Rare Adventures

Tag: Les Gets

Spills, thrills, and The Mechanic at Les Gets

3 years ago I smashed up my hip in a mountain bike fall in the Alps, and the mate I was riding with was nowhere to be seen when it happened, he had charged off down the mountain and I had to find my own way down, on that occasion it was my mate The Chemist who disappeared down the mountain, and as I pointed out to him, what is the point of you being here if we don’t stick together.

A year later, armed with a replacement hip. I agreed to go to the Alps again, but explained to my mate The Mechanic, that I would need to take things very easy as the hip was only 3 months old and we would need to stick together just in case. First run of the trip and he belted off down the mountain on his own and left me to it. Once again, I pondered the point of going mountain biking with mates, when in fact, you don’t see them on the runs.

Last year I drove down to the Alps, loaded up with my new enduro bike and The Mechanic’s newly acquired second hand bike. We had concluded that the cost of renting a bike, about £80 per day, justified buying a second hand bike and leaving it down there. My mate managed to find a bike but I didn’t have much luck but managed to find a new one in the sales that was 60% off, which I decided was a safer bet, as the bikes take a real hammering.

After getting all the gear down to France for him, The Mechanic then decided life was too complicated and he couldn’t find the time to join me – great.

Last year , I ended up riding on my own, which wasn’t my first choice option but as the days went on, I realised that I was actually enjoying the rides more on my own than I would have done with having a mate around. I could go where I wanted, as fast as a wanted, didn’t have to wait for anyone or try and work out where they had ended up.

So, this year, I had the pleasure of The Mechanics company again and I have to say it was rather eventful. If you have read the blogs from last summer, you will have noted that I was haunted by a Gremlins that made my life difficult by hiding things away and breaking stuff, this year I had The Mechanic.

To be fair to The Mechanic, he is obviously very good with mechanical things and does like to go fast on his bike. The problem is that his competence doesn’t always match his speed, when he was last here 2 years ago, I spotted his legs sticking out of a bush he had veered into at high speed for no obvious reason. I helped him out and dusted him down, he had had a similar incident at Cannock Forest a few years ago when he ended up concussed.

To start the trip, we headed straight for Les Carroz to warm up on their quieter runs. On the first run down The Mechanic was following in a well behaved manner, but at a fork in the trail we went different ways and he got to the bottom a bit before me. On the subsequent run I found him in a ditch and he had a few more bumps before the gears on his bike broke, turned out he hadn’t used his mechanical prowess to check his second hand bike before sending it to the Alps.

All that being said, there was one definite advantage of having my mate with me, we could wander down to the lake for a swim and a beer. He claimed to be alcohol free, I soon cured him of that again. With the sun out and temperature at 35c, it is not unreasonable to assume that the water in the local lake would be reasonably warm, but I learned to my horror last year, that it is fed by a mountain stream and is absolutely freezing.

A good chance for a prank on my mate, so I wandered out on the pontoon and jumped in, held my breath and shouted, “Come on mate it’s lovely”. He dived in and the look on his face was a picture when he resurfaced, he was gasping for air and clearly on the verge of a heart attack from the icy water. Nothing like nearly killing your mate for a laugh.

Next day, we headed for Les Gets, took the lifts to the top of the area, the views are absolutely stunning and it was yet another beautiful day. The newly attached replacement parts were installed and he was ready to go.

The runs in Les Gets are very steep, I led the way down and arrived at one of the fire road break points and waited for my mate, and waited, and waited and eventually he turned up covered in mud, a badly damaged finger, a broken brake lever and something else had broken as well, apparently the brake lever broke off on a steep turn, hardly idea.

It was all a mystery how this catastrophe had happened and why he crashed so badly, however I had a fair idea, it was likely to do with speed and competence. Anyway, it marked the end of that part of the day as he couldn’t ride with a bike in bits.

So, he made his way back down the mountain on the fire road with a snapped ligament on little finger, only a front brake and his pride as bruised as his body. As a good friend, I decided to do a few runs on my own to have some fun and promised to meet him again at the bottom in a couple of hours.

When I got to the bottom the repair bill for his bike had reached £500 and I was generally congratulating myself on the wisdom of buying a bargain new rather than a second hand bike, if the Mechanic was having this trouble imagine the mess I would get into.

Anyway, we were up and running again and we headed off on our adventures for the rest of the day. I made sure I was second down the slope and I had to take care to check bushes and obstacles along the way to make sure the Mechanic wasn’t lying there, we had more incidents but they were harmless compared to the morning and the day before.

