Category Archives: Chamonix ride

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]

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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]

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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]

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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]

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The last big weekend of the summer

Posted on 30th November 2014
Shredding the orange pow. That sounds wrong.

End of summer? Ok so it might be the end of meteorological autumn, but outside it’s double digit temperatures, with a warm drying wind rolling over from the south, so for us lot, it feels more like the end of summer.

And what do we do in summer? Ride bikes.

The Loriaz chalet loop is one of the first of the higher trails we ride each year, it’s altitude and aspect ensuring snow free trails that bit sooner than other points around the valley. That and the only way up is under your own steam, so there’s no point putting … [Read full post]

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Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

Posted on 23rd November 2014
Rider's head partially cropped, blurry background, partially focussed, photographer about to be hit by bike. It can only be a MBUK cover from the early 90's

Forgive me if my memory is a little hazy, I’m casting my mind back 20 odd years here, but I think the first bike magazine I bought was some long bust title called MTBtrail or MTB rider or such. I forget exactly, but the title’s not important.

The contents included an article on converting your bike from 3×6 to 3×7 (and whether you needed 7 gears at the back and perhaps that it might cause the bike to be too fragile and anyway you certainly don’t need 8 gears, that would be crazy). There were some words on rides you … [Read full post]

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black and white

Posted on 2nd November 2014
It's not winter yet dammit.

10 minutes from the front door is one of the only bike friendly uplifts running in the alps and from the top of the Brevent gondola an embarrassingly large number of trails work their way down the sunny side of the Chamonix valley.

So obviously we dingied that and went and pedalled up a hill for 1200 meters.

Last summer I injured my thumb and couldn’t ride. Instead I had to run about trails with a branch in my hands making bike noises. One of the trails I found looked like it would make a grand wee ride, if a … [Read full post]

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Link up

Posted on 28th September 2014
There was a lot of spot the rider shots from today.

Want to know what the next big thing’s going to be in mountain biking? Look at other mountain sports; skiing, snowboarding, mountaineering, fell running. Trail centres are a bike only thing? Snowboarding went crazy for snowparks in the mid 90’s. These newfangled “enduro” bikes that are fairly light up hill but a virtually DH bikes on the down? Skiing’s been doing the fat touring ski and DIN 16 touring binding for ages*. Big days out linking your favourite trails….

OK, so we’ve been doing that for a while too, but mountaineers got there first. With the concentration of hardcore climbers … [Read full post]

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‘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]

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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]

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