Author Archives: chamonixbikeblog

Pila. Pinning/pining.

Posted on 11th September 2015
Start with a banger. Pila summed up in 1 shot, dust hanging in the air, a fun berm, and as a tribute to Dirt mag, backlit rider with reflective goggles on.

A long time ago in a galaxy (small highland town) far, far away….

The first copy of “Dirt the downhill mountain bike magazine” arrived, some time later than it did in the rest of the UK as that’s generally what happens when you live in the north of the UK. For a bunch of kids who were doing a mix of BMX and motocross on bikes totally unsuited to the job at hand, and definitely not wearing lycra, it was a revelation that there were actually other people like us. All over the place.

Obviously we all started buying Dirt.… [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

ESI Silicone grip review

Posted on 4th September 2015
Never mind the grips, THAT'Swhat i call a winter playground.

Ever heard a mountain biker whine about a bikes contact points? Grips, saddle and pedals all seem surprisingly divisive for lumps of plastic and metal. Riders sound like Goldilocks as they flit between grips. Too hard, too soft, too thin, too thick. Over the years my preferences for set up have varied (obviously never following fashion and whatever the worlds fastest have been doing) from steep brake lever angles to almost horizontal. Narrow bars to wide bars (well, narrow was all you could get back in’t day) short bikes to long (again, for years you bought the smallest frame size … [Read full post]

Posted in Review , tagged

Tignes Coupe du France 2015 #6

Posted on 27th August 2015
Type 1 fun.

“Chamonix Bike Blog” does imply a blog about biking in Chamonix, so I’ll concede there’s been some mission drift with the amount of race write ups from places that are not Chamonix of late. Dinnay fret, this one’s the Coupe du France season finale so we’ll be back to proper riding for the next month.

And it’s my blog so I’ll do what I want regardless.

Tignes then. A mere 2hr away and the lifts are free, so Sandy and I headed over on Friday early enough to sample the trails. If your main experience of lift companies is in … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged

Already?

Posted on 14th August 2015
Valloire, Seventh August, Coupe du France round five.

Not been much activity here for a bit, there’s been some races (Les Orres and Valloire Coupe du France Enduro, the latter’ll do for the photos), some riding of trails I’ve already written about and an injured wrist, but mostly I’ve lost my psyche for writing.

You can tell I’ve lost my psyche because I’m using words like psyche. I’d hate ‘psyche’ even more than ‘bants’ if it wasn’t for the racist/sexist/homophobic connotations you get with banter, but it’s still high up in my list of words wot I don’t like.

Other things I don’t like? Lift closing dates, so … [Read full post]

Posted in Trail conditions , tagged

Enduro World Series round 4, Samoens

Posted on 23rd July 2015
Finish line Stage 5 Sunday.It's all over bar the swimming.

Aye, so, err….World series enduro racing. Just round the valley from home. Couldn’t really not enter.

Turn up on Friday for registration, stupidly assuming it would be in the same virtually purpose built structure as last years Coupe du France registration. Obviously it’s not and spend 30 minutes randomly riding about till I find the small hall it’s now in. Nina was chatting away to Joe Barnes in the queue so I shamelessly skip in.

After tracking down some more water and joking about the mudguard in the goodie bag we chat to Isa and Enrico, then with the stage … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged , ,

Last chance to see. Samoens

Posted on 13th July 2015
Ooo I do like a loose dusty berm these days.

Life is a temporary affair. As an organism you get between a few seconds and a thousand or so years on earth. As a species it seems you get about 10 million years until you’re outta here. As a rule, it’s the mass extinctions that’ll get you. There’s probably been five already (alas details are sketchy, there’s not many folk left afterwards to keep a record), which between them mean that 99.5% of the species that have been, have been and gone.

Today we’re possibly going into a sixth mass extinction with species getting the chop at a rate about … [Read full post]

Posted in Road trip , tagged

Millau, Coupe du France 2015 #3

Posted on 2nd July 2015
Special 1 with yon bridge in the background. This is probably the flattest bit of the course.

I re-read last week’s blog on Val d’Allos, and it was shit. Nothing to say, and said badly. I suspect this is because I had a great time and was pretty happy. Happiness does not create art.

Edvard Munch and the Scream: Not happy Ian Curtis and Closer: Not happy Sylvia Plath and The Bell Jar: Not happy Pharrel Williams and Happy: Shit.

Therefore, this should be a cracking post. (Don’t get your hopes up).

Round 3 of the Coupe du France was down in the Midi Pyrenees in Millau. You’ve probably not heard of Millau but it’s where Norman … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged

Val d’Allos Coupe du France 2015 #2

Posted on 25th June 2015
Nico showing how it's done, Stage 3.

“Moasting” Verb: Signifying the combination of moaning and boasting, often employed by celebrities. cf: “Yeah Bro, around about my 12th lap of Brevent of the day my arms really started to feel the burn. etc”

Yes, you learn a new thing every day, and on Saturday that thing was the word moasting. Mostly because we were all complaining about how we had to ride a 20 or so minute mostly DH piece of singletrack, then ride some more pretty good trail (and 1 awesome trail.). It’s a hard life and I can tell your heart bleeds.

So goes Val … [Read full post]

Posted in Race , tagged

Border.

Posted on 8th June 2015
Oooo. Pretty pictures.

It was the Les Gets opening weekend last week and I got a bit excited at the prospect of a whole day in the bike park chasing down Nina & Spence’s new local friends on their DH bikes. As a result I ended the day with an old thumb injury flaring up again and needing to take it easy on the bike for a couple of weeks.

This seems like a perfect time then to go and explore some new trails, with a guarantee of a maximum of faffage and a minimum of actual downhill riding time to aggravate my … [Read full post]

Posted in Chamonix ride , tagged

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 ,