Slopesidesummer

[Morgan]

Another morsel from the MAD mailbag:
<blockquote>

Dear Sir/Madam


Experience the world class mountain biking terrain (380km) of Morzine, Portes du Soleil in the French Alps. Stay with www.slopesidesummer.ie , a wholly Irish owned tour operator providing fantastic mountain biking holidays staying in chalets on a self catered, B&B or catered basis.


Long weekends, one week and two week holidays available. Great group deals and discounts!


Please see www.slopesidesummer.ie for further details and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.


Regards and thanks,


Richard

--


Slopeside

75 Camden St

Dublin 2

Ireland


Ph: 01 4789501

Fax: 01 4757301

Email: info@slopeside.ie

Web: www.slopeside.ie

Web: www.slopesidesummer.ie</blockquote>

[Barrydanzig]

thats sweet, it makes the holiday that liam, fitzsavage and myself were planning so much easier...

[paddyobrien]

barry, for a little bit of effort you should be able to make the whole thing much cheaper if you do it all yourself. If you want any tips or pointers to where we stayed last year let me know and i can give you all the details.


It does work out a bit cheaper if you have more people mind as teh transfer from the airport can be expensive otherwise.

[Barrydanzig]

thanks paddy, we have tried contacting some people about accommodation but have gotten no replies, so if you could give us any info that would be cool.

[paddyobrien]

sent you an email barry

[jackieo]

Can u send it to me too Paddy? zesseinobijin@yahoo.co.uk

Am looking to go on a MTBing holiday mid May maybe - there's a few places out there and some more expensive than others. Have not had a chance to look into it in great detail yet but any info you had would be great! Thanks! J.

[brianod]

paddy, I'd appreciate that email too - brianodoherty at gmail d0t c0m, was just about to start looking into logistics for a trip in late summer. And no I haven't gotten around to joining the club yet...is there a spin on saturday?

[jackieo]

If anybody's planning a holiday we can all crash do let's know, the more the merrier (and possibly cheaper) and all that!

[Liam]

Bring a tent with you and make it really cheap.... like this guy:




<pre><</pre>

[Liam]

aaarrr, how do you post img again


< img src = "url" >


is it not??

[paddyobrien]

think you need a / before the final >

[brianod]

Thanks Paddy.

When we get the trip organised, I'll post the details.

I've camped in the alps before during the summer, it's great, except there's nowhere to secure bikes...and it's a bit more gear to carry.

[Barrydanzig]

if you are organising something as a group trip to les gets, i would be interested in coming along, as i'm thinking of going anyway so going with more people will help to keep the prices per person down.

[brianod]

We're looking at the last week in August (lifts close after that).


Estimated costs per person:


Accomodation 115

Flights 230

Bike baggage charge (35+9 each way) 88

Transfers 50

Lift pass (6 days out of 15) 70

Total 553


If we do get enough interested to book, I'll let you know.


So is there a spin this weekend?

[paddyobrien]

Where are you staying brian? Les Gets? Morzine? somewhere else?


Some of the lifts stay open longer


http://www.portesdusoleil.com/main/FCK/File/en_summer/Ski-passes/24lifts.asp


Last year it was the chavennes and mont cherry in les gets and the pleney in morzine. Seems different this year

[brianod]

Les gets (picked randomly from all the options)...I noticed there was lifts open after that but I figured we might as well have all the options if we're going. Maybe that's nonsense - I've never been and I didn't study the lift map in detail. What do you think - would september be ok too? It does seem like a lot of them would be closed.


Someone has just pointed out a conflict with the electric picnic so we might be back to the drawing board anyway.

[paddyobrien]

its much quieter in september but still plenty to do. from the top of the lift in les gets you can descend into les gets itself or into morzine and use the lifts there and vice versa (just opposite sides of the one mountain really).


If you were there in august it would be better with more options, but if doing the two weeks just use the lifts that are going to close in the first week and keep the rest for the following week

[jackieo]

so eh with all this lifts business, does that mean these holidays are pretty much just downhill affairs??

[rob1891]

Not at all. There are big cross country loops to do that are marked out as well. I'm sure you can get a lot of other routes on the gps sites so a garmin could be a good investment. Kiwi Steve must have his logs from last year also.


The DH is pretty good fun though, and it is as physically hard as day doing XC despite the lifts.


I'd try and take some kind of 'all mountain' 5/6 inch bike if possible. Allow you to give the downhill runs a go without pummeling yourself/bike and do the big all day spins to Switzerland comfortably too.

[paddyobrien]

hey jackie, no no .. there's plenty of xc tracks too .. and some of the downhill tracks are relatively uncomplicated .. just loads of bermed turns one after the other, and little bits of jumps you can do if you wish, or just go around them. In fact a lot are only jumps if you're going very fast too.


Last year there was one fella in full lycra on a carbon fibre XC race bike with 80mm forks going down the downhill tracks (quite slowly it has to be said, but he was managing it fine)

[Sean]

Are we forgetting
www.freeridespain.com
?

Some of the most amazing trails on earth, savage all-day spins and great people and great value to boot.

Wonder if they'll send me a jersey> :-P

[TomH]

Definitely hang around for the Electric Picnic,... also if there is something happening in September and I may be interested

[Scrivo]

Depending on how my body fairs after the Mega in July, I could be game for something in August/September...

[Morgan]

Lest we forget


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8pc6IpiPoA