FOX Racing Europe has been one of our main partners since 2017. Amid prep for a Summer season in Morzine plagued by 2020's seemingly endless problems and hurdles, the office phone rang. Vince from Fox Racing was on the end of the line. He was on inbound to Morzine for Fox Hit The Park, an event that brings riders together with some Fox athletes to shred a local bike park.
The Brief - After the event, He wanted to put a crew together, get out for a ride, create some amazing content, escape the noise of 2020 and have some fun! It was pretty much the perfect call at a time of year when not much was going our way! Vince grabbed Loris Vergier, Nic Bean, Romain Paulhan, Bérengère Boës and cameraman extreme Sergi Valenzuela we hooked up with Morzine locals Chris Killmurray and Bastien Moyen. The rest was down to us.
First things first - Pre-Ride Coffee in Morzine
Pro Tip, if you want to leave at 10h arrange to leave at 9h!
The first objective, heading for a pre-ride coffee. Pro Tip, if you want to leave at 10h arrange to leave at 9h! There was a fair bit of catching up to do after the events of the previous months, everyone was stoked to see each other and meet some new mates. We had Scott, our media guru there behind the still camera and Sergi from Fox documenting on video.
Heading up Le Pleney, we made our way across the mountains of Morzine to Les Gets and the Mont Chery cable car, to get to the peak of Mont Chery at 1825m. Chris and Romain got on the Gainz train, raging to the top. Romain having won Trans Provence stages in the past and Chris training some of the best MTB athletes on the planet, the sheep dogging of the rest of us commenced!
Timing was key to the day
- Morning coffee and catch up
- Morning media / ride
- Make lunch ontime
- Afernoon ride
- Afernooon media
- Make BBQ ontime
- Networking after BBQ
- Evening drinks
These all seem like very simple tasks but when you have 12 people, all very excited to catch up, go for a fun ride and feel like they do not have any set itinerary to the day when secretly you have everything planned out to the minute they all add up to being very important. Add into the mix bike mechanicals and content creation and time can really run away from you.
Earning the turns in the Summer heat
The climbs are always wirth the view
Content + Content
The views up here are incredible, uninterrupted of the Mont Blanc range, from here we can see our next target, Col de la Basse behind us in the opposite direction. To get there, some sweet alpine singletrack loam with some tech enduro turns thrown in. The descent. Long, epic, fast and fun.
Chris Kilmurray, a Morzine resident and all round stoke machine, brought tunes and the smiles all day long. A border collie in past life, there is no way to tire the man out. He embodies what it is to be a mountain bike coach in the modern era, the guys walks the talk, it's no wonder athletes like Tahnee Seagrave trust him to write their training programs and be there in the important moments of their racing career. This was the perfect location for some serious content creation and we we there for quite some time!
After the views, the descents
Lunch = Sweet old French lady, charcuterie, salad, cheese
Loris, well he was hungry. The young Frenchman had been on a training mission in the off-season, hungry for success and not just lunch. It's a shame Covid disrupted the season so much, when the World Cups did start, it's pretty obvious he was the man to beat. What will 2021 hold for one of the fastest downhill riders on the planet, hopefully, afew more hikes to those podium top steps.
That started us all off so on the way past Col De L'Encrenaz we found a great spot for lunch, sweet old French lady, charcuterie, salad, cheese, you know the drill. Bloody brilliant. Lunch complete we climbed for another 30 minutes to the top of one of the best bits of back country singletrack in the region, open and fast at the top before dropping into loamy woodland. The stoke was running high as we bit into the longest descent of the day.
The crew turned it on with an exhibition of rowdy riding, drifting into and out of corners and sending blind gaps keeping it lit the whole way down.
Chilled lunch with a view
Content time for the professionals
Bérengère Boës, a content manager for Steel City Media is one of the hidden players in the mountain bike world. Having worked with Commencal, Full Nine Media and Juliana, you've seen more of her than you realise. A super friendly girl and brimming with happiness, her smile was infectious at the bottom of every descent.
The smiles were ear to ear at the bottom of the gully of dreams, a chable hidden in the Portes du Soleil backcountry. Chables are created when farmers drag logs down the hillside creating semi-natural high banks, gullies. They are littered across alpine terrain and always a hoot to blast down.
Dropping back into Morzine, buzzing on the day, we hit the Super Morzine bubble and made our way around to Lac de Montriond, where Damien, our Kiwi friend and pro chef had whipped up a BBQ feast. A long day in the saddle, every descent was earned and views were well and truly appreciated.
Morzine's backcountry is full of secret gems
The views that keep on giving
Twisting and turning through more epic Portes du Soleil singletrack
Twisting and turning through more epic Portes du Soleil singletrack, loam gold, rocky chutes and technical descents kept the gang on their toes, a fun training day for riders like Nic prepping for the race season.
Nic Bean, an American who had just made the move to Europe to start his new enduro team, Theory Racing, is a shredder on the bike and a complete dude. Wth style for miles he's at home in the park or back country. Nic stayed on with us at our staff chalet for much of the summer, filming with Scott and honing those skills waiting for the EWS season to kick off.
Getting after it, the guys opened up the taps
A beer and BBQ at Lac de Montriond was well earned!
BBQ a the lake, Perfection.
Chicken, steak, ribs, potato salad, Brewdog, Heineken's, sore legs, big smiles and mates chilling at the lake after a long day. Pretty bloody good.
Want to hit up some if this singletrack gold? We can hook you up with a guide and make dreamy days like this a reality in Morzine. The backcountry here is full of secrets and all you need is folks with the ability to unlock them. Dial in and get stoked.
The gang was hungry, thirsty, and ready for a swim, we'd climbed over 1500m and were knocking on the door of 60km day, not bad with a camera crew. First, we had to hit up a park lap of Panoramic in Chatel. Turns out Sergi, Fox's media man is a shredder on the bike, being a local at Bike Park La Poma does his steeze no harm.
Fox Racing's video of the day | #ONEPEDALAHEAD | @foxracingeurope | FoxMTB
