Downhill Holiday
The Les Gets / Morzine area
The Riding
Admin
4 mates and myself booked a week with
Alp Active in Les Gets for a spot of downhill-Freeriding.
We departed via the Dover/Calais car ferry at midday on
the 11th Aug and spent the next 10 hours
driving south through France.We arrived in Les Gets to find out that we had arrived a day early and had to spend the night in the car because it was to late to get any accommodation. Why?
Because we had been told that accommodation would be ready after 1pm, we assumed that meant on the day of arrival. Alp Active booked the ferry for us, kindly leaving enough time for a night stop over in France to break up the monotonous drive, but also told us the journey would take only about 8 hours driving time.
Who’s to blame? I don’t care. I’ll just make sure I ask more questions in future. In the morning, after a cup of tea and some breakfast sat in the garden of the Alp Active chalet looking at the mountains around us the nights hardships were soon forgotten especially as they kindly got us in to our apartment by 10 o’clock.
Accomadation
The apartment was more than big enough for 5, and had a massive balcony looking out over the main road, nice. We
were briefed up on what to expect and what equipment was
needed and told to be at the cable car station at 10 o’clock
the next morning to get our passes, £26 for 6 days for
an area about the size of a small country with more lifts
than you could shake an extremely big stick at. We were
split into groups’ cross-country, downhill and then
headed off to the top of the mountain. The rest of the
morning was a warm up, for us and our brakes, but also
gave the guides a chance to work out abilities so as to
be able to group us better.
In the end it didn’t
matter because we decided it would be more fun for every
one to stay together for the first couple of days. We met
at 10 o’clock every morning, the 5 of us plus 5
other like-minded riders with 2 very good guides Tony and
Jamie, who knew the area and were both excellent riders,
bloody nice blokes too. We were shown most of the main
areas in the first 3 days, it was amazing, the scenery
and the riding is beyond words, imagine your favourite bit
of single track now imagine it about 20 times as long and
twice as steep that’s the “Super Morzine “
single track, fire roads your thing?
General
There’s more
fire road around Les Gets/Morzine than there’s
motorway around London, what about downhill courses,
there’s 3 all longer bigger and faster than, well I
think you’ve got the message. You don’t have to stay with the guides but if you
don’t you’ll miss out, as there is always
another track they know better than the last one.
Wednesday is the guides day off so we headed straight to
the “Avalanche Cup” downhill course, fantastic,
we were all completely knackered by about 2 in the
afternoon but stayed until the lifts closed, great.
The rest of the week is guided, but they take you where you want to, they are there to ensure that your safe and that you get the most out of your holiday. It was worth it just to see some of their crazy riding, they wouldn’t be guides if they weren’t good, but after being there most of the season with all that riding on offer it’s understandable how well they ride but it still makes you stop and stare. Talking of riders you’ve got to watch to believe,
Nigel Page turned up midweek to teach his master class.
Our ridding had improved 100% in just the first couple of
days and we were all stating to think we were fantastic
downhill gods, then Nigel would make you look like granny
on a shopper, but obviously not on purpose, because he’s
a nice bloke.
Before we knew it the week was over and it
was time to load our tied bodies and tired bikes into the
car for the journey back, bugger.
Notes.
- Food self catering- we spent £35 a head as the
supermarkets are cheap e.g. £3.33 for 24 dumpy bottles
of beer.
- You need some sort of small rucksack for spare tubes
sandwiches etc.
- Even at “The Bar Bush” the bar to be seen in
and also one of the cheapest it’s still £14 for 5
pints of lager.
- You need body armour, or some sort of protection. I
bought Dainese body armour chest arms and back for £100
UK price £180.
What Alp Active said.
From: Tracey. Email:<info@alpactive.com>
Posted on: Monday, September 11, 2000, 03:59 PM
Dear Justin Loved the website but just
felt I needed to clarify a couple of things. Sorry if I
misunderstood but when you wrote on your booking form
that you required outbound travel on the 11th August I
thought you meant you required outbound travel on the 11th
August - my mistake! Although the brochure clearly states
that our holidays run from Saturday to Saturday it's not
unusual for clients to travel days/weeks beforehand if
they have additional holiday plans but sorry you had an
uncomfortable night - hope it didn't spoil things too
much. Tracey Alp Active
040900