Up to this point, I was congratulating myself on my smooth riding and not falling off, well all that went horribly wrong on the last run home, when I took a berm fast and found a loose rock on the bend and stacked the bike big time and arrived in the bar at the bottom covered in scrapes and mud.

As I sat there supping I beer, I reflected on a strange thought, that even though it hurt like hell, but at least I knew I was alive and it was a good way to celebrate by 67^th birthday.

As the repair bill and the injury list mounted, the last day we decided he needed a day off so we went for a walk up the wonderful Cirque Cheval canyon to look at the amazing waterfalls and just get over the injuries before heading home.

We also had an England game to watch that night when we took on DR Congo, and it is fair to say that the match didn’t set the French alight, and we really struggled to find a bar to watch the game, but we got there in the end !

So, this was my first holiday with the Mechanic since our trip to Ibiza last year, and it was also my first accompanied mountain bike trip for 2 years. My mate is always good company and events are normally unconventional and this trip was no different, we had a lot of fun as usual.

10/08/2026
Tips for a Successful Trip to Les Gets Bike Park

I always look forward to the next trip to the Les Gets Bike Park, hot sunny days, hard baked berms and swooping down through the trees. The drive from Morillon is about 30 minutes so I needed to pack the bike into the back of the car and get all my stuff together.

The last trip to Les Gets was good but didn’t quite go according to plan thanks to the ever present Gremlins in my life. I had planned to video the runs for the YouTube channel so that people planning to visit could get a little insight into what awaited them.

top of Les Gets bike park

Last time I arrived at Les Gets I put the bike together and got to the top of the Chavannes Express lift, only to discover that the battery in my Go Pro camera was flat. I decided to go back down and try and buy a battery, which wasted an hour and produced no new battery. I had a great day on the bike but no YouTube content, even worse, I had a crash and smashed the camera mount anyway, so that was the end of that.

I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time, double checked all the gear and packed it into my rucksack, packed the bike, made sure I had all the tools and repair kits, and off I went. In the underground car park I assembled the bike, put all the gear on and the last job was to attach the Go Pro. To my absolute horror the little bolt that attaches the camera to the mounting wasn’t there, how could that be?

View from the Triple 8 run

Gremlin attack

I had used it on the previous day on the Morillon runs, it couldn’t have disappeared from the mount, but it had. I searched the car, all the bags but nope, it wasn’t there. That meant it must have come off back in the garage and I had a spare in the apartment, but it meant a 1 hour round trip, that damned Gremlin. I didn’t bother stripping off padding, just jumped in the car and high tailed it back to Morillon, thank God for air conditioning and the patience of my wife to listen to my woes.

Just over 1 hour later, I was back in the same car parking bay, in exactly the same position I had been before but this time the camera was attached the bike, and I was ready to. I wasted no time getting out of there and up on the Chavanne Express lift for the first run and to make up for the hour I had wasted.

Some of you may have read the blog about my winter season in the Alps, when, after 65 years, I had concluded that quite randomly, I would have a quite irrational approach to risky situations at times, in fact I concluded I had a personal Gremlin living in my head that was trying to kill me.

View from La Nauchets lift, Les Gets

Risk Aversion

In response, I had decided that for my summer season mountain biking I needed to be a bit more grown up. Unlike snowboarding which happens in the ski area near our apartment, I had to drive to the bike parks so if I got injured, I would not only have the problem getting me down with not help, but getting the car home car as well, something as simple as a dislocated shoulder would be a disaster.

I made a rule, not just a promise, that I would only do blue runs, they are hairy enough at times and I still have crashed on them. However, as I had done most of them before. I knew where most of the dangers lay, so that is why the videos supporting this story are of the blue runs, for once in my life, I stuck to my rule.

The ride up on the Chavannes Express took me over the jump park and the Foue Libre trail, which is the run home, not only that, but you also get glimpses of some hairy looking black trails lurking in the woods. When I arrived out at the top of the Chavannes Express, I was ready for action and unhindered by mates.

Les Gets bike park top section

On previous trips my mates, notably The Chemist and The Mechanic have accompanied me. Despite explaining the routes to them they either shoot off in the wrong direction or just shoot off anyway and I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to work out where they have gone. When I eventually find them, they are normally going on about a Strava time rather than the hassle they have caused me, I have even found them in the undergrowth after crashes.

I checked the camera, and everything was working so it was time to go. At the top of this lift you can head back into Les Gets, head round the mountain to Morzine or head over to the Nauchets chair lift that takes you up to top of the mountain and the really steep runs, naturally I headed to the Nauchets lift.

For the story of the runs and videos of the trails, can be found in my next blog

07/10/2025
Summer Thrills: Mountain Biking in the French Alps

Les Carroz, French Gremlins and downhill mountain bike records

After the success of my Winter Season in the Alps and all that snowboarding, I decided that I would try the same with my other passion, mountain biking. The lifts are open for the summer French holidays, July and August, and the bigger resorts open for June as well.

My first visit was a family summer holiday 10 years ago, I loved the mountains and all the activities but unfortunately, I went home with broken ribs from a crash. I’d been back a few times since, normally bringing a mate along. I’d end up being more of a tour guide around the routes and annoyingly, they would be faster than me on the straight bits and invariably get lost.

Solo mountain biking

Consequently I would then waste a lot of time trying to find them so I wasn’t too fussed that I was going to be on my own, but it has to be recognised that downhill mountain biking is dangerous against pretty much any criteria, so I was mindful of the fact this could all go horribly wrong if I had a serious crash, minor crashes are a daily event but it’s often a very fine line between minor and major.

In preparation for my summer of fun, I’d invested in new Enduro bike because having the right gear is essential. This started as a plan to buy a second-hand bike to avoid the expensive rentals, but a great deal on a new one appeared so I bought it. It was a beaty, much better than the rental bikes so I was really looking forward to cracking on.

10 days and a 1000 miles after my mountain biking adventures on the borders of Scotland came to an end, I found myself in the French Alps at the home of one of Europe’s downhill mountain biking meccas, namely Morzine.

Technically I was in the next valley over, Morillon, which is part of the Grand Massif. It is also a mecca for those crazy road riding dudes who seemed to take fun in pedalling up the mountains. The mountain bikers as a smarter breed and use the lift systems as their means for getting up the mountains. They have also renamed themselves Enduro riders, is less of a mouthful and sounds cooler.

The drive down was complicated

A new first for me was the drive down from Bristol, as my wife wasn’t very interested in being an Enduro widow and she declined the offer to keep me company on the journey, so I had to do it on my own. This wasn’t without incident, normally we go via Dover, but I didn’t fancy a 14-hour drive on my own, so I booked the ferry from Portsmouth, so I had an overnight kip and a fresh start. The driving time was due to be 8 hours, so not much different to Calais.

What I hadn’t noticed was there was two ferry routes into France, and I booked the wrong one. We landed at Cherbourg not Caen, I set my Satnav and it said TWELVE hours, my heart sank, where had the other 4 hours come from, I just assumed it was a hold up and in the absence of any other options I set off, I worked out that about 1 hour additional time was due to Cherbourg rather than Caen.

I settled in for a very long day on the road with a heavy heart. I noticed that my route left the motorway and took me south on A roads towards Paris and even more depressingly, I noticed Bordeaux appear on some of the long-range signs, Bordeaux is as far from the Alps as anywhere in France. As I chewed over these unexpected developments in my mind it occurred to me that maybe the Iphone Satnav might be playing tricks, as there is more than one town with the name of my destination, so I cancelled the trip and reset it.

Then we found the source of the problem, the Iphone offered the fastest trip, but I hadn’t realised it offered the fastest trip WITHOUT toll roads. A quick change of settings and suddenly I was 3 hours closer to Morillon that I expected, absolutely wonderful, my world was a happier place. Unfortunately, quite a bit of damage had been done to the timescale by taking me west of Paris and it ended up being 10 hours, but still better than 12 hours.

What most people don’t realise is that the Alps are very hot in the summer, so I arrived at the end of a hot day and temperatures that felt like 30 degrees. I emptied the car of all the gear, including my brand-new mountain bike and put my feet up on the balcony, had a warm beer and crashed out. Luckily, I had bought one of those Dyson cool fans with me and it got to work on the heat.

First Gremlin attack

Next day, glorious sunshine and after spending the morning getting this sorted out, I decided it was time to test out my new bike. So, in the heat, I put on all the protective gear and collected the bike from the garage sweating buckets. The lift is only 50m from the apartment, so I pedalled around in all the gear to the lift and noticed something wasn’t quite right.

The lift was stationary, and the ticket office was closed, what on earth was going on. I checked in at the Tourist Information, the opening date had been delayed saving money. It opened officially, the day I was coming home. Not to worry, the lift at Les Carroz was open on the other side of the mountain.

Obviously, those Gremlins that had haunted my trip around the bike rides in the north of England had migrated to France, or the Gremlin jungle drums had got the local French Gremlins on my case.

Now I required the car, which was sat in the sun and showing 35c as the outside temperature and heaven knows what on the inside. In all the gear, strip the bike down, pack it in the car, jump in and drive for 30 mins, still with most of the gear on and sweating.

30 minutes later I arrive in Les Carroz after a drive through the winding mountain roads only inhabited by agricultural machinery and redundant Italian racing car drivers. As I approached the lifts I glanced up, and to my horror, the lift wasn’t moving. I could not believe my eyes, this cannot be.

I drove up to gondola station, surely this lift wasn’t closed as well. I parked outside the ticket office and walked over, it was clearly not open, it was as shut as a shut ticket office can be. I rested against the bonnet of the car and seriously considered crying as well as sweating, before driving back to Morillon. Those French Gremlins were having a right laugh today.

As I sat there, I heard a metallic clanking sound followed by a whirring noise from the direction of the lifts. I walked around the side of the building, and to my delight the lift had started running – we are all systems go and stuff you Gremlins.

Time to rip up the trails

I parked up, assembled the bike, got padded up and pedalled over to the lift ready sweating profusely. Except for one thing, I couldn’t find my lift pass. Those Gremlins had taken it out of my pocket and left it back in the apartment, but I wasn’t to be stopped, straight up to the little ticket booth and bought a one-day pass, we are off.

Finally, 2 hours later, I arrive at the top of the Les Carroz gondola ready to go. All the mountains have spectacular views and this is no exception, as always it takes me time to enjoy the serenity before heading down the runs.

For the first time I was here on my own, I didn’t have to take a mate on a tour of the runs for a change. The French grading system is different, all the runs are incredibly steep, running through trees, with technical section and large berms (banked turns).I was never able to do the very difficult black runs (jumps and serious danger) though there are normally routes around the big obstacles, I was capable enough on the red runs, going carefully, these tend to be gnarly and difficult, so more of a challenge that a pleasure, which left the blue runs. Wider, faster, challenging but most of all, fun.

This was probably my 4^th trip to this bike park and as I stood there, armed with the right equipment and relatively empty slopes, I decided that I was going to stick to the blues. At my age I’m not going to get much better, the difficult stuff is more dangerous on my own, so I would just do the blue runs and get to know them a bit better.

Most sports folks use an app called Strava. It records your times against previous visits, and it also grades you against other athletes against various categories. I don’t tend to look at my comparisons because I am normally somewhere in the average category which isn’t particularly motivational. However, last summer, I turned 65 and I happened to look where I sat in the all time Over 65 categories, and I was rather pleased to note that I was quite near the top of this category, clearly the competition was either dying off, had been seriously injured and retired, or had finally grown up. So, I had a target, to be the fastest old bloke on the mountain.

Les Carroz bike park is a little gem. Within 10 miles are some of the most famous bike parks in the world and dwarf this one, but it is being expanded but it only has about 6 runs and they are fabulous. They mix cross country and technical Enduro riding with the adrenalin pumping of steep down hill drops that take you from the top, across the forests and back down to the car park in about 15 minutes of jarring, bouncing and skidding excitement.

The first section of the Wood Rider runs from the Gondola through the woods and into some complicated berms that are more like being in a corkscrew as they twist around and get steeper. One of the problems at the moment is they are very very dry, so the sections where people are breaking are becoming very soft so they are like hitting a sand bunker, so if you don’t get it right you are over the handle bars before you know it, happened to me a few times until you know where they are.

Woodbiker trail

Second section is a run into the woods that is traversing the mountain and involves lots of twists and turns rather than speed, but it is all about keeping the bike balanced and keeping up momentum. When it is wet this can more complicated as there are streams running down of rocks that make things very slippery, but that wasn’t a problem on this trip.

Third section takes us back to the car park and involves much faster and steeper sections with more obstacles and “features” including flat tops so you can get some air under the wheels as you take off a little.

Fastest oldie on the mountain

So, at the end of the afternoon, and equipped with my new bike, all the frustration was gone. A wonderful afternoon blasting through the forests and Janner Boy is now the fastest old bloke on the mountain, having set the fastest times since the park opened in 2016 – yessss.

Les Gets, La Chatel and Avoriaz still to come, but today is going to be difficult to beat.

22/07/2025