We’re very excited about our new chalet for summer 2009. Just round the corner from flowmtb HQ Chalet la Musardiere is Chalet Coralie. So it’s slap bang in the centre of town and kitted out with everything a biker needs.
Coralie is available as B&B or with meals and on a more budget scale than la Musardiere. The rooms are spacious and comfortable, but more basic than in our luxury chalet. The chalet is comfy and clean, with an open plan lounge with large sofas and a couple of beanbags to relax on, and the chalet even boasts a sauna.
The garden is large, with an area for cleaning bikes, and plenty of space for relaxing in. There’s also a large balcony off the lounge with great views of the mountains.
There’ll be the same great flowmtb service but at a slightly lower price!
Find out more here.
Thanks to the over 700 people who responded to our survey about biking in Morzine. We’re really chuffed so many of you took the time to fill it out.
With over 700 respondents this survey is a reliable source of information on what British bikers think of riding in Morzine. Almost everyone responding had been to Morzine and 90% intend to come back. We’re very happy to have you come stay with us! The lift passes were voted to be very good value by 90% of respondents and the lift service got a great score.
Just over 100 respondents wanted to see better signage and maps. The Tourist Office are aware of this and following the early results we gave them have already employed a bike company to improve signage and maps. They are working to engage the other Portes du Soleil resorts to work with them to improve signage of the area as a whole. We’ll still be doing our route guides, marked maps and having GPS’s available, but this should make it much easier to find your way round.
By far the biggest issue was trail maintenance, with 350 respondents saying more is needed. Nothing is concrete yet but the lift company and tourst office are looking at employing more people to maintain the trails, and using professional trail builders to improve existing trails and build new ones. There is also a working group being formed to look at this and other issues to improve mountain biking in Morzine.
The improvements will be part-financed by a small raise in lift pass prices. A one day pass will go up from 16 to 20 euros, so still great value: as many uplifts as you like on 24 different chairlifts for about 15 pounds! Expect a 6 day pass to work out to about 10 pounds a day.
It’s still early days so expect to hear more from us soon. The great news though is that they are listening to everyone who has responded. There is a real willingness to move forward and try to improve on the already great mountain biking that’s on offer in Morzine and the Portes du Soleil.
The exciting news is the recent opening of a Japanese restaurant in town - just up from Bar Robinsons. Great news for those of you coming out next summer looking for a change from the usual savoyard fare of melted cheese and meat on the un-catered night! We’ve already been to check it out for you (aren’t we good!) and can confirm that the food is great and pretty good value too. A three course set lunch was 16 euros and they even packed up all the left over sushi (portions are still as generous as the other restaurants!) for us to take home.
There are even a couple more new restaurants yet to open before the winter….
We’ve put a few photos from riding the Cli-MachX trail in Machnylleth here.
Unfortunately none of the final descent as we were having too much fun to stop and take pics!
The planned route for the Tour de France 2009 has been released and it’ll be coming pretty close to Morzine.
Stage 17 on the 22nd July will be Bourg St Maurice to Le Grand Bornand, passing through Sallanches and Cluses, just half an hour from central Morzine. Head to Cluses or to the Col de la Colommbiere which is just 37 km from Morzine and the final climb of the day! With 56 cols it’ll be a tough stage for all the riders and a particularly gruelling finish. And a good day’s ride for us to go and watch!
Stage 18 on the 23rd July is the time trail at Annecy. At just over an hour’s drive from Morzine, it’s a perfect day trip and the town itself is well worth a visit. The 40k time trial loop around the lake will be exciting to watch, and well worth riding yourselves.
We’re getting excited already.
We’d been looking forward to getting to the UK Bike Park so were a bit disappointed by the heavy rain throughout the night and the next morning. Still we got there, as had plenty of other riders, undeterred by the rain and mud. The guys were running an uplift day, and while turnout was a bit lower than expected, given the pretty awful weather it was very good indeed. The trailor was full of bikes every time it reached the car park and the cafe and area were full of muddy riders loving the trails. Ben from Torico, a local shop that supports the park, took us to walk the trail and show all the work that’s gone into it. And mighty impressive it was. Massive north shore sections, a great 4X track and many top notch DH courses. We’ll definitely be back with more time (and big bikes!) to ride sometime soon.
The guys running the park are inspirational - all fitting the work there around full time jobs and doing it purely for the love of biking. And the locally made hot dogs and ‘mum’s’ homemade cake are top quality riding fuel and very popular by the look of the long queue forming over lunch time.
Back in the car and straight to Afan. A place we’ve ridden many times, but not in the last few years. We couldn’t get over how many cars and bikers we saw. We were expecting it to be a bit busier, it being a saturday, but weren’t quite prepared for just how busy!
We’d opted to do Whites Level as we didn’t have too long. I surprised myself by really enjoying the climb. It’s fantastically planned out, there’s enough to think about that you can (almost) forget how hard it is and yet somehow make it up. There was a great atmosphere too, with plenty of friendly bikers to chat to on the way up. As we reached the top of the climb a couple of guys we’d been chatting to on the way suggested we add on the new black graded loop and we were glad we met them! A fantastic descent, fast swoopy berms followed by a steep rocky descent. Well worth the climb back up on the fireroad.
I’d forgotten just how great the descent to come was. Perfect swoopy singletrack interspersed with more technical sections. ‘Darkside’, the final descent is without a doubt the best riding we’ve done this week. Oh and the cafe has the best welsh rarebit and soup!
A quick call into Cwmcarn to see the busy uplift day and back again to my uncle and Aunt’s for curry. My cousin Natasha tried to teach me her moves from that day’s ballet class but I sadly lacked her grace and co-ordination 
Think I’ll stick to Mountain biking.
Thursday morning saw us hit the Cli-machx trail at Machnylleth. It was very wet, but the trail stood up fantastically and was great fun to ride. We particularly enjoyed the last descent, the best we’d ridden so far this trip!
After riding we called into The Holey Trail to thank them for suggesting we ride that. A very well stocked shop, with friendly staff we’d definitely recommend a visit to anyone riding in the area.
On our way down south we called into Summit Cycles in Aberystwyth. Another great shop, and a team who got us excited about all the great trails in the area. We were very tempted to try the Summit trail, a quick (but we were assured very fun blast) but thought it best not to turn up late to my Uncle and Aunt’s house! We’ll be back before too long i reckon.
And lots of thanks to Chris, Chris, Emma and Natasha for putting us up and feeding us exceedingly well!
After a couple of great days we woke up to grey skies and rain We’d checked the weather forecast so knew to get up early to make the most of the morning. Kitted out with a map we were off and out round the Dragon’s Back. Another very impressive trail, it stood up to the large quantities of rain amazingly well. There was no mud, just the odd puddle. The fun fast swoopy sections were mixed in with some fantastic technical pieces of trail.
Soup and Welsh Rarebit in the café warmed us up and we had a good chat down in the bike shop. We decided to cut the day short and head down to Macynlleth for the night and rest up for a big day of riding the next day.
After a bit of catch up in the local internet café we headed straight to llandegla. First stop was the café for coffee and an award winning bacon bap, plus a chat with Pete from 2Stage bikes. Our friend Ben from Torico stocks their bikes and introduced us at the Cycle Show, telling us we needed to have a go, and we didn’t need pushing!
He gave us a freeride model, the Zed 8 to try and we headed off. We took it round the red route, with the add-on black. It was pretty heavy work on the ups, but awesome on the downs. A perfect bike for lift assisted riding in Morzine.
We were also very impressed with the trails we rode. Obviously very well built, they stood up to the recent rains and were still in top condition. We can also highly recommend the bacon bap, cheese on toast, and best breakfast in wales (well there were three of us!)….oh and the cake’s good too.
