity to other resorts of tignes+la rosiere, la thuile. With a vehicle, this will cater for well over 2 weeks riding. Other than Tignes, trails are mainly singletrack and old footpaths. Trail forks has made navigation and trail finding a cinch for these. Or just an Itg map to scope out footpaths. That's of course after you've done the way marked stuff.
Finale is special. It's not only the MTB riding that's sublime. It's a beach resort as well and offers 2 holidays in one. Therefore it can get bloody expensive!! The variety of trails is amazing. Rocks, loam, flow, tech, it's got it all apart from bike park berms and jumps. The network is huge, but requires travel and possibly pedalling. Uplifts are all in vans, which can make the amount of riding limited if you are waiting around for others.
If you've not done finale. Go. (But not in mid summer!).
I know nowhere in Europe offers the same variety/quantity of trails as the Morzine
lolz