Chamonix Bike Blog

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Coupe du France Enduro series round 4, Samoens

There are 3 certainties in life; death, taxes and the Samoens round of the Coupe du France being muddy.

But to be honest, on Friday afternoon as the car was getting packed for the short drive over to register and deal with scrutineering, I wasn’t so sure. And a quick track walk to see what the trail conditions were didn’t have me convinced I was going to need my newly purchased second hand wetscreams.

Then it started raining, then pissing it down, then the warm up act ended and the real storm arrived. The certainty memes were safe, it was going to be a wet race.

Samoens is part of the Grand Massif lift network and gives an interesting change from Chamonix’s mostly steep and rocky trails without the crowds of Morzine. Of course, steep and rocky trails generally drain and dry quickly after rain. Mellower angled loam under trees doesn’t and with there being something in the order of 250% of average rainfall this summer there’s not been much in the way of dust recently.

Possibly helped by the announcement Samoens will host a round of the EWS next year there were more French pros and international riders than usual, including the Irish/Scottish combo of Greg Callaghan and Katy Winton, which was great as my French sucks so I could have slightly more in depth conversations between stages than;
“It’s muddy”,
“Yes, it’s muddy, but I’m Scottish, I like muddy”,
“I’m from the south of France, I hate muddy”,
“Ah.”

Anyways, the stages were a little complicated to follow from the map, with 11 stages between the 2 days, but only 6 traces. As ever the event video helps, but they worked out something like….

Saturday
Stage 1 & 3. Starting outside the main Samoens lift, fast but a little peddaly grass into the trees for lots of fresh cut loamy trail and the odd bit of built up bermed track, a wee blast down some fire road then back into loamy earthy natural banked stuff in the trees before you were spat out at the finish, thankfully short of some northshore and a couple of minute spin along the tarmac to….

Stage 2 & 4. The pedalliest of the weekend, but still not too bad, a mix of quite tricky to nail tight tech and faster more open trails.

After a lunch break and another trip up the gondola you had the first proper pedal/push liaison up to Stage 5
A good 500m of fire road down to some open trails in new growth forest, then a mix of very rocky 4×4 with regular taped of excursions into the undergrowth.

Another flattish pedal along some road finally got you to Stage 6 & 7 under the Morrilion gondola. A sprint across grass and tarmac (for instant cure to constipation, try cornering at race speed on tarmac with full spikes), through a tunnel where you had to use the walls as a berm (again, try committing to that on full spikes), then some reet fast rooty loams trails, the odd short climb, and more fast rooty loamy trails.

Sunday featured just the 2 traces, each repeated twice. The main Samoens lift gave you most of the height gain, then it was a 30 minute ride push to stage 1/3 and another 30 minutes or so push to stage 2/4

Stage 1 & 3. A short uphill sprint along some fireroad lead to a punchy 10m high climb then about 150m of gently rising boggy singletrack ensured you were knackered as the ground dropped away beneath you and you were into a roller coaster of natural berms and ruts down the hill where often the best bet was just to hold on and hope you bounced out of the end of each section still in the right direction.

Stage 2 & 4. About as good as it gets in my book! A bit of everything, but mostly fast flowing singletrack in the trees. The only thing that didn’t feature was a real climb, all the pedalling was to go faster, not to just go.

So all in, a grand selection of trails with very little serious pedalling, but racing doesn’t always work out like racing and it definitely didn’t this time.

Milling around at the start of stage 1 during the obligatory delayed start the feel was more of a (massive) group ride than a race, a distinct lack of aggression and competitiveness in the air. The track was pretty slick, but fun. The only problem was if you fell, you were stuck on the ground like a beetle on it’s back with a serious fight on your hands (and knees) to get up. And as the course was narrow, if the rider in front of you went down, you were probably going into them and down. As would the rider behind you….

Stage 2 was much the same and, with only a short pause before heading back up, there was a quick clean of the bike, a swap to flats and a bite to eat before getting on the gondola for Stage 3.

Enduro racing is all about surprises, and the surprise waiting for us was the news that stage 4 was to be cancelled because it was too claggy. The reason this was a surprise was that on the first run down, stage 2 was way, way less claggy that stage 1. Still how bad could it be?

Worse than this years Megavalanche was the answer. According to Melanine Pugin at least and, as she won the Mega, she should probably know. The mud was so thick you had no warning between the bike feeling a bit slow and so much mud getting behind the fork brace you were flipped over the bars. If you had the strength to lift your 100kg bike, running was generally the quickest option. Until you fell over. The results from this stage were all over the place, but that’s racing.

Down to the pits, clean the bike and time for the secret weapon. Off with the wetscream/High roller combo, on with my 15 year old 1.9″ Michelin DH muds, from when spikes meant SPIKES.

Of course, this meant the next 3 trails were no where near as bad and had a fair bit of firm ground, but I think my sacrifice was worth it for the good of the group.

With the weather staying sunny through the day and into Sunday the trails were drying fast, but hopefully not going to unrideable clag again.

My lack of power to sprint up hills was made brutally apparent on stage 1 Sunday when my 10 second man, series ranked 17th Julien Roissard, passed me within 150m of the start before the trail headed downhill. I blamed still being on flats.

Stage 2 was going just brilliantly, with Julien taking until about 1/2 way to pedal past me and generally having so much fun I almost forgot that this is meant to be serious when I went over a blind rise into a sea of orange spraypainted rocks. Riding blind, fast, is one of the reasons I enjoy these races, unfortunately it wasn’t until 1/2 way through this rock garden I remembered I had a 1.9″ rear tyre with a tube in it. As the tube deflated I briefly considered doing an Aaron Gwin, but then realised that that would just be stupid, so shouldered the bike and started running. Only about a 1/3rd of the course to go. Still, if you feel you don’t get enough cheers at a race, wrap your tyre round your frame and get running, the crowd loves you!

Anyway, after a good feed (as ever, it’s almost worth doing the races for the free food and brake pads), a change to a big Minion DHF for the back and spuds on the bike, the day was reset with no aims of improving on my placings and instead just having fun. As the 2 stages were amongst the best I’ve raced all year, in fact stage 2/4 is one of the best trails I’ve ridden all year, this was pretty easy.

Neither Nina or I were particularly happy with our results over the weekend, but points mean prizes, or at least they hopefully do for Nina sitting in 3rd for the series going into the last round, I’m less hopeful that the prize fund makes it back to my end of the score sheet.

One more race to go then it’s autumn and the best time of year for some real riding.

03/09/2014
Coupe du France enduro series round 3, Val d’Isere

I heard on Thursday morning that the latest edition of the Oxford English dictionary was going to feature the word “amazeballs“. Generally I’m of the opinion that anyone using said phrase should have bungee cord tied to their amazeballs and be kicked off a bridge, but looking at the maps for the race when they went online Thursday evening, only one word came to mind.

Sweet.

8 stages over 2 days taking you from Val d’Isere over the cols to Tignes and back. Bits in the bike park, bits on walking trails, bits in the middle of nowhere marked “here there be dragons” on the map. Of course, no idea what it’d pan out like on the ground…..

Last year the race was part of the Enduro World Series, this year it was mearly the 3rd round of the Coupe du France and, coming 1 week after the Whistler round of the EWS, wasn’t as well attended by the big names. Still a sell out though.

During the summer the Val d’Isere and Tignes lifts are free to pedestrians and cyclists and there’s a big network of bike trails. The liaisons were mostly on blue and red graded runs and were some of the best riding of the weekend. I’m quick to whinge about the dumbing down and over grading of biking terrain, but sometimes it’s good just to ride a flow trail, knowing that once up to speed you will hit the downslope on every jump and can rail every head-height berm.

The race stages were mostly not on the park trails though. Mostly they followed lines picked out through the treeless alpine geography of the hill. Sometimes this meant you were flowing through grassy bobsleigh runs, other times you were hopping about desperately trying to save your rear mech, or disc, or both, from the sharp pointy rocks that littered the hill.

Saturdays stage 1 began at the top of the Olympique gondola 1000m straight up from town and started as the latter type, then had a bit of bike park, then some pedalling, then a bit of climbing, then some nice singletrack through the trees back to Val d’Isere and the paddock with food tent. As an added bonus, the previous days storm had left an inch or so of snow on the ground at the start.

Stage 2 was back up the Olympique lift, through the bike park to the Borsat chair. Up that for more bike park to the Tufs chair, up it and finally you were at the start. It then mostly followed the official “enduro” trail Wild 10 Nez with some added diversions into the wilds. This was even more pedally than Stage 1, with over 100m climbing in the total 695m descent down to Tignes and yet another feed tent.

Stage 3 started a short pedal through Tignes town and went from the town above the reservoir and back round towards Val d’Isere. Unfortunately there was a hold up to the start whilst 15 year old lass got rescued from a nasty crash, getting the biggest cheer of the day when she was walked back to the ambulance. The stage was fun singletrack through the forest, but again was very physical.

When you hear enduroists say a stage is physical it means it was more pedally than they would like.

Following a particularly exposed liaison we were back in Tignes and once more at the food tent. You can’t fault the feeding stations.

Stage 4 was back up the Olympique then heading off in the opposite direction to stage 1. This was my favourite stage of the day by far. A really well chosen line through the open terrain with lots of flow, some hard pedalling sections, but never so long you feel you’re in an xc race, and finishing off on a large section of the 2012 world cup DH course.

No idea how far or high we raced, but that’s just shy of 4000m of uplift, so a pretty full day.

My Saturday race went fairly well, this weekend was “rallye” format which means you start in your seeding order from your Coupe du France overall standings. As a result there wasn’t as much overtaking needed, but as the riders are going faster they are less keen to move when you want to overtake. As ever, the fastest folk manage it so stop whining and get better at passing. My luck finally caught up with my skill towards the end of stage 4 when I stuffed myself into a pile of big pointy rocks head first. Surprised that I didn’t seem to have broken anything on me or the bike I limped down to finish 38th in mens for the day.

Nina had a change in fortunes from her La Thuile race and with no mechanicals or crashes bagged 2nd or 3rd on every stage and, despite a 30 second penalty for accidentally leaving the course, finished the day in 3rd place.

The podium ceremony for Saturday was in the centre of town and after everyone had stood on their wobbly tree trunk and recieved their bag of Radio Fun Val d’Isere merchandising it was time for yet more food. The race entry includes Saturday night feeding and here even free beer. You never got that at the SCU series.

Sunday was another day and another set of stages. Although there wasn’t a cloud in the sky it was still bitterly cold at the top for the 1st stage and Friday’s snow was still hanging about in the shade.

Stage 5 followed the first (and worst) section of stage 1 on Saturday. Amazingly the passing of 300 riders had made this a better track as several lines had got worn in and some ruts had formed to help keep the speed. The overnight freeze helped too I imagine.

A short uphill pedal from the finish got riders to the Borsat chair and up 380m vertical to the start of stage 6. This was, for me, the stand out stage of the weekend. Like stage 4 the day before, which it joined about 1/2 way down, it was a well chosen line taped through the open hillside, linked with some bike park berms and flat or downhill fire road before joining yesterdays track on flat singletrack and on to the world cup DH and the finishline.

Here you had the chance to visit the food tent (where they even had petite fours, since when did you get petite fours at a feed tent?) before heading back up to do exactly the same again for stages 7 and 8.

My Sunday didn’t go quite as planned. Feeling pretty beaten up from my crash on Saturday I noticed 10 minutes before getting on the lift that my rear brake wasn’t working. How I’d missed this on Saturday I’m not sure, but with no time to fix the lever reservoir that was cracked open and dripping oil I headed up the lift anyway. To conclude, racing with only a front brake is not much fun and not very fast.

Getting back to town 2 stages later Spencer was ready with his own back brake and we quickly swapped over. The next time round was more fun, but I wasn’t really into the groove and was lucky to scrape a top 100 finish by the end of the day. Nina managed another full mechanical free day, but was also pretty beaten up from the previous day and was coughing up assorted green lumps which wasn’t helping her on the pedalling sections. Despite this she held onto enough time to get a 3rd overall for the weekend which moved her up to joint 2nd overall in the series.

