Monthly Archives: May 2015

Loriaz v1.5

Posted on 31st May 2015
Lorne doing his best to smooth out the upper trail.

Big fan of the Loriaz ride, fairly easy up, great views, few people and an excellent descent. Hard to fault really.

But it’s easy to get complacent about these things, it’s good to mix it up a bit. What if Neo had chosen the blue pill?

So, after a run in with the SNCF’s grumpiest conductor who wouldn’t let 1/2 the cyclists at Chamonix central onto the train and a little over 60 minutes of climbing Lorne and I stood ready at the Croix de Loriaz ready to eschew the truth of the red pill/normal Loriaz trail and explore the … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged ,

Blausasc, Coupe du France #1

Posted on 13th May 2015
It's not all rocks and roots, you get some slick village centre limestone slabs here too.

It must be summer, we’re going racing, and like last year the Coupe du France enduro series opened in the heat of the Alpes-Maritimes coast at Blausasc.

Unlike last year’s races though, Spencer was injured and Nina racing DH in Sweden so Sandy had the honour of co-piloting for the relaxing short drive down to Nice, through Nice, out of Nice, round random villages trying to find where we were, back into Nice then on to Barre des Alpes, the closest place we could find cheap digs.

When organising ourselves back in winter we’d anticipated the usual Chamonix spring of … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged

Saleve: The trail strikes back

Posted on 4th May 2015
It could have been worse. We could still be there.

Saleve is not that well known for it’s biking, but on the off chance you meet someone who’s ridden there one of the things they’ll tell you is it’s a bad choice in the wet. Slick and slippy mud coating roots and smooth limestone with steep gradients to maximise your travel from the trail and bike if/when you fall.

It’s wet just now, but Sandy and I figured it couldn’t be more wet than Chamonix where May started with the average monthly rainfall dropping on the 1st, then the 2nd and 3rd not being much drier. As a … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged