Morzine Activity Review: 7th September 2011

The summer season as defined by the opening/closing of the lift season always seems a little short to me. Certainly the weather is often great in May, September and October so I don't see why the lifts could not be opened a little longer. Fortunately there are still lots of fun mountain biking, road biking and hiking to be had so we'll be doing our best to keep the activities going as long as possible before a little pause and the start of the winter season.

Traditionally the Mont Blanc Rallye marks the end of the season. If you're a petrol head then the Rallye weekend is a great time to visit. The routes take in the local big mountains - Col du Joux Plane, Joux Verte, Ramaz etc - so it's not a great time to try for a road bike ride, you've got no chance.

Most of the stages can be accessed using the lifts and a little foot power. My favorite place to check it out is the top of the Nauchets lift in Les Gets as the cars start the decent into Morzine along the Col du Joux Plane. The first corner is a downhill hairpin, sitting on the banking under L'Hottys restaurant you get to see the cars crest the hill and then slam on the anchors into the hairpin before making some ear splitting noise as they accelerate off down the hill - great if you like that kind of thing.

There is lots of impressive machinery to check out, loads of little Citroens' and Peugeots 105s for the privateer racers. Old school Porsches are popular and a smattering of world cup rallye cars also. It seems a little criminal to abuse those old Porsches but I guess that's what they are made for.

The other big event this last weekend was the UCI World Mountain Bike Championships in Champery; downhill 4x and all the cross country races were all hosted by the venue. Despite the weather over the last few weeks being predominantly sunny it did manage to put down some torrential rain for the main races on Sunday. It's a real shame as Champery has hosted a World Cup race on a number of occasions over the last few years and it's rained every time.

The courses here are renowned for their technical difficulty; in particular the downhill course is very much at the extreme end of the spectrum. Some of the best racers in the world were struggling a little in the conditions; all apart from Danny Hart who made it look super stylish despite the ice rink conditions to take a massive win.

The French were happy with a brilliant win from Emmeline Ragot in the senior women's downhill and Fionn Griffiths came home with a silver medal in the 4x race. Brilliant to see these two girls getting the medals, I had the pleasure of meeting them as my friends at Flow MTB sponsor the pair and what great characters they are, more than happy to mix with us mere mortal mountain bikers and pass on the odd tip here and there.

If you fancy your chances riding the world cup course then it is open for all to have a go for the season. Champery is easy to reach using the lifts, no pedaling, even on a downhill bike. But a word of warning, it really is a tremendously difficult course, unless you find the Pleney easy then don't even think about it!

Well that's me finished typing, I'm off to take advantage of the last few days of the lifts to do some downhill mountain biking around Morzine and Les Gets. After that the cross country bikes will come out (and also the hiking boots) for an adventure day here and there. I'll be putting an occasional report out just to show what can be done under pedal/foot power and of course as soon as the snow starts arriving we'll be out and about in that too.

Bon Route!