Not the best weekend of trails for racing, but interesting to visit another place. There’s definitely a weekends worth of riding between the 2 resorts, though I’d base myself in Tignes where there’s more options, and with free lifts it seems a good option for a short trip away. Go visit.

Once again a big thanks to all involved in yet another excellently organised race, all the lifties for remaining cheerful in the face of 300 riders and especially to Spence for making up for forgetting the track pump by sacrificing his own days riding and lending me his brake!

18/08/2014
La Thuile, not racing.

The world series of who’s best at ‘going out and riding their bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ has come to La Thuile, which I reckoned was probably the best place I’d been for ‘going out and riding a bike about a hill and calling it ENDURO’ when I first rode there a few years back, so that seems pretty fitting.

As the E.W.S. races are open to everyone I thought it would be good to head through the tunnel and ride against the world’s best. Alas work was less interested in this idea and thought it would be better if I stayed in Chamonix and turned up on the shop floor.

The La Thuile round falls under the organisation of the Italian Superenduro series whose rules allow for 2 days of practice before the race, so instead I went over with Nina (who has no job) to “help” with practice. Which is pretty cool really, its not like you can rock up in Monaco on the GP weekend and take a spin round the track.

The pit set up for the race was huge, not DH world cup level quite yet but the amount of money being poured into enduro racing is considerable. Our pit set up wasn’t quite as impressive.

After a worrying moment at the lift office where they asked for my name to check off on the race list (appointing myself team mechanic surmounted this problem) we headed up to check out the stages.

Stages 3, 5 & 6 all have the same start section, so it made sense to check that out first. The shared section is the trail that I least liked when I rode here before, which is a bit disappointing, but it was more fun than I remember. Fast, rock, some new tech sections at the start. We arrived at the first junction for Nina to get her first flat in 2 years, a rock had sliced the tyre carcass.

Optimistically we thought the sealant had filled the hole, but a bit further down stage 3/5 accepted it hadn’t and put a tube in whilst watching assorted pros barrel past.

For the rest of stage 5 we followed the bike park trail Muret in what turned out to be my favourite stage of the day, mostly as it didn’t involve any pedalling.

Back to the car to stock up on more tubes and we headed down the common trail to the first junction, where Nina had her second flat in 2 years. The rocks up high just seem designed to shred tyres and as we were stopped a steady stream of flat tyres arrived either to be repaired, or ridden on the rim to the mechanic (the bikes hadn’t been marked yet, so you could replace all the broken parts you wanted, or could afford).

Stage 6 this time, which turned out to be pretty physical in the upper sections, not climbing but very flat so very pedally. Lower down it got steeper and techier through the trees and somehow, despite the biblical rain and snow storms this week, we then rode some bone dry loam!

Another trip to the car, this time to put on a spare DH tyre and tube, and back up for the last of the 3 common front face stages. This time, thanks to an extra 1/2 kilo of rotating mass and 35psi, there were no punctures.

Stage 3 links the trails Muret & Garin which are all brilliant bits of riding in their own right, but in linking them there was a nasty sharp climb for a few hundred meters about 3/4’s of the way down the course that was not being appreciated by the racers. Fine if you’ve just turned up to ride though.

Karma almost got me at the end of the trail where I came up short trying to double then triple the 5 pack of jumps on the dual slalom course into the finish paddock and lift line. The fear of going down infront of such a huge crowd was greater than the fear of getting hurt and I managed to suck up the impact and ride out as if I’d meant it like that all along…..

Stage 2 was the only stage of the day not accessed from the lifts. Instead a 600m climb on the opposite side of the valley was needed. With limited time and energy, we skipped it. Instead Nina collared Thomas Lapeyrie as he wandered past our pits and asked him what it was like.

Finally stage 1 & 4, the opening stage for both days, was up. Fred Glo was involved in sorting out the trails for the race, and it wouldn’t be one of his races without some trackless alpine pasture and wide spaced gates. As there isn’t much of that from the top of the lifts, you have to pedal and push for “a cool 40 minutes” (Thomas Lapeyrie), “a hard 1hr 20” (German bloke on a Orange alpine) or a “relaxed 50 minutes” (us) to get to the start on the border between France and Italy.

This stage really showed the difference between something that’s fun to ride, and fun to race. After the open pasture and rock gardens the stage joins “Super Kappa” or “K”, the trail of choice from the last visit. The difference is that the short flat sections you coast along sitting down and chatting are now stood up sprints, and the brief climbs you sat down and span up feel like you’re going to vomit your lungs when racing.

Still, I was here to ride not race so could just enjoy the trail and not worry about it.

I hope the race showcases how incredible the riding is in La Thuile and gets more folk along to pay for lift passes and encourage more trails and more investment. The bike park is so hard to beat for anyone that just wants to have fun thrashing a bike about in the mountains.

As for the race, I predict it will be won by someone with huge levels of fitness, bike handling skills and a solid bike with 2 wheels (that have to be the same size)

12/07/2014
Coupe du France Enduro series round 2, Val d’Allos

12 years ago in a small ski resort (not that) far far away, a new race was born…….

The riders of Val d’Allos took DH racing, but went further, creating the “Tribe 10,000” where riders would race laps of different trails, with no practice, over a weekend clocking about 10,000m of descent (that’s 33,000ft, 18 laps of the Fort William DH course or 26 empire state buildings, depending on if you read The New York times, Dirt or The Sun). Like DH, but more endurancy.

The event went well and grew year after year. But what to call this new fangled endurancy DHy race?

Back to 2014 and the 12th edition of the Val d’Allos Tribe 10,000 is the second round of the Coupe du France enduro series, so the car was loaded with 3 bikes, 6 sets of riding gear, 3 riders, many tyres and lots of food for the drive south. The optimistic sat-nav was trying to convince us that the drive would only be 5 hr, but as we crawled up the pass to the Col d’Allos battling oncoming road bikers, motorcyclist, sportscars, broken barriers and several hundred sheep, 5 hr passed and we eventually made it to our apartment for the weekend about 6 1/2 hr after setting out.

Saturday started with an obligatory 0715 rider briefing. With 3 people who don’t do mornings it was always going to be a struggle, but somehow we managed to get ourselves to the grassy field under the main chairlift in time.

Speaking of the chairlift, the lifts used for the race are being replaced this summer (you could see why…) and aren’t running in 2014, except for this weekend where they were opened specially. I can’t see Compagnie du Mont Blanc doing that! The staff put in a huge effort not only loading hundreds of bikes onto chairs, but coaxing the lifts into life despite the mechanisms obviously not being happy about working one last time.

Back to the briefing where Fred Glo, Coupe du France heid honcho, told us that this wasn’t the EWS, so they could use whatever rules they wanted. Instead of 3 courses on Saturday with a reccy run followed by a chrono lap on each we would be getting a single reccy run of the 1st track, then the next 5 runs would be timed. The second course (laps 3 & 4) shared the same 1st 1/2 as laps 1 & 2, but the last course would be run completely blind.

Fortunately the reccy run showed that the trails in Val d’Allos are amazing. Fast, scary scary fast in places, singletrack sweeping through meadows and trees. Not much in the way of technical sections, but equally you could pretty much ride the whole trail chainless.

The second laps were the same but different. Fast swoopy traces of dirt meandering through the trees with the odd new cut section through the grass.

The final stage was something different though. A flat pedal for a 100m or so dropped you without warning down a steep chute into a 90 degree left. The trail then swapped between some of the sweeping singletrack of before, tighter rockier chutes and linked by widely taped meadow sections which felt more like skiing than cycling as you picked a line to air over small rolls and use the features to help cornering.

If all that’s a bit hard to visualise, just watch the offishiul race video here.

The weather stayed dry pretty much all day and, with temperatures just warm enough to stop you needing too many layers it was a pretty good day’s riding.

Then Sunday came.

All week the forecast had been calling rain on Sunday, and sure enough in the middle of Saturday night the sound of water on tin roof came into the apartment. It eased up at points during the day, but when it rained, it rained…..

With the less than perfect weather, some changes to the format were announced. Instead of a reccy run of today’s stage (which was completely new, never raced, and featured mostly fresh cut trail. Perfect in the wet) followed by 2 chrono runs then a final “super special” stage on a secret trail, we would get to reccy the first half of the stage, then go straight up to the top for our first timed run.

Of course, most folk were planning on using the reccy run to work out what tyres to run, but now there was no time to swap before getting on the chair up. Most folk were on all round tyres anyway, with a few having gambled on the conditions and swapped to spikes already, but there were plenty concerned looking people still on fast rolling semi-slicks.

The reccy run was interesting……starting above the tree line it was hold on and hope over open hillside with slick grass and slick off camber rock. Once into the trees it was steep lines through more slick grass and very wet loam. I was one of the early runners on the reccy and the loam was amazingly tacky, but what would it be like after about 300 riders had slid through?

Back to the top and everyone huddled together like a penguin colony in the Antarctic winter trying to keep warm. Then the thunder started. The peel of thunder was followed by peels of laughter, what more could happen to the track now!

Once on the course the section below the reccied route turned out to follow old trails and paths so wasn’t as treacherous as up high. It was a long stage though with about 1000m of vertical taking us down below the finish village from Saturday.

We had thought there would then be a cycle back up the hill to Allos, but instead yet another lift was coaxed into action and we were returned to the paddock to sort bikes without having to break sweat.

After much milling about and hiding in the feed tent the next change in running order was announced. As the weather was only getting worse there would be no more runs on the new stage, instead the second and last stage of the day would be the lower part of the second course from Saturday.

How did the racing go?

I went into the weekend chanting the mantra “slow is fast, slow is fast, slow is fast” and cruised down my first few runs where I discovered that slow is still just slow. Nina was having none of the this approach and was flying when still on the bike, unfortunately some mechanicals and rider mistakes were holding her up. Read her thoughts on it all here.

The other problem holding us up was that the narrow trails were very hard to overtake on, and with more than 10 riders to pass on most laps, you had to get quite used to bouncing through the undergrowth. It was the same for everyone outside the top 20 though and just adds to the experience. I told myself.

The first run down the final trace of Saturday was my riding highlight of the weekend. I’d abandoned “slow is fast” in favour of “trying a bit harder but not too hard”. There’s not much better than riding fast into blind terrain and it always (or at least mostly always) working out like you hoped it would.

Sunday’s weather knocked a lot of the enthusiasm out of us though and the long first trace was hard to race. I took the run far too cautiously and was never anywhere close to a crash, but also didn’t overtake anyone and was passed twice. Fortunately this was down to me sneaking a start in with the fast folk and I ended up with my first top 50 stage time.

I hoped that swapping to flats would let me ride looser on the second lap and move up the standings, but the second running of the course never happened.

Instead we were back on Saturdays narrow singletrack. The flat pedals stayed on, but I was too lazy to swap to spikes instead hoping that the trail would stay firm. It didn’t, but even if it was slower without spikes, it was so much more fun! Pretty much every corner was foot out and drifting. Somehow I got away with it until virtually the last turn in the woods before the final berms when I slid out, off the trail, through the tapes, over a drop and down an embankment into the trees. It was fun while it lasted.

Nina’s first time on mud tyres went much better and despite catching the girl in front of her, crashing, then catching her again and not being able to pass, she rode in to 5th for the stage and only 12 seconds away from 3rd. Suddenly she liked riding in the wet…

Overall an improvement on my pretty rubbish performance in Blausasc with a 65th in category on the Saturday and 48th on the Sunday, but still plenty room for getting betterer.

Again, thanks to the Tribe team and all at Val d’Allos for another great event and cheers to Nina for letting me jump queues with her (the girls get to start after the top 20 guys, so get to go to the front of all the lift lines) and Spence for driving, mechanicing, chefing and taking the photos.

Next, something more local. Megeve racing.

02/07/2014
Coupe du France Enduro Series round 1, Blausasc

When I last raced DH in 2000 I remember looking at the results of the masters category and thinking that I’ll come back to racing next decade and I can get to be competitive again. It’s been 14 years, but I look through the names of the masters category and now they’re the ones top ten-ing in the overalls. No chance of being competitive there then.

So instead I looked at enduro, apparently the refuge of downhillers who were never quite quick enough, and sure enough, the start list is again filled with the heroes of my youth. Still, how fast can a bunch of ex world champ downhillers be? Worse, this is France, home of enduro. At the first round of the Enduro World Series, 13 of the top 20 guys were French. No chance of being competitive here then.

Despite all this, I entered the full Coupe du France Enduro series.

This isn’t as daft an idea as you’d think though. For a little over 250euros you get 5 races from Blausasc just outside Nice to Samoens next to Chamonix. Not only that, someone marks out a load of the best trails, gives you a lift pass (or at least some food and water to help you up the hill) and stops anyone from walking up the trail the other way. Plus you get 26euro brake pads and a jar of olives in the goodie bag. Result!

Besides, last time I was racing I would drive 8hr south to get to a muddy forest in Shropshire to race, now the same drive gets me to the south of France, if that’s not progress, nothing is….

After said 8hr drive Spencer and I arrived in L’Escarene, a few km up the road from Blausasc to meet Nina and several of her relatives who were putting us up for the weekend. Chamonix connections working out once again!

The last hour of the drive had been spent staring at the perfect looking terrain around us, so we headed over to Blausasc itself to walk stages 3 & 4 and see if it was as good up close.

Compared to the alpine trails we’re used to in Chamonix, Blausasc was a huge change. Dry, dusty, limestone rocks everywhere. Very similar to Finale not far up the coast, but slightly less clay in the dirt and with the added touch of a strong local trials (motor) bike scene to help cut the tracks.

Stage 3 started above the trees with some fast corners and MX whoops, then into a bobsleigh track section with several big compressions. After a sprint up some fire road it then got into super narrow singletrack winding through the trees following the contours of the hill before abruptly diving off the edge into some loose fresh cut trails, before another km or so of foot wide singletrack to the finish.

In contrast stage 4 was rocky and open, with a couple of short but very technical sections, but mostly on established trails and finishing in the village itself. As for the first 2 stages, no idea, we’d find out in the morning….

Racing started at 0900, with the top 20 guys setting off in pairs at their allotted times, then the girls, then the rest of us. Nina got her interview at the start line and rolled off on the first liaison whilst Spence and I wandered back to the car with a relaxed 45 minutes for me to get ready. 25 minutes to go I start looking for my gear. No knee pads. I’d left them in the flat in L’Escarene.

Almost everyone we’d met in the village would tell us about how their cousin was an ex world champ downhiller (there’s a few of them kicking about these hills) or a rally driver. Spence did a pretty good impression of a rally driver getting my pads back to me in time for my start!

In the “rallye” format French enduro races you are given allotted times to start each stage, so you can get there as quick or as slow as you like, but if you don’t cross the start line at the given time you get the time you’re late added to the stage time. With 38km of distance and 1400 of climbing to cover each day I was mildly concerned at how the timings would work out.

Fortunately the liaison stage timings seemed to be sufficient for the weekend though, with delays on both days due to timing issues and riders needing stretchered off the course, you could feel a bit pushed if you forgot you were getting extra time to complete.

The event video’s already online and will give you a better idea of the stages, but I’ve written a description anyway because that’s what a blog’s for, pointless writing.

How was stage 1? The red mist came down and remembering details is tricky, but it was a mix of fast straights with rocks up high and roots lower down with steeper and twistier new cut sections.

A long road climb up to the start of stage 2 showed just how much work and organisation goes into these races with several road closures to let racers cross over or race down streets. It’s an indication of how much biking is worth to the economy here, with Nice and the coast taking most of the tourism euros, and hence how much bikers are valued. It’s nice to feel wanted.

Stage 2? Pretty pedally, really pedally actually. I crossed the line a broken man having given it all and as a result knackered my legs for the rest of the weekend.

Stage 3 rