Tag Archives: enduro

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

Mountains make me feel better. Usually. Other things make other people feel better. Usually. We're all different.
Mountain Bike riding in La Grave. Turns out it's just as unique and addictive in summer as winter

Plaine Morte.

Plaine Morte. A big old day out of mountain biking starting at a glacier and ending at a plan d'eau, written about through discussing the nature of time and the illusion of free will.

Queyras

If you're going to climb, you might as well do it somewhere picturesque.
A week of mountain biking in "The Cathedral of Flow." Or the Queyras Parc National as it's known on the map.

Continuous Professional Development

The Tarentaise. Does a good line in ridge trails, thanks to the inside line for showing us them.
Exploring. What else are days off bike guiding for? In this episode; a trip to Beaufortain for VTT enduro uplift fun.

Le Thuile: Day of the Dead (forearms).*

Yeah, I know the image quality is terrible, but if you wanted a better idea why didn't you go yourself?
Once again, La Thuile knocks it out the park and out my hands at enduro racing. Superenduro Round 3.

Enduro des Belleville

Nina on stage 3. Have I mentioned it was a really good stage?
Enduro des Belleville 2016, the best enduro race in the world? Mibbies.

La Thuile EWS, Veni Vidi Perdidi*

Ciao La Thuile, see you soon.

Amongst the many, many things that annoy me (unnessecary repetition, spelling necessary, etc) is the phrase “have a good time all the time”. The idea that you can have only the good and positive with none of the bad. The yin without the yang, the single market without free movement of people…. Life needs a balance to work.

Hence the crackingness of the La Thuile race weekend; the courses, the weather, the friends, the kicking about in the pits in the sun…. all had to be balanced out by a negative, which in my case was arm pump.

I thought … [Read full post]

Finale Ligure is waiting for you

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]

Hallowed ground

Sandy heading for the sea.

Every game has its Mecca. A site that unless you visit you can’t call your self a true believer. For Elvis fans it’s Graceland, gamblers have Las Vegas, alpinists Chamonix, Muslims err Mecca. For #enduroist (or mountain bikers as we were known before the number symbol was misappropriated) it’s Finale

And just like Mecca at hajj, mountain bikers must go Finale for the superenduro/EWS finals.

So we did. And lo, it was good.

The reason to head at EWS finals time (apart from Nina racing in it) is that a bunch of new trails get made and marked out for … [Read full post]

Coupe du France Enduro series round 5, Valberg

Stage 2 practice. It was pretty much this awesome all the way down.

There’s been a lot of race writeups on here recently, and I will get back to proper riding for the next post, but there was one last race in the Coupe du France so for one last time the Kangoo was laden with bikes and tyres. One last time we headed out through the Gorge du Arly. One last time we drove south with no air-con and one working window. One last time you get the idea.

This last one was Valberg/Guillaumes, star of online hits like Fabien Barel’s this, Yo Barelli’s that and Nico Quere’s other. All of these … [Read full post]