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    Bike park Morgins – Portes du Soleil

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    The region of Portes du Soleil is the home to largest bike park in Europe. The facts and figures are certainly impressive, because it gathers into one big system of trails places like Les Gets, Chatel, Le Pleney or Champery. Together they offer over 600 km of bike trails, easy accesible with the help of 25 different lifts. Does this size and popularity also come with quality? Which of the bike parks offers the most interesting trails? Today I will take You to the newly opened for 2024 season Morgins bike park, which is located in the Swiss part of the Portes du Soleil. For those planning to visit this region, I recommend also taking a look at other entries about other bike parks in the area: Morzine and the Avoriaz bike park, Les Gets and Le Pleney, Chatel, Champery and Les Crosets.

    Bike Park Morgins

    Morgins is a small town located in the Swiss part of the Portes du Soleil region called Dents du Midi. It is located just across the French border. It is easy to get here from Chatel, You just need to cross the Col de Morgins pass. From the city of Chatel, you can also get here by bike using the Super Chatel gondola. Although then you will still have 2 short climbs, and then a traversing route to the city and the bike park. The Telecabine Morgins gondola starts from the town. If you come here by car, there is a large square with a paid parking lot right next to it. However, just 50 meters below, along the street, there is a free public parking lot. There is also a shop nearby, and you will easily find a restaurant or bar in the city.

    Bike Park Morgins – New lift for 2024

    At the lower station of the new gondola lift, there is everything that should be there. There are cash registers, a bike wash and a basic set of bike tools. Right next to it is a large shop with a bike rental and service. The lift that takes riders up is a modern gondola opened at the end of 2023. Those who have been here before, can forget about the slow chairlift. Now it is comfy and fast. In a few minutes, the lift takes us 500 meters up to the area of ​​the La Foilleuse peak at a height of 1,850 meters. We load bikes into the gondola, max 2 bikes in one gondola. Every second cable car is intended for bikers. This is not the most crowded bike park in the region, so there should be no long queues here and such capacity should be enough to do a lot of descents in one day. The only exception was the Pass Portes MTB 2024 event, where crowds of participants stormed the gondola along with people who wanted just to ride here. However, then the staff started letting cyclists into each gondola and it worked well.

    Bike Park Morgins – Trails

    In total, there are 5 downhill trails available in Morgins bike park. 1 green, 1 blue, 2 red and one black. It is definitely not the largest bike park in the Portes du Soleil region. However, although the route map may not look too impressive, in comparison to the Chatel or Avoriaz bike parks. Still Morgins is definitely worth a visit. Although if you are looking for gentle descents and easy flow lines, unfortunately you will not have a large choice here. More advanced riders will certainly appreciate the beautifully carved, high berms and many different possibilities for interesting transfers and jumps. The trails are located along each other here, so they can be nicely mixed. In addition, there are many alternative variants and more or less official shortcuts. All this means that there are many options to ride here and it is really hard to be bored.

    Bike Park Morgins – My riding day

    Unfortunately, the day planned for riding in Morgins bike park was one of the worst in terms of conditions. We had planned the Swiss part of Portes du Soleil for the Monday just after the Pass Portes event. Unfortunately, it rained for most of the previous day and night. The forecast for Monday showed some good weather, but the situation was that while the sun was shining in the city and the valley, the clouds were holding on to the mountains. This gives additional moisture and leave no chance for trails to dry out. As a result, it was very wet and muddy. Usually I try to avoid wet conditions, but I really wanted to check out Morgins trails, because I had heard a lot of good things about it. So I just went for it in the wet.

    Despite the fact that I am not a specialist in riding in the wet, I managed to find some flow quite quickly and overall it was good fun. Unfortunately, in such conditions I did not dare to do some transfers or jumps because at times it was so slippery that there was simply no chance to brake or maintain the right line. Of course, the worst was on the steepest slopes on the black trail. Unfortunately, some parts of various trails at few places was totally soaked up with mud and water. But on the other hand, even in such conditions I can confirm that the Morgins bike park has some of the best prepared berms. You can have great fun in them even in the wet. Another positive thing was that despite the poor weather, the team of shapers worked throughout the whole day to make it even better. Big respect for their work.

    Morgins – La Quatreans – Green Trail

    For a warm-up, I suggest the green easy line La Quatreans. I usually start with a warm-up on the blue ones, but in this case the green one is definitely not a simple and boring path. Yes, there are no major obstacles or steep slopes, but there are already a lot of awesome berms. From long and high, to very tight, but all super smooth. You may be a bit surprised because the beginning of the easy green trail is the same with the red and black variants. Just after a few turns on easy trail You will come across one of the largest and more characteristic obstacles, a large road gap. I definitely recommend to check it out at first. After a section of profiled turns, You will enter a fast single trail with small obstacles, and then the trail connects with the red variant La tobogane. If someone wants, they can bypass its more difficult sections by the gravel road.

    Morgins – La Carigole – Blue Trail

    The blue trail La Carigole, although it doesn’t lead thru any major steep slopes, just after releasing the brakes you can gain a lot of speed here. There are some rollers here, which faster riders can combine into jumps. Quite a long and smooth flow trail winds thru the whole mountain. Only the very end is short part on an access road, which leads us straight back to the gondola. Unfortunately, I couldn’t use trails full potential because several sections were very soggy and wet, which effectively took away my speed. Still I can feel the good flow of the line.

    Morgins – La Tobogane i La Madze – Red Trails

    The La Tobogane trail starts with a right turn and its beginning is the same as green and black trails. It leads through the previously mentioned beautifully shaped berms and road gap. Then it turns onto a more natural segment where there are a lot of roots and several options for jump off the ground. In the lower half of the mountain, the trail turns winds through more interesting profiled berms and rollers. In the lower part, there are also two different versions of the descent, which intersect with each other and can be mixed freely. The La Madze trail turns off from the blue trail. There are several jumps on the way and few quite tight turns located in the forest. Then it connects for a moment with the black route and later it turns onto an interesting single trail led under the gondola. Then La Madze connects to La Tobogane, which leads straight to the lower lift station.

    Morgins – La Noire – Black Trail

    The Black route has the same beginning with the red and green trails, but immediately after the road gap it turns into the forest. There it winds along a narrow and sometimes very steep path. After a technical section full of roots, there are few interesting drops and jumps. These are technical jumps, which in some places require interesting transfers. The lower part of the trail has the steepest sections. There tight berms are mixed with entire root carpets. The whole La Noir trail is a very technical ride, but also very diverse, so it deifinitelly isn’t boring.

    Bike Park Morgins – Trails summary

    To sum up my visit to Morgins trails, I definitely recommend this place for advanced riders. If you like technical transfers and having a good time on the difficult Chatel trails, you definitelly will like it here. The trail network isn’t very big, but it’s great that the trails are close together and you can mix them up nicely by riding red sections, then black, and then something else. This way, you get a lot of different combinations of descents. The trails have different style than in other nearby bike parks. When visiting the Portes du Soleil region, it’s definitely worth to plan a day at the Morgins bike park.

    Portes du Soleil – France and Switzerland

    Portes du Soleil region is located in the Alps, and covers the terrain of France and Switzerland. In winter, it brings together a total of 12 smaller resorts, serviced by 208 ski lifts connected into one system. In summer, bikers take over these areas, and with one pass they can use the entire network of trails in places such as: Les Gets, Le Pleney, Avoriaz, Chatel, Les Crosets, Champery and Morgins. The last three are located in Switzerland.

    Portes du Soleil – Bike pass

    Whole region is connected to one system so everytime You will buy bike pass, it will work in all of the area. A one-day pass for adult in the 2024 season costs EUR 34. Of course, there are also several-day options available. 6 days of riding costs EUR 185, and 13 days costs EUR 348. These are not very expensive, considering that this pass entitles you to use all bike parks in the Portes du Soleil region on the French and Swiss sides. The prices are not much higher than in Poland or the Czech Republic and definitely lower than, for example, in Leogang in Austria (approx. EUR 57/day). The prices showed are valid when purchased thru online system. Directly at the ticket office, it is a few EUR more expensive. Interestingly, bike passes also entitle you to enter other cable cars that operate in the summer for tourists outside the bike parks. So when You plan rest day from riding, you can go on a trip on the lift leading to the Point de Nyon viewing platform, the gondola in Chatel, or the Prodains cable car.

    Dents du Midi region

    Dents du Midi is the name of the Swiss part of the Portes du Soleil region. The Morgins bike park is not the only bike park here. A bit further on, there are also Champery and Les Crosets bike parks. These places are also connected by access routes in the form of scenic, gravel roads. Although to get to Morgins, You need to cover considerable distance and some of the access routes may also include uphills. You can read a bit more about transfers and trips in the article about the Pass Portes MTB event. In good weather, the Dents du Midi region offers phenomenal and very scenic high-mountain areas that are definitely worth visiting.

    More materials about Portes du Soleil region:

    About Portes du Soleil

    Portes du Soleil region is the home to the largest bike park network in Europe. It connects such legendary places as Chatel, Les Gets, Avoriaz, Champery and a lot more. One pass for the whole area will give You acces to more than 600 km of bike trails which are operated by 25 different lifts.

    Official website: www.portesdusoleil.com/
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