Author Archives: chamonixbikeblog

Vote Leave*.

Posted on 10th June 2016
Stoppie turns for the win!

I left the EU today**. It was easy too. Me and 3 fellow EU citizens packed the bikes into the car, went to the boulangerie and drove over the border into the wildlands of Switzerland. Then after a days riding came back to the EU.

There’s still a couple of days to go until the Chamonix lifts open for the summer so lazy riding needs a bit more effort. Fortunately Switzerland’s Postbus service can provide just the help we need to get 1700m of descending for only 700m of up.

Woop.

The Col des Planches area is new to me … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

Finale Ligure is waiting for you

Posted on 9th May 2016
Lorne back on the Isallo Extasy trail. Always try to end the post on a good shot...

“Finale Ligure is waiting for you” reads the tagline on the trail map. Which does kinda imply the next sentences are “Outside the school gates 4 o’clock. Finale’s gonnay pure batter you.” showing the problem of speaking second languages and context (ever flown from Prestwick airport).

Once again the original purpose of this blog, to give mtb trail information for Chamonix, is getting ignored and we’re off on holiday to Finale Ligure where there’s plenty of sunshine, absolutely no snow and it’s not Chamonix.

We weren’t the only ones, ascension weekend holiday meant a 90mins queue to get through the … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged , ,

Une Tranche de Tarte Française*

Posted on 17th April 2016
One of those drops that photo smaller than they are. Nina makes short work of it anyways.

Seen A Slice of British Pie yet?

Grand, innit. I’m not completely sure if it’s a good thing or not that the best bit of bike filming I’ve seen in years is so good because it’s emulating edits (or “videos” as we used to call them, what with them generally being actual physical things rather than just interweb) from 15+ years ago, but that’s not really important. It’s mostly grand because it’s a tour of the Uk’s regional accents with some pissing about in the mud thrown in for good measure.

And everyone(ish, probably, maybe, I don’t know) on the … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip, Trail conditions , tagged ,

A jaded hack rides again

Posted on 12th April 2016
Spence has been dreaming about bikes all winter, seems to have kept his technique sharp.

***Edited on 30th May with the updated opening and closing dates for summer 2016. Two weekends to go y’all…**

I did some reading over the winter on how to betterer use english good for right stuff.

“Start with an analogy or an image” is one common recommendation for getting over the awkward hurdle of sullying the blank sheet of white paper (pixels) infront of you.

Rising, like a phoenix from the ashes, the bike emerges from its winter slumber. Sounds a bit too heroic a comparison for me digging the bike out the back of the cave, shaking the dust … [Read full post]

Posted in Trail conditions , tagged

An interlude.

Posted on 21st December 2015
Up above the (cold in the shade) streets and houses.

It’s December. The day of the longest night to be exact. Eleven days before the end of the year, and we’re riding our bikes.

As a lefty-liberal-pinko-socialist who will talk at you for hours on why capitalism will fail as it doesn’t obey the 1st or 2nd laws of thermodynamics, it’d be expected of me to launch into a rant about global warming and how it’s all our fault here.

But it’s christmas, you’re saved, I’ll be nice and no bother. Anyways, December is often a poor month for snow, often warm, often dry. Mibbies not so often good for … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride, Trail conditions , tagged , ,

Cunning as a fox drunk on cunning juice

Posted on 18th November 2015
15m into a 1500m descent. Life's hard sometimes.

Ahh, the clear mountain air, the efficient clean travel on a bike, the pristine alpine environment.

Shame we drove here.

Worse, the ride’s plan involved knocking the vertical climbed down from 1500m to 450m by driving over in 2 cars, leaving 1 at the bottom then heading back to the top. More wasted miles, more wasted time, more wasted CO2.

But, in the future, it will be different…….

Electric cars are getting closer and closer (it’s a long read, but way more worth while more than the rest of this) and renewables are forming more and more of the grid … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged ,

Techy treat

Posted on 5th November 2015
4th November Aig des Houches: Banger of a shot courtesy of Lorne and much wheelie practice.

You into religion much?

I’m not sure why I put in the question mark, I don’t care in the slightest and it’s not relevant.

What does matter is that the French like a bit of Catholicism and just can’t get enough of their saints. Hence, all saints day is ‘something’ here, and we get a holiday.

Presumably we should be celebrating all those lucky souls who’ve made it to heaven, and all those the next day who’re stuck in purgatory. Instead we put on fancy dress* (c’mon, tell me bikers aren’t going to look back at what we’re wearing in … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride, Trail conditions , tagged

Four have fun in Finale

Posted on 6th October 2015
After the race briefing. You miss the sea in Chamonix.

It’s de rigueur to make some sort of “season finale” style pun in reports on the Finale EWS round, what with it being the season final in Finale and all. Instead I thought I’d go with a nod to insufferable English kids books of the ’50s.

A reference that it seems will be lost on many of you as Google analytics tells me more than 50% of readers are “not UK” so you probably didn’t suffer Enid Blyton at school. I also wonder why quite so many folk are interested in this crap, you can’t all be robots (01001000 01100001 … [Read full post]

Posted in Race, Road trip , tagged ,

The joy of Sixt

Posted on 22nd September 2015
Start with a strong shot, end with a strong shot, Lorne descending from Col d'Anterne.

This week it has mostly been autumn.

Autumn is not a bad thing per se, the trees go a pretty colour for example. Holiday season is over so the hills are quiet. Everyone’s jobs dry up along with the tourists so we have more time to ride. These are all good things (except when rent/chainreactioncycles still needs paid)

No, the problem is it gets cold and the lifts are closing. You want to make the most of each lift before it shuts, but there are only so many good weather days to do it on. You want to make the … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged ,

Road

Posted on 16th September 2015
Coffee. Apparently caffeine is a drug, so another road rule ticked.

A change is as good as a rest. Apparently. Road biking is definitely a change from mountain bikes, but I’m not sure it’s a rest.

A game of word association is unlikely to link Chamonix and road biking. Or me and road biking for that matter, but I tried a 29er once (twice now I think about it) and it didn’t seem that bad so might as well give this road biking lark a go. That and I had friends in town who wanted to go road biking.

Hence a quick bit of internet research later a very much not … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged