Chamonix Bike Blog

Category: Road trip

Pumptracks

How hard is it to write an article about pumptracks without mining the “pump it up” tropes?

Hard. Very hard indeed. I’ll try avoid it, but can’t promise anything.

If you remember 2020 when the biggest thing we had to worry about was global pandemic and not global war (another opportunity to say go fuck yourself Putin and leave the world, in peace) the pumptrack bike became the overnight coolest must have you must have.

I got one too, cheers Airdrop!

Of course, pumptrack bikes aint nothing new, a hardtail playbike has been a staple of riders sheds since I was wee. I mind selling my battered DMR sidekick about 5 years ago and being told just how much I’d regret it.

You were right Rob, I regretted it.

But the Fade is way better. I can lift it with one hand for a start…

Anyways, pumptrack bikes are great for kicking about and playing in the street, but they’re also pretty good at pumptracks. And skate parks and dirt jumps, which will be called “trails” for the rest of this article because that’s what they’re called.

But where are these fabled pumptracks, and how fun are they?

It’s a good question dear reader, and one I set off to answer last winter and spring. Or at least I did until I had a skiing disagreement with a tree which put things a bit behind schedule.

About 12 months late, here we are.

Sallanches.

Biggest track in my arbitrarily applied 45 minute radius of Chamonix selection process. Not sure if I’d go as far as to say the best, but it’s pretty fun, and handily has a great skatepark and bowl next to it too. And the hospital, which hopefully isn’t handy.

The track features four distinct lines, an independent green, a mixed blue and red, and a separate black jump line and there’s a fair few extra lines to unlock and keep you coming back for more. And there’s even lights for evening sessions!

Combloux

Undoubtably the best backdrop of any pumptrack built to date. Ever. Ok, I’ve got some history with this track, a moment of inattention here in 2016 was what resulted in me putting my arm bones through my wrist bones and leaving them in the palm of my hand along with the majority of my wrist in an unmade jigsaw of bone. Still, all better now. Kinda.

The tracks great, a bit tighter and more technical than a lot of riders would like, but I suspect this makes it better for skateboarders. I can’t skate, so I’m guessing. A couple of mini ramps and modules help keep interest away from the blue and red loops of the track, which also has a couple of extra curricular lines to find. It also melts out way quicker than you’d think in the winter.

I’ve also so far failed to visit with the camera.

Les Contamines

Hidden away at the end of a valley, and conveniently next to the trail outta town, sits the wee Les Contamines pumptrack. A bit different locally in having some copings and park features, but otherwise, a pretty standard pumptrack that runs fast and has lots of gaps slightly too big and intimidating for a usually injured and always feart rider like myself.

There’s also a mini-ramp half pipe, which is pretty tight on a 26”, and weeeellllllll slidey. But at least that means it doesn’t hurt as much when the inevitable happens.

St Gervais

If you can find it, it’s there. Behind the swimming pool. And it’s really good. Ok, if you’re any good at pumptracks it’s probably too small and easy for you, but for the rest of us it’s grand! Separate green loop for the balance biking weans, interwoven blue and red lines with nice whippy but short jumps, pretty much all with very forgiving landings. All this AND a really nice bowl just behind it, what more could you ask for?

Well there is a bonus “bikepark” about a km away in the woods, but I’d just stay at the pumptrack if I were you.

Servoz

Try to find something nice to say about the Servoz track. It’s very convenient if you live in Servoz and is good for the weans to play on. Not really worth the trip, just go ride the freeride lines in the woods instead.

Chamonix

Oh Chamonix, how you’ve fallen behind. There used to be a wee dirt track next to the skatepark, but it got flattened and replaced with…. a flat pile of dirt. The skatepark’s ok, but really better for skating, it’s a bit tight with big wheels. There are a couple of trails that go well on a DJ/pumptrack bike, but trail rules apply so they shouldn’t appear on the internet unless the builder wants them to.

Les Houches

Coming soon…..(ok, maybe not soon. But coming. Or at least, it was in early 2022)

Megeve

Exists. Allegedly. I’ve not been yet, despite it being at least 5 years old, however our roving reporter Matei aged 5 has and tells me “it’s a bit clumsy made, I don’t think they knew how to make a pumptrack.” He does however like the adjacent bowl. And Combloux pumptrack.

Flaine

Apparently there’s one in Flaine. Very close to Chamonix in a straight line, pushing it to get there in under an hour but.

Les Carroz

Rumoured to be pretty good, and with a wee skatepark and bowl next to it. Again, one to be updated. Like life, it’s a work in progress this thing.

Morillon

A little off the beaten track, and none the worse for it. Next to a plan d’eau and a bar, there’s a lot going for the siting of this one, as we all know, location, location, location.

The track itself is a blue, red and black loop, with the blue and red being fairly standard affairs and the black being a bit odd as you need to transition in and out of the other lines to get it, and there’s some consequence to the gaps on it. And it has a wall ride, which is good to see.

Martigny

The best pumptrack in the (not actually) y’aute? Mibbies. The nearest Velosolutions pumptrack to Chamonix? Almost definitely. I wonder if there’s a link there…

Anyways, a central 4 bowl thing is encircled by a longer pumptrack which DEFINITELY wants you to leave the ground, it’s pretty hard to make it round without getting your wheels in the air. Runs very very fast too. Loads of fun and loads of opportunity for weird lines. And can be quiet.

Plateau d’Assy

Fresh in late 2022, the tarmac is still warm. Perhaps the only track to give Combloux a bit of competition in the best backdrop eva stakes, another Bikesolutions green-blue-red-deeper shade of red, with a bit of coping and module action thrown in for luck too.

With a fairly big area to work with and a slight amount of gradient, the PdA track is maybe the best in the Arve valley for the less brave and competent of us. Some nicely case-able step ups, a few good transition lines, super deep berms. Yeah, lot of fun. Should stay fairly snow free too being south facing and at about 1000m altitude.

To be updated as I get round to it, but if that infodump hasn’t got you pumped to ride in the winter, I dunno what will. (d’oh)

07/12/2022
Once upon a time in the Southern Balkans

“No time to explain, can you leave for Macedonia on Monday?”

Is not the exact message I got from Luke, but it’s probably only out by 4 words. Due to chain of events too arcane to enter into here, Luke was in the process of arranging a promotional trip to Macedonia and Albania. A crack crew of MTB journalists, photographers, tourism industry operators, guides, social media influencers and an actor were to head to Skopje for a week of magazine article shooting, promotional video interviewing and development of MTB tourism advising in the aid of promoting the new High Scardus MTB trail.

On Monday.

Then Wednesday.

Then Thursday.

We left on Friday*.

Amazingly we all arrived, with bikes, on Friday too. Trundling out the covid secure space of Skopje airport into the evening light and waiting crowd, Dimitri was easy to spot. To be fair, with our lost looking expressions and massive bike bags we were easier to spot, but a smiling face, waving arms and “hey guys, you made it!” was hard to miss from his end too.

Loaded into the 4×4 van that, unbeknownst to us at the time, would prove to be the greatest vehicle ever made and had even been spotted from the plane on the autoroute below (you can trust a bike guide to spot the shuttle rig from several km above) we headed to Skopje, unpacked, went for a donner about the centre of town (they do big fountains very well, and landlocked boats with political analogies) before heading for food with Dimitri, Stojan, Risti and Goran, some of the many folk behind the trip.

Enough of the set-up, some riding. Day one trail one came after a long drive and a short pedal to the rounded peak of Skopska Crna Gora high above Skopje.

This was not a known trail.

In fact, this often turned out to be not a trail at all, we were on a scouting mission with some locals. There was a lot of an old trail in there, under the bushes and behind the trees. And once it’s been cleared out it’ll be pretty mint. Today though it led to a lot of scratching of any exposed skin. It didn’t only lead to that though, it also led to the village where the same local riders had laid on a lunch of epic proportions in Jorgos’s back garden. The fire pit was already reaching the embers stage ready for the food to start grilling, salads and veggies were being washed and chopped in the water fountain, beers appeared from the fridge and toasts to the promise of future trails and trail building were made.

We weren’t done yet. The second trail came at the end of another shuttle, but now only because covid restrictions kept the telecabine closed. On Vodno hill above Skopje sits the millenium cross, which at 66m high makes it pretty easy to see where you started. It’s worth remembering too, cos this ride was a lot of descending on a trail straight outta Finale, all the way down to the capitol. That’s hard to beat!

Back into Stojan’s mighty van and a 2hr drive off to the Popova Shapka ski area where the Scardus Hotel serving staff had been kept up until 2300 to finally serve us food.

This was a pattern to be repeated.

Full value was had of our week.

One of the many advantages of milking every hour out of a day is that if you arrive by night, the morning views are an unknown. All week the 2 token grumpy old Scots (that’ll be Ross and me) were put in a room together. As we eventually made our way down to the terrace to join the enthusiastic youth for breakfast we discovered we’d been transported to the Cairngorms.

Who knew the High Scardus trail went so far west.

And then we rode e-bikes. Which was interesting and a fine example of what e-bikes are great at; covering big distances easily, turning steep fireroads into fun experiences and powering through unlikely river crossings. But will be skipped over in the interests of moving the narrative along (after saying a big thanks to Mihail and Metodi of Sharoutdoors for the experience and pointing out you should really, really check out their skiing options), and we fast forward to being back on our own bikes and Stojan leading the charge out of Popova Shapka headed for Tetovo far below. Yesterday’s yin and yan trails were kinda repeated. After a cruisy morning of battery powered assistance and scenic gravel roads we were back on singletrack.

Which was plenty fun, but we were finding the cultural distractions to be the real interest.

Article one, a recently abandoned ski lift which had taken folk from near town up to the ski area. Or had until in about 2001 the Taliban decided it was a legitimate target and bombed it. The only time we saw any sign of sectarian tension in the whole trip, and if you’re from the west of Scotland, you’re usually quite good at spotting that kinda stuff.

Article two, once down in Tetovo we headed to the colourful mosque of Sarena which was exactly what it said on the tin. No shorts, no uncovered heads so we assumed we weren’t getting a looksee, but the gardener was having none of that and ushered us into a serene space that could have been in Kyoto instead of Tetovo. Glimpses of women inside pointing out the window and laughing at us whilst the mosque cat ambled about hawking for attention only added to the experience.

Back on the road for our next destination. Mountain Hut Caravets. A hidden wee lodge in another of Macedonias hidden wee ski areas.

Some notes I made after tea;

Sat in a wee nook in the house, 12 round a table best for 8, we start eating. And drinking, as these go well together. Raki and aubergine sauces are the highlights. Chat moves between skiing and biking, which shuttle vehicle is best, cherry chocolates or mints, the history of Yugoslavia (complex and painful) opium and 9 other facts about Macedonia.

Throughout we eat. And drink.

Maybe it’s because we’ve all had a few days together that we’ve now relaxed into each other’s company, but after several days of luxury surroundings and beautifully presented (and delicious) food it’s in this rustic mountain hut with plenty of rustic but tasty food served by our hosts Vladimir, Sonja and an aussi/columbian volunteer couple that we all seem to have relaxed and gelled.

The next days dawns a little fuzzily….

Macedonia claims to have 300 annual days of sunshine. This doesn’t mean that it’s out of practice at raining.

Today it is raining.

However, we have a lot of photos to shoot and Luke isn’t one to let a bit of water get in the way. Team culture load up with Stojan and head off to enjoy the riding around Mavrovo ski area. Although still in development, by the time this bit gets published it will be home to a fully fledged bike park. Team media meanwhile get dropped in Galichnik and waved off in the direction of a scenic trail to Janche to go make the media magic happen.

Fortunately we were doing it on a banger of a trail. I say fortunately because shooting photos generally means riding the same bit of trail ‘one more time’ many times as you try and get the light, body position and facial expression to the liking of the camera.

Obviously, these things take time. Slightly more time, it turned out, than we had. The sky lit up with lightening. The air thrummed with thunder. We were stood up riding bikes and drowning. Soaked to the bone we floated into town, found the hotel, removed as many clothes as was decent, left them in a sopping wet pile at the front door and squelched into a hotel so vast and ornate it had a FIAT 500 as part of the dining room decoration.

We looked slightly out of place.

Next day. With Martin and me swapping duties as token EU bike guide, I joined Team Culture and Martin headed off for a day with Team Media. This was a good call. With locals Stefan and Viktor joining us, Stojan was a very excited lad about to lead the first ride of a trail they had been building.

Things started auspiciously enough with leaders of the flowy traverse sending two black bears scampering across the hillside. You don’t see that often…

The trail kept delivering. With a blank canvas of gently rolling hillside, Stojan and the boys had made that rarest of trails, something that’s fun for all standards. Scandi flick hip wiggles and small gaps if you’re running hot, supportive berms and open lines if you’re feeling a bit more relaxed. A pause at a wee village before we hang a right and hit the lower section. Similar vibe but this time in the woods and a little tighter, a little more technical.

And also, still with bears.

Stefan getting the fright of the day when he slaps a berm to be presented with Yogi sprinting off down the trail in front of him. He relinquishes leading the train for the rest of the ride.

We didn’t take much convincing to get a bonus shuttle back up for a second lap of the lower half, stopping only to coax team Media further down the hill so we could all head for a beer.

The light was going anyways.

Let’s step to the side for a moment. If we just wanted to ride sick trails, we could probably have stayed at home. The Alps aren’t exactly short of options for that. So if we’d not gone on the trip because we were only interested in the trails, we must have been interested in the difference.

Differences like the dusty corner above the village we were sessioning for the camera that was soundtracked by the call to prayer.

Like cruising into the village after this, looking for a bar, high fiving every kid as we rode past before getting into the bottles of Zlaten Dab,

Like taking a detour on the road to Albania to visit the Monastery of Saint Jovan Bigorski.

As Dimitri had already told us the story about him and his friends sneaking into the mosque as kids and swapping the tape of the call to prayer for a tape of Iron Maiden, we weren’t expecting a great deal of reverence for this visit. I guess it was a bit different. Conveniently as we walked through the massive gates we were greeted by an elderly monk with a beard. A quick chat with Dimitri later, where we discovered there’s no word in Macedonian for “Social media influencers” and we were granted permission to wander about and photograph what we liked. It still didn’t really feel right for me, so if you want to see what I’m describing, try this. Which has better photos than I’d take anyways.

So after our introduction by the elderly monk, who it turns out is one of the most holy men in Macedonia, another brother proceeded to give us the tour, seeing the bones of John the Baptist and a shard from Christ’s cross (the gold standards of relics) and then the most intricate carvings I’ve ever seen in a church. Actually, the most intricate carvings I’ve ever seen ever.

Outside the shrine another brother walked up clutching a box. Expecting him to be performing some crucial administrative task, he instead wanders over and produces an ice cream from the box. Did we want any? They had too much and it was going out of date.

You don’t get that in Chamonix.

Off to Albania

Which was much easier to write than to achieve. Given these times of covid anxious travel, the formalities of vaccinated or PCR’d border crossings were easy, the issue was having to prove we were taking our bikes into the country, so we could prove we were taking them out again (strangely given Albania’s reputation, they seem keen not to let vehicles leave suspiciously. Entering suspiciously is just fine however….) Then there’s the general unease you get when held up at a dark border post when you’ve grown up in the Schengen zone on a diet of cold war thrillers. Like, is it really necessary to have such a long no man’s land between the last post of Macedonia and the start of Albania…?

Anyway. Into Albania we drive, and obviously the first vehicle we see is a Merc.

We’d been warned that the roads in this region of Albania weren’t quite the same quality as down by the coast. At least it kept average speeds down. We turned off the potholed main road onto a back street. We progressed through increasingly interesting lanes until we bumped off the tarmac and onto the gravel. Food and tonight’s bed can’t be far away?

Thirty minutes later, it still can’t be far away?

Forty five minutes after leaving the road we were starting to wonder if there was any truth in the organ harvesting rumours.

We needn’t have worried. After a truly heroic piece of trailer reversing by Stojan we were safely in Guest House Sabriu, our home for the next 2 nights. We sit down at the outside table to beer and inquisitive cats and assorted pancake delights and Raki and any tension disappears into another night of laughter and bad translations of the worst yet best jokes you’ve ever made.

A moment in time.

We go off roading. Orgest, our Albanian guide for this leg of the trip, has a beast of a Russian made 4×4 jeep. Stojan has his Japanese 4×4 van. National pride is at stake. Orgest takes an early lead, buoyed by a combination of local knowledge and, perhaps more crucially, a huge rear mount bike rack as opposed to Stojans 10 bike trailer. Not to be outdone by the Russian bear’s lakeside driving, the Japanese, err, also bear goes for some 3 wheeled off camber. Things step up when tasked with a shuttle up to the top of Maja Grames at over 1800m.

I don’t care how extreme the shuttle driving is at Bike Park Wales, it ain’t this!

Orgest wasn’t taking us up here just for the fun of the driving mind. Although that was for sure part of it. Nope, he’d promised one of the most diverse trails in Albania, along with their red hued version of France’s Terres Noires or Utah’s rampage.

About 30 mins after leaving the shuttle drop off the sky decided that this day of epic views wasn’t to be and started falling.

Heavily.

Then added in some thunder and lightning for full effect. Orgest (having passed control of his Russian jeep to Risti, who was looking forward to something a bit bigger than his usual quad bikes to play with….) wasn’t phased and simply opened the door of a heaped collection of corrugated iron and carpet that turned out to be shepherds hut. I wouldn’t want to sit out the winter in it, but for passing showers you couldn’t have done better.

Not only that, but it gave Luke, the actual photographer, and Michel, the actual actor, a chance to show the rest of us how content creation should be done. You wouldn’t think it was possible to make a mess of opening a door and looking intrigued, but we proved time and time again it’s a job best left to a professional.

My camera’s battery then died.

Content captured and random puncture repaired we headed off. Sure enough the trail was exactly as billed. Fast and flowing singletrack traversing round the hill on a fast surface leading into increasingly steep but consistently entertaining fluted terrain of grey dirt. Then white dirt. Then red dirt. The downpour meant a fair bit of the trail was collecting colourfully on our downtubes and I’d be lying if I claimed there was great amounts of traction, but it was far better than what happens at the Terres Noires.

Not only that, it kept going. We got lower and lower but the interest remained. Eventually the ribbons of red dirt through the lush bushes gave way to more traditional singletrack. What wasn’t traditional for us was the tortoise slowly traversing the trail. Bears and tortoises. If only David Attenborough rode.

Obviously on a trip like this you’re getting to see the best of the smorgasbord of singletrack options available, but Orgest had dug out an absolute stunner for us, probably joint best trail of the trip and one of the best of the year too.

And it still kept going. All week Dimitri had been raving about big open fields of grass to freeride across. I’ll be honest, none of us were really getting it. Can we just have some singletrack please.

Riding four abreast, popping off rises and lips, freedom to turn and skip where you want, the landscape stretching out ahead of us…. We all got it. Honestly, just so much fun.

Being in Team Culture meant we hit the bar long before Team Media got off the hill, time to sit and drink the conveniently apposite Skopje and Tiriana beers, chat to colourful locals, listen to stories of Albania past and present and maybe future, and watch whilst the youth took goes at riding our bikes whilst hoping none of them got run over by the near constant stream of Mercs and Audi’ s cruising past our roadside bar. I think this was pretty much what we’d been looking for.

It’d be easy to describe the riding in detail, but that’s not really the point of a trip away. Far more interesting was turning up at a 200 year old fortified house, drinking beers on the balcony whilst the fattest rain you’ve ever seen falls outside (rather than on you as usual) then listen to the stories from Lulzim, the ~~house~~ castle owner, of his great grandfather fighting off invaders before yet another incredible meal and night of raki and laughter.

We don’t just get to travel through space to find the, to us, unusual. Looking back a year at the complexities of cross border travel through peak Covid seems bizarre even this close. Time that would be spent riding now saw us going for PCR tests to let us travel home the next day, strolling through the town of Peshkopi with Orgest explaining all the things a local can see and a tourist can’t. The way you could tell the period of communism a building was built in by the bricks, the hidden messages in the street art. And getting to eat in locals cafes, banter in broken English with the obligatory hoards of kids that appear whenever in an urban environment with bikes and cameras. We were all here to see and be somewhere different, Peshkopi delivered.

The journey home is never to plan. Traffic problems, too long at breakfast, too long over lunch, too long to pack bags. We never got to do our planned urban ride in Skopje. Instead we got to chat longer and have more time to awkwardly say goodbye to the legends Risti, Stojan and Dimitri at the airport, plans made to see each other again, possibly sooner rather than later for those of the group who weren’t sure if they were getting back into Zurich airport….

We checked in and were told to leave our bikes in a corner of the again quiet airport. As we got onto the plan the same guy told us the bikes were on the plane. Thanks for the personal touch, from everyone we met, I don’t think you realise how much it meant.

This article couldn’t have happened without the trip, and the trip most definitely couldn’t have happened without the generosity and hard work of:

– Active Experience Balkan – The North Macedonian based tour operator, also offering trips in Albania and other Balkan destinations.

– Association For Active Tourism. The tour operator, Explorer 2018 invited us on an 8-day journey in Macedonia and Albania to promote the trans national MTB product – Riding along High Scardus Trail. This project was founded by GIZ from Macedonia and thanks to their financial support we have the opportunity to visit these two countries, their people, traditions and culture

– OHRide – The hidden MTB paradise in the heart of the Balkans

– Ride the Balkans

And most importantly of all, Orgest, Rishi, Stojan and Dimitri who showed us experiences of their countries we would never have had without them and put so much effort into making the trip a success, thanks so much guys.

This article is also the kinda behind the scenes, less-about-the-bikes-more-about-the-place version of the story of the trip that’ll hopefully appear in IMB Magazine one day, which in turn was talking about Luke Jarmey’s piece in the ever excellent misspent summers work, Spent and MBUK. I know, complicated innit.

*When I say Friday, I mean Friday 4th June 2021. Yes, it’s taken a while to get this online.

16/06/2022
Smells like Digne spirit*

Cast your mind back to when you were wee.

No, a bit further back.

Better.

What job did you want to have when you grew up: Astronaut? Train Driver? Vet?

I wanted to be a digger driver, possibly due to growing up on a housing estate in the process of construction. Then I went skiing and digger driving got binned in favour of being a ski bum. Few people get to say they’ve achieved their childhood employment dreams (could Buzz Aldrin dream of being paid to walk on the moon if the job didn’t exist?) but I’m happy to say I’ve ticked that box.

Since as long ago as I can remember, the first snow of winter has got me well psyched. Not for the skiing right there and then, I’ve always liked my skis to remain mostly intact and don’t fancy blowing my knees out on a rock at the very start of winter. Nope, it’s the anticipation of what this winter could be that gets me.

The first snows of winter fell on Chamonix last week and….

Well, kinda nothing.

I was happy from an environmental perspective that it can still snow, but really I just wanted to keep biking. Only now it was cold and everything about 1500m was covered in snow.

Time to make like a migratory bird and head south.

The Terres Noires around Dignes Les Bains and Evo Bikepark have been on the to-do list for a whiles. I’ve been to the areas over by Guillaumes but not their freeride cousins to the west. Plenty friends have, to varying degrees of success (top tip, don’t try riding Terres Noires in the rain…) and it’s hard not to be aware of Evo if you watch French VTT propaganda.

Arriving at the carpark two-ish in the afternoon after a five hour drive south, group enthusiasm was high. Arguably higher than the temperature which was hovering a bit above freezing in the sun and definitely below in the shade. Navigation wasn’t a problem, Fiona and Patrick had given it a go in the wet 6 months earlier.

Apparently the trail is much easier without a body weight’s worth of dirt stuck to your frame and wheels.

We pedalled up, and then rode down. The up was easy, tarmac and gravel road at an agreeable gradient. The down also started at an agreeable angle, fun singletrack through nicely spaced trees still in full autumn bloom.

And then, with no warning, we burst out into the open and a rollercoaster trail along a rib of dark grey (I’d say slightly darker than Zeb Ultimate, not quite as dark as a Lyric Select+. How else do we know colours?) wound, meandered, then dropped, in front of us.

The trail just kept doing this; flatish fast bit, steeper bit with trees, until we hit some jumps and drops to play on. Which obviously we stopped to do because, you know, jumps.

And the light was dead good for photos.

That lovely low golden glow you get about 30/45 mins before the sun sets.

Turns out we still had quite a bit of trail to go.

More than 30/45mins at least…

It was still a lot of great riding, but the photo stops got shorter and less frequent as it dawned on us (or maybe ‘awareness set’ would have the closer connotations) that the sun was going to finish its descent before we did.

Turns out phone torches are of limited use for bike riding, but just about sufficient to stop you getting run over by cars…

Some navigational faff later, we got to our Airbnb. Which is where I’ll give a big shout out for Beatrice et Gilles at Le Doux Coin. Ok, maybe not for the precision of their directions, but the welcome, the unlimited yogi tea bags, the coffee machine, the comfy beds, the local VTT trail knowledge, the tarte aux pommes and homemade croissants for breakfast all beat that.

Day 2. By this point in their migration a Canadian Goose would be 2400 km south already. We just drove 6km to get to Evo Bikepark.

Then sat in the car for a few minutes. It was warm in the car. It was not warm outside.

Wearing pretty much every item of clothing in the boot, we got out and braved the park.

I guess if you don’t live in the alps, Evo is probably the kinda set up you’re most used to. A selection of battered vehicles trundling up a logging access road dragging an equally battered trailer behind it. For us used to chairlifts and gondolas, it was a novel experience. With 220m of height gained each lap you soon get used to it though. Depending on what trail you hit depends on how long it takes, but laps are pretty quick.

The park stays in the shade through most of the day, which must be grand in the height of a southern summer, but in an early November cold snap it meant a lot of the corners were still just a touch too icy. The new French winter tyre rules don’t cover bikes, and summer rubber isn’t designed for ice, so keeping speed for the jumps could be a bit tricky. All the better excuse for casing.

By the afternoon both dirt and riders had warmed up and things were flowing better. The tech trails were all fine for us misplaced Scottish folks, but the black jump trails were a wee bit rich in taste for our case-ability.

Red on the other hand, braw. Whip it is as close to A-Line as I’ve ridden outside of BC.

We probably had the most fun on the blue Savage Train though. Mellow, low stress and well built. And just fun to be out in a (not particularly savage) train with friends as we all tried in our own ways to learn, or re-learn, what to do in the bit between wheels leaving and returning to the ground.

Will be back.

When it’s warmer.

In the present we had food to find and the multicoloured fountains of Dignes Les Bains to watch. Oh, the cultural highlights we see on bike trips.

Day 3. The Great Snipe could potentially have covered 6800km by now. We did about 0.2% of that. Armed with a GPX trace from a friend’s previous visit and the hope that wearing just a t-shirt and shorts in November wasn’t going to be a mistake, we started pedalling up hill. Same story as Friday, lots of tarmac, lots of easy angled logging road etc etc.

The descent even started the same way. Albeit a bit better. Fast open trail through wide spaced trees resplendent in autumn orange. It almost felt Canadian, between the trees and the way the trail had been built up subtly with added support to keep the flow on the corners.

Then we came to a halt.

You know that bit in a Pulp Fiction where the case is opened and eyes widen at the golden contents inside.

Well, kinda like that. A playground of dirt lay below.

I’m not sure I’ve had an experience like that on bikes before. Skiing is the closest, the times when we’ve quested about in the trees in the hope of finding something we’ve only really imagined, and popped out to the top of a perfect blank canvas of white and drops and slashes.

The trail snaked through a labyrinth of ribs and ridges stretching far down into the trees. It was flippin’ amazing.

We could have pedalled up and gone again. If it wasn’t for our experience of Friday, and the drive home to look forward to, we probably would of. Instead, we dropped into the lower trails.

These were back to the perfectly worn in singletrack through the trees game. Only this time the dirt had dried to perfection, ridiculous amounts of grip to let you really push into every corner. The low light through the trees made everything look like you were riding in an advertising photo, only you were actually just ripping down a trail in a train with friends. Oddly, stopping for photos wasn’t a priority here, so use the imagination you’ve got and have a wee smile to yourself. Unless you’re reading this on your phone in company. Because then you’ll just look a bit weird and folk’ll start edging away from you.

Giddy with the shared stoke that comes with a stunningly good trail like this, psyche was high. There were a few wee climbs and changes in trail from hero dirt in the trees and the weirdly grippy grey shale that makes up most of the photos, but the trail remained consistently amazing.

Hitting an open field of blind drops-to-flat on the grey shale where a trail that avoided the worst of them had been marked out (and obviously ignored) we all got away with some serious miscalculations.

So, obviously, instead of learning from this I took it a step further and hit the ground. Well, somebody had to do it. Snow is definitely softer, and doesn’t take quite so many chunks out your skin.

It didn’t really matter; the trail was still going and still grand. Finishing with a short section of switchbacks before dropping into the final cruise down the road, we were nearly ready for unironic post ride high fives. But we’re Scottish, so we just muttered something along the lines of it were good that and got on with packing the car to go home.

The forecast is looking like stubbornly high pressure in Chamonix, it’s definitely not time to pack the bike away yet, but at some point sooner rather than later it is going to snow properly. The ski season will start. The biking will drop away. I’m not sure if I’m ready for that, but if this was the last trip of 2021 it was good to end on a high. Oh well, whatever, never mind.

*Full credit for the title goes to Lorne, I’ll take the credit for writing 1700 words based on the closing 9 repeat refrain. Patrick and Fiona need to up their game when it comes to helping get words out onto paper.

11/11/2021
I am just going outside and may be some time // La Grave

The year is 1912. Captain Scott’s mission to be first to the south pole is not going quite to plan. Having been beaten to the bottom of the world, they now face bad weather, worse food and multiple injuries. Knowing his gangrene and frostbite were reducing the remaining three member’s chances of survival, Lawrence Oates says those fateful words and leaves the tent to die in the storm.

Alone.

Terribly English.

We’re way past the Victorian era now (yeah I ken, it was the Edwardian, but the mindset of the stiff upper british lip prevailed. Still does if you ask the right tory) so going outside is just a good way to clear the head of demons. For some at least.

I’ve had an outstanding 6 week spell of riding. Guiding on some amazing trails with great people, organising hut trips, hitting a prime selection of bike parks with friends, playing out in groups of 1 or 2 or 10. Almost every time someone in the crew has been able to progress or ride something they’ve never ridden before. Been watching friends achieve big things too, be it newly crowned Masters World Champ Emily Horridge casually smash the entire field or best of all, riding with Lorraine Truong, actual singletrack riding with Lorraine which can’t be anything but the highlight of the year.

It’s a whole lot of good, if you ignore a couple of unpleasant injuries and some broken bikes along the way….

Which confuses my poor wee west coast Scot brain. I’m a grumpy soul and all this positivity and friendship got a bit too much for me. Fun and enjoyment can’t be good for you, where’s the misery? What am I playing at just going and enjoying myself and doing a job that’s fun and rewarding when there’s so much that’s shite in the world and I could be trying to do something about? Why do I want to just play bikes to the detriment of all the other things in my life?

Everyone seems to suffer from some sort of mental block. Makes sense, how many folk get through life never getting a stomach bug or injury? How exactly can you be expected to live your 3 score and 10 without the brain needing a lie down and a warm mug of soup occasionally? Being triggered by happiness is probably not that common, or at least I hope not, but variety is the spice of life eh.

Eitherways. After 6 weeks of riding with friends and having the time of my life, a ride on my own to look at hills and let my mind go where it wanted was needed.

Handy then I had a week in the Haute Alpes with Endless Trails MTB and the “bike park” of La Grave to learn. If you’ve no heard of La Grave you’re probably not that into skiing. I am into skiing, and La Grave has an almost mythical status for us lot.

This is summer however, and we all know how the ‘good in winter = bad in summer’ ski area rule goes.

I’ve put bike park in ” ” up there for a reason.

It’s not exactly a bike park.

I mean, there are trails built for bikes, but it’s not Pila. Singletrack with surprises…. There’s a few berms, drops and kickers, but they’re pretty rare. And unlike most parks, don’t assume every feature rolls or goes. I mean, it all goes, just mibbies not the way you think it should. There’s also no grading. Which is very similar to the winter La Grave. If you have to ask it’s too expensive can be translated to if you have to ask it’s too hard. Bring your A game or you’ll probably be walking at least a bit of every trail.

What are the trails like then? Pretty good.

First off you need to get up the hill, the La Grave lift system is just as idiosyncratic and interesting in summer as winter, but you get up there eventually.

The trails feel a lot like La Thuile did before enduro was cool (strong bit of I’ve been riding this longer than you superiority name dropping there). Rough because they’re rough, not because they’ve been battered into submission by a million Megaplowers. I made notes if you want it though, because I was kinda working after all, and professionals take notes don’t they? Goes something like:

Vallons. Scenic , ok.

Cote Fine. Favourite trail, almost fast and flowy. Almost. Huge fan all the way down, especially in the lower trees. Lots of throwing shapes and hanging off the back buzzing ass on tyre to get it round stuff.

Avag One. Rowdiest trail, a lot of looking for an exit and holding on until you get there.

Desoutter. Tried to eat my stanchions, so that’s a black mark against it, but lower part might be better than lower part Cote Fine, so if you swap trail at that point…

Chavala. Aye, pretty fun. Has slabs.

King Stone Road. Well! I guess if you’re in La Grave you got to ride it. There canny be many “bike park” trails like it, the trail “Top of the World” wishes it was. Stunning ride in a stunning place, do it even if you’re going to walk half of it.

There. I feel like I earnt that carte prof now.

Anyways, the trails are pretty engaging. Which is exactly what I was needing. Somewhere to get lost in the moment and get to yon place where only the now exists and all those things that have been clogging up the head have gone leaving the simple joy of riding a bike as well as you can.

I also felt a lot better at the end of the day than I did at the start. There’s plenty to be said for a day moving at your own pace, making decisions based entirely on what you feel not your perception of what other people want, not having the nagging doubt that someone’s not having a good time or finding it too hard or just hates your guts and is only out because they didn’t know which way the trail goes. And a lot to be said for having the time to think all that through and realise you’re probably worrying too much, like almost everyone probably is, and just get on with life. Which it turns out isn’t fair, and has little interest in what you think.

Bikes are good for all that eh.

With any luck there might be some more content appearing here in less than 5 months. It’s not that I’ve not been writing stuff, it’s just I now get paid for it to appear in IMB magazine, and much as it’s nice to vomit words into the ether here, money is kinda handy.

22/09/2021
Dorenaz

I got a fair bit of feedback on the last post here. Apparently the physics of time and space and time were/are/will be a step too far. Folk were worried. It’s nice to know people care. And read the blog.

With that in the mind, lets bring things back down to earth with something more cheery.

Parasites.

Damn they’re amazing. Take toxoplasmosis. Until recently all I knew about it was you get it in cat poo and it caused Tommy’s death in Trainspotting (err, spoiler). Well, it didn’t really, his death was the result of a chain of events that surely couldn’t have been foreseen but that doesn’t help my point, whatever, choose life.

Some of this is relevant. Toxoplasmosis is a parasite that lives in the guts of cats. To proliferate it needs to spread from cat to cat. Obviously, this is difficult when you live in the gut of a cat. So, toxoplasmosis leaves through the usual channels and sits on the floor. Cats don’t eat cat poo. Cats eat rats and mice. So instead the parasite waits for the rats and mice to eat the poo and get one step closer to the guts of the next cat. This would be interesting enough, but the really good bit is about to come. Normal mouse and rat behaviour is to stay as close as possible to the edge of a room or some other shelter. Not those that have been infected with toxoplasmosis. These rats and mice throw off their agoraphobia and make a b-line for the middle of the room, maximising their chance of ending up as cat snack. It gets weirder. Some studies into rats have shown that after being infected with toxoplasmosis they might become sexually attracted to the scent of cat urine. Which raises some interesting questions about the perfume industry.

This tiny wee parasite completely alters the behaviour of a host animal for it’s own gain. Where could analogies with day to day life be found in that?

Thinking about it, is this blog parasitic? Does it alter your behaviour when you read these posts and keep seeing yon lovely Airdrop Edit on the finest trails in the world, you start associating the two. Probably not your behaviour, but does it alter my behaviour? I’m keen to keep riding the bike (it’s the most fun bike I’ve owned), and I’m also keen to keep getting them, so does that worm its way into my mind and alter my picture choices? How about when you see ideas for rides that are notchamonix and they work on your mind to change your behaviour to do that, leave the safety of the bikepark, head out into the open. Does this blog make you attracted to the smell of marmotte pee?

So many questions with no intention of finding an answer. On with the riding.

In a valley not so far away there is a magical lift. Ok, maybe magical is pushing it a bit, but unique should cover it. Dorenaz is public transport, a quicker easier way up to Champex than taking the bus. That makes it fairly rare. It takes bikes, at least 6 of them, for a small extra fee. This makes it rarer. You hang the bikes from hooks on the underside of the lift and hope they’re still attached when you get to the top. There’s not many lifts that make you do that.

Normally when you use uplift you sling the bike into the carrier and forget about it until you have to unhook it from the chairlift at the top. Not so much in Dorenaz where I challenge anyone not to have a quick glance at their axles to make sure everything’s done up good and tight. It’s funny the things that get inside your head.

No matter how amazing, the lift only gets you so far. We stood about in the slightly cooler air of 1124m altitude, looked at a map, discussed options, and decided it was way too much like effort to go all the way to the Tete du Portail, and definitely way too hot and dry for the descent. The lower trails on the south facing aspects from the Dorenaz lift are loose and dry at the best of times, as it doesn’t seem to have rained this century in Valais we couldn’t really call this the best of times.

Instead we started traversing and climbing along the west facing slopes, linking trails we knew with trails we’d heard of.

It went pretty well. We basically ended up with 2 descents, the first steep, slow and technical the second faster looser and more flowing.

The first was what I guess BC Canada would feel like if it rained less and was warmer. So BC in about 10 years then. The dirt didn’t quite have that hero tack of Whistler, but it wasn’t just loose dust either, and the rock lined trail dropping down through old growth forest with the early autumn light filtering down to the green floor made you feel like you were in another Frenchie-living-in-Squamish shredit. Stills make this myth easier to perpetuate than video.

I can’t really remember the climb, which is probably part of the bike being a parasite thing, altering memory to suppress the bit’s that aren’t fun, so maybe the first descent led straight into the second?

It didn’t, but we get to make our own truths, so it did. Which will be part of the parasitic behaviour of society thing.

The second course was a much quicker affair, which was good and bad. Lot’s of fun, but it’s all over so much quicker. It was good to be in nice wide spaced trees, and being early autumn there was a fine combination of orange on the forest floor, orange in the canopy, and less intense orange sunlight dappling down amongst the shadows.

Orange, truly the colour of our time.

I alluded to it being quick, 850m had been lost in a dusty, slidy, hairpin-y flash and we were left with the pay off from going right for the last few hours. A sharp turn to the left and heading back home. We can but hope. Turned out the fun wasn’t over. Whilst going right had been a steady downhill trend, going left still had some fun singletrack next to the Rhone to pump and pop along before the final few kilometers of vineyard track back to the car. Chat turned to where next in 2020’s adventure. No idea, but I’ll probably write something for it. Photos for this week come from the phone’s of messieurs Oliver Carr and Juan Coatez, ta muchly!

22/09/2020