Category: Race

“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 Chamonix it’s a bit of a shock to wander into the lift office, be smiled at, then given a lift pass for nothing more than your email address. And a wee leaflet explaining that pretty much everything else going on in the summer is free too.

No idea where the money’s come from, but they’ve spent a wheen on it digging and building trails. There’s mile after mile of berm-to-jump-to-berm-to-wooden-feature-to-berm standing out sand yellow against the pretty much featureless grass of the alpine landscape. Forgot to mention that bit, Tignes is at 2000m altitude, the riding is above that, you’re going to get short of breath. Or at least I did.

So after ragging about on both sides of the hill giggling off drops and chickening out of assorted gaps (I had a race the next day, it was being sensible not cowardly. And the gap’s bigger than it looks) we got down to the town to find an airbag for bikes.

Free. obvz.

I did want to try a backflip, and considered nicking a BMX off a 10 year old that was hitting the airbag too. But then he looked fairly tough and he might have had a big brother of like 12 or something who’d beat me up. So I tried a whip. Pretty easy really.

Back to the apartment and part 2 of the team arrives, with Nina, Anna and much missed non-racing Spence who’d for some reason had decided that last summers sitting about in rainy carparks waiting to change a tyre, then clean bikes, then cook food wasn’t the best way to spend his weekend and went riding instead.

For the final round we went back to the rallye format of obligatory practice on Saturday then race day on Sunday, but with the wee innovation of a cheeky timed race run on the Saturday, giving 5 timed stages in total. Even better, the liaisons which helped the course wander between Tignes, Val d’Isere and Les Brevieres were downhill. Hell, one liaison was 800m vert of descent through bike park, it would’ve been a stage in most places. Instead it was the dangerous combination of relaxed cruising and long trains of racers trying to show off whilst pretending not to try. I don’t think anyone got too hurt, but there were a few unforced mechanicals….

I like this format, getting a stress free day to cruise about the trails chatting to folk and not having to pedal too hard. What’s more, I can run half bald tyres and try and save the good ones for race days. Hence I wasn’t quite so happy about the 1 race run in the middle of the day, but that’s what it was.

The specials were a welcome change from Valloire 2 weeks ago. Still quite physical in places, particularly S4, but with much more fun in between bouts of pedalling. If you want a better idea of how they looked, then there were pure hunnerts of photographers out there documenting. Try Velovert, Pinkbike and the event video.

Everyone seems to find their own wee groups at these races, generally with folk about the same pace as you. It should be cut throat competition, but mostly you end up cheering on and helping the very people you’re trying to beat. Sport psychologists probably have fun with that one.

With such gladiatorial combat in mind it was good to be finishing so close to Anthony Martin and Sam Gerret. Like really close. Within .1 of a second at times. Even better, we all managed to get some stage times that we’d hoped we could do but to date hadnae. Sam killing Sunday’s 2nd stage to go 28th (after sharing his headcam footage with me on the lift up, ta Sam!). Anthony grabbed 26th on the 3rd stage, only just beaten by me in 25th, less than 7% slower than some Jerome Clementz lad who’s turned up to take the win for the weekend.

Anyway, a grand weekend of racing over and the series totals tallied, I ended up ranked 45th in scratch for the season. None of the top pilots rode the full series due to EWS clashes, but given the level of enduro riding in France I’m pretty happy with top 50, what with a full time job, no sponsor and all that. Better, when I start playing the “niche” game, I can jump to 39th if you get them pesky fast juniors, dames and masters out the rankings to leave only men aged 19-40. Then there are only 2 riders above me with nothing in the team column on the results table. I can even score 1st in the UK licence category…

Enough self aggrandisation, turns you blind or something. Was a great season, plenty of type 1 fun, some type 2 and no type 3.

As ever, big thanks to eveyone that organised the series. We might grump about various niggles over the weekend but it’s a pretty amazing effort that’s made to create these events and I don’t think anyone’s getting rich out of it somehow. Particular thanks go to the commentator who manages to pick my most exhausted and panting moments to try and get a finish line interview out of me. Also, Sandy, Sam, Nina and Spence for all your help, advice, lent bike parts, shared car journeys,random cooking and quality chat.

Next year?

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 Foster got to make a bridge that everyone seems to like. It is quite a good bridge. I took a lot of photos of it. I probably should have taken more photos of the race.

With no expectations of what the trails would be like, it was a surprise to ride four technical tracks, each of which could easily be used as a DH course, demanding and hardly any pedaling.

No, all the pedaling was saved for the liaisons.

In themselves the liaisons weren’t too bad, spinning the pedals up hills on black, black tarmac. No the problem was that it was apparently 35 degrees on the Sunday and, well, Scot’s don’t do heat. Anything above 25 is a bit warm and once you pass 30 it’s a write off.

Back to the specials. A huge amount of work had gone into creating these tracks, many thanks to the organisers for it. Quite loose and dusty, but beyond that a mix of very fast to slow and technical, tricky rock slabs, river bed toboggan runs, some pretty big drops. Not sure what order all these features were in but…they were all there. Special 3 seemed to be the stand out, I think. I do at least remember the excited chat at the end of each Saturday practice run as everyone recounted close calls and railed turns.

Anyways, I’d love to write more about just how great the trails were, but I can’t really remember much at all. For each stage on the Sunday I would be sat waiting for my run trying to recall anything, ANYTHING, I could to help my time. But nothing.

Given this, I was fairly happy to be teetering along, riding safely, and sitting in the mid 60s position. Alas, it all went wrong on special 4 where I finally succumbed to the heat and lost the ability to ride a bike.

Completely lost it. My first crash came on a flat, straight, pedaling section. The next 4 followed on what was a steep loose trail anyway, nevermind riding it with the motor skills of a groom on his stag night. Somewhere along the line I managed to split my helmet down the middle. No idea which crash of course.

I wasn’t the only one struggling mind. I’ve never seen so many walking wounded at an enduro race before. Of the 340 riders who started practice on Saturday only 227 made it to the end of special 4 on Sunday. A sign of how good the trails were I guess.

So if you’re hoping for a detailed report on Millau, best check other media outlets and the official video. If you’re looking for art, then no matter how grumpy I get you’re searching in the wrong place here.

“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 d’Allos. Last year it was my 2nd favourite place I rode, alas this year for political reasons (the official line, general chat was the land owner had fallen out with folks) the upper chairlift wasn’t working and so most of the vertical was out of the way.

Instead, with only a few weeks notice, they came up with a pretty good new plan. Parc Ferme for the bikes at the top of the Col d’Allos on the Friday and Saturday nights (2250m, they were probably chilly, one Nomad owner put a blanket over his, presumably to stop the carbon getting a cold) then aforementioned looooooong trail, a liaison, another trail but this time only loooong to Allos, lift back up to the race village, food, another lift, 10mins liaison then down, before repeating the lift/food/lift/liaison for the final stage of the day back to the finish. And food.

This last trail had the most in common with the traces we raced last year, mostly because it was a combination of 2 of them. A huge, huge amount of fun, if you’re looking for somewhere different to go flat out on rolling singletrack, it’s hard to think of somewhere better.

The rest of the trails were pretty good too, lots of fun on Saturday practice where you could coast along the flat bits and push the ups, but everyone was a little concerned about how the ups and flats would feel come Sunday. Talking of practice, the rallye format is for 1 untimed lap with no stopping of each trace on the Saturday, then 1 lap racing of each on the Sunday, except they sneakily timed us on the Saturday and put the numbers up. Turns out Nico Voullioz is fastest even when going slow and, for perhaps the only time ever, I was 7 seconds slower than Fabian Barel on a 20 min stage (when he hasn’t had a crash or mechanical). And 42nd overall. Be nice if they could have just used those results…..

My weekend didn’t get off to the best of starts when a series of minor mishaps on Friday were crowned by me walking straight into a glass door, splitting my lip and eyebrow and dislocating my nose. I don’t know if you can dislocate a nose, but it went squint and made a good crack when I pulled it straight again. And hurt.

Saturday could only be better, which in good narrative fashion, it was. (Or at least it was for everyone but the poor kid who’s helmet started rolling down the hill from the start of stage 1, and didn’t stop for a long long time. You might need to zoom in to see him…..) Leaving aside the riding, come the evening as the mid-summer sun shone and the air stayed balmy a massive paella was cooking on the fire and the free beer was flowing. #enduro is serious business.

Sundayfunday. Have you ever seen someone practice a sport and realise you will never, ever be that good? Watching Nico Voullioz and Florian Nicolai on the opening straight of Stage 1 was one of those moments. I can’t explain just how fast they went down the hill, other than to say I wish everyone gets a chance to see their heroes do what they do best, then try and copy them.

Strangely having been put so firmly in my place I went on to have a pretty good run, if you discount trying a blind shortcut and going headfirst into a rock, cutting and bruising my cheek through the full face helmet and disturbing my nose a bit. My first top 40 stage time and just 10% shy of Nico. I think I’ve moved on from moasting to plain and simple boasting here.

The rest of the day went pretty well too. I’m here to have fun and there were some amazingly fun bits of trail. Every so often I even managed to go genuinely as quick as I think I can which one of the wee things racing can give you that riding trails just canny do. After Saturday’s worries that the first two stages would be too pedally they actually raced pretty well. Still physical, but not xc race physical.

As a result of being the anglophone with the lowest number board, if not fastest finishing,  (Meg Bichard turned up and gave Isa Courdurier a run for her money taking the win, whilst Kiwi Mike Cowlin nabbed 29th in mens) I even ended up being interviewed at the finish line. I look forward to my interpretation of the French language becoming a regular comedy act…

Sandy was on his first outing with the new bike, and turns out having a fully functional bike does make a bit of a difference to your enjoyment of racing, and finishing. For other peoples results, try looking at the result page or event video, I’m not doing it, what do you think this is, Pinkbike?

A week to turn up work occasionally then racing again next weekend. It’s a hard life (see opening paragraph)

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 occasional biking interspaced with snowfalls dragging you back to the skis. Hence we booked an apartment for a couple days before the race to give us some riding around Blausasc’s awesome trails. Chamonix’s pretty much clear of snow below 2000m now, but we weren’t going let that stop us getting out in the dust.

We had planned just to follow random trails, Fabian Barel lives in the village so surely they must all be good, but the retired lady of a certain age who’d rented us the apartment casually mentioned that she’d been vtt’ing here for the last 20 years, and the best trails were…..well, dotted about, but here try this website!

For the most part though, someone else had chosen the trails we were riding and marked them out for us. In the new “rallye” format for the series gone is the Friday trail walk, replaced with the rule that the trail map will be released on Friday evening, the trails can’t be ridden from the Monday before the race nor walked from the Friday when they get taped out. All a bit existential, how do you not ride a trail you don’t know is in a race?

The blind racing on Saturday is now untimed, letting non-locals get a feel for the trails, and everyone get an idea of how the liaisons will go without the stress or effort of doing it at race pace.

This turns out to be a great innovation and for me probably is the best balance of all the enduro formats I’ve raced to negate the advantage of local trails and prior racing on the tracks without having mid week practice sessions that the 90% with jobs can’t make.

It also means you get to just chill out and enjoy the trails. Which was good as I completely failed to do that on the Sunday race day, riding terribly and generally questioning whether I enjoy racing and what I was doing here.

Until stage 3.

Stage 3 on Saturday was everything I hate about French enduro races. Designed to break your bike, or your body, or both, and with a brutal off the bike pushing climb followed by a steady incline to destroy you completely.

Come Sunday it reminded me why racing is so good. It was flat out, desperately holding on to the bars and hoping you got through each section intact, ready to sprint out the end then do it again into the next pile of rocks.

Of course, then I managed to crash and pootled down the rest of the stage with my tail between my legs. But for those few minutes when all your focus is on going as fast as you possibly can it was worth it.

At the end of a day of riding mostly mediocrely I was 71st, which is quite a bit further down the list than I wanted to be, but really it doesn’t matter. For most of us the racing isn’t about being the best, it’s about being better and about going as fast as you can without worrying about some family wandering up the trail round that blind bend.

Nico Vouilloz won (and you can see how everyone got on in the event video here complete with not 1, but 2 appearances from me. And neither whilst crashing this time! 1.24 and 4.06 if you need help). Nico is the rider I worshipped as a gangly youth racing DH, amazed at how he could make the best riders in the world look like amateurs in the mid to late 90s. For me he’s the best gravity bike racer of all time and on Sunday he was 17% faster than me, which actually, I’m ok about.