Author Archives: chamonixbikeblog

‘Effing excellent

Posted on 15th September 2014
Spence seemed to enjoy his first time.

You might not have noticed, but there’s a wee bit of a referendum happening in Scotland next week. It seems that Westminster hadn’t noticed either as over the last 7 days there’s been a sudden realisation that folks north of the border might just go vote for independence, and for reasons other than watching Braveheart too many times. Cue a love bombing campaign of Scotland. Promises that we won’t take you for granted, we won’t ignore you, it’ll be different this time, trust us, we’re politicians…

But this isn’t a political blog, so what’s with the intro? Well, I worry … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride, Trail conditions , tagged , ,

Coupe du France Enduro series round 5, Valberg

Posted on 10th September 2014
Stage 2 practice. It was pretty much this awesome all the way down.

There’s been a lot of race writeups on here recently, and I will get back to proper riding for the next post, but there was one last race in the Coupe du France so for one last time the Kangoo was laden with bikes and tyres. One last time we headed out through the Gorge du Arly. One last time we drove south with no air-con and one working window. One last time you get the idea.

This last one was Valberg/Guillaumes, star of online hits like Fabien Barel’s this, Yo Barelli’s that and Nico Quere’s other. All of these … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged , ,

Coupe du France Enduro series round 4, Samoens

Posted on 3rd September 2014
Coupe du France enduro series 4: Samoens

There are 3 certainties in life; death, taxes and the Samoens round of the Coupe du France being muddy.

But to be honest, on Friday afternoon as the car was getting packed for the short drive over to register and deal with scrutineering, I wasn’t so sure. And a quick track walk to see what the trail conditions were didn’t have me convinced I was going to need my newly purchased second hand wetscreams.

Then it started raining, then pissing it down, then the warm up act ended and the real storm arrived. The certainty memes were safe, it was … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged , , ,

Coupe du France enduro series round 3, Val d’Isere

Posted on 18th August 2014
101 riders wait for their start time.

I heard on Thursday morning that the latest edition of the Oxford English dictionary was going to feature the word “amazeballs“. Generally I’m of the opinion that anyone using said phrase should have bungee cord tied to their amazeballs and be kicked off a bridge, but looking at the maps for the race when they went online Thursday evening, only one word came to mind.

Sweet.

8 stages over 2 days taking you from Val d’Isere over the cols to Tignes and back. Bits in the bike park, bits on walking trails, bits in the middle of nowhere marked “here … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged , ,

The end is nigh. Repent.

Posted on 9th August 2014

The weather has, at times, been a bit biblical recently. Given Mount Ararat is 5137m high even Mont Blanc at 4810 ain’t going to save us. All we can do is head out in the rain and enjoy the biking whilst we still can.

The Chamonix trails, being generally steep and rocky, deal with the rain fairly well and drain pretty quick. Only Les Houches turns into a true quagmire and even there it’s possible to avoid the worst of it (which is generally the last 1/3 of the DH trail and all of the old DH trails from the … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride, Trail conditions , tagged

Champex Lac: Seasonal discrepancies

Posted on 2nd August 2014
Lorne on the high switchbacks of the trail of the day. I think he preferred it in winter though.

Deja vu? After 2 weeks of near constant rain it seemed the Scottish summer was over in Chamonix. One day of sun meant the trails were dry (mostly) and spirits were high (mostly). It also meant everyone had headed out to enjoy the trails.

Eager to ride some fast downhill trails, preferably with well build berms, a trip out of the valley was called for, and where better than Pila?

Turned out plenty of other folk had a similar idea and the queue for the Mont Blanc tunnel was backed up at least 60 minutes, so we headed to Champex … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

Les Contamines, no bad.

Posted on 20th July 2014
The official Les Contamines trail being attacked by Nina (too dark for photos in the woods alas)

After 2 weeks of near constant rain it seemed the Scottish summer was over in Chamonix. Four days of sun meant the trails were dry (mostly) and spirits were high (mostly). It also meant everyone had headed out to enjoy the trails.

Eager to ride some empty downhill trails, preferably with well built berms, a trip out of the valley was called for, and where better than Pila? Spence would even get to take his DH bike, and the rest of us could sit and eat ice cream or drink coffee.

I guess plenty of other folk had had a … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

La Thuile, not racing.

Posted on 12th July 2014
Stage 2 on race day, looked pretty good!

The world series of who’s best at ‘going out and riding their bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ has come to La Thuile, which I reckoned was probably the best place I’d been for ‘going out and riding a bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ when I first rode there a few years back, so that seems pretty fitting.

As the E.W.S. races are open to everyone I thought it would be good to head through the tunnel and ride against the world’s best. Alas work was less interested in this idea and thought it would … [Read full post]

Posted in Race, Road trip , tagged , ,

MB Enduro Megeve

Posted on 7th July 2014
Spence's first finish

Another weekend, another race.

For the last 5 years Megeve has been publicising the opening of it’s lifts for the summer with “the most difficult race in the world”, a 140km, 7000m +/- marathon race that in the 2010 running only 1 of the 600 starters finished.

That sounds a bit much like hard work, so fortunately they also have a 1 day enduro using the Portes du Mont Blanc network of lifts.

Being close to Chamonix there were a few familiar faces dotting about the paddock. The entry forms implied you could choose the riders you wish to race … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged , ,

Coupe du France Enduro series round 2, Val d’Allos

Posted on 2nd July 2014
Mud = fun

12 years ago in a small ski resort (not that) far far away, a new race was born…….

The riders of Val d’Allos took DH racing, but went further, creating the “Tribe 10,000” where riders would race laps of different trails, with no practice, over a weekend clocking about 10,000m of descent (that’s 33,000ft, 18 laps of the Fort William DH course or 26 empire state buildings, depending on if you read The New York times, Dirt or The Sun). Like DH, but more endurancy.

The event went well and grew year after year. But what to call this new … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged ,