Les Gets & Morzine Downhill Mountain Biking

Equipped with full-face helmets, goggles, knee and elbow pads we’d arrived in Les Gets ready to throw ourselves in to the new (to us) sport and experience of downhill mountain biking…

To us using ski lifts to get the uphill grunt and sweating out of the way seemed like it would be cheating. We like cycling, and the effort cycling uphill is part of the reward, it’s invigorating to feel like you’ve “earned your turns”. But let’s be in no doubt, downhill mountain biking is hard, steep, technical, has miles of tricky downhill riding with hundreds of metres of height loss. It is no place for the uphill endurance cycling we are used to in the Alps on the roads over the ultra famous cols such as the Galibier. Just imagine how sweaty it would be dragging all that kit up a mountain on a hot and sunny alpine day! Leaving aside the obvious difference of tarmac versus dirt and only considering weight… My road bike weighs a little over 7.5kg. My mountain bike weighs nearly 15kg. And just the full-face helmet alone weighs 1kg! Then add pads, etc. and you get the picture, this is all about the technical descents. 🙂