Last summer our ambassador Wayne (Chamonix MTB) LINK took his Rocket on a pretty big day out. Living in the birthplace of modern mountaineering, when Wayne says it was a big day out, you'd best believe it. Have a look...

After a 7am start in Chamonix, it’s time to load up the trailer and head out to Crans Montana, Switzerland to ride the Plaine Morte. Plaine Morte is an epic trail that follows an ancient bisse/aquaduct all the way to the valley floor, ending in the town of Sion in the Swiss Valais.

Getting to the summit involves some logistics but multiple cable cars and a few hours later we are stood at almost 3000m, next to the Glacier Plaine Morte roughly translated as the dead flat glacier. Unfortunately the atmospheric cloud we ascended through managed to block the incredible view we’d been promised!

Fortunately, we weren’t just here for the views and after a quick flowy, rocky single track ride to warm up we were straight in to the only uphill/hike a bike section of day – with 44km of descending ahead of us, a short climb was to be expected.

Shortly after arriving at Wildstrubell Refuge we were straight in to the descent and a rowdy start to the ride – a rocky, loose, off camber moonscape of a single tack laid out ahead of us.This trail definitely isn’t for the faint hearted, with steep committing chutes to descend, but the amazing surroundings help to take your mind off the tech.

By the time we reached Lac Plan des Roses the cloud was clearing so we took the chance to stop for a speedy lunch. With more than 2,000m of descending still ahead of us we kept it quick and cracked on. Leaving the loose rocky tech behind us we entered the high alpine pasture, which is less steep and a lot more flowy and fun. The beautiful Barrage de Tesuzier lies ahead and then s the fun really begins.

The bisse takes us over sketchy bridges and through small caves where a good head for heights is vital - did I mention the ride involves some via ferrata? ;-) Hike-a-biking through a network of caves definitely adds to the adventure and is actually a more recent addition to the trail - health and safety thought it might be a good idea to bring these walk/aqua ways in to the mountainside rather than tacked on to the cliffs.

After navigating the caves it’s back out into the trees, with blue skies above us and some amazingly fast singletrack under our wheels. This was a big day but it was well worth it - 45km, 2900m of descending and around 500m of climbing throughout the day, together with the views and the trail, made for one hell of an amazing ride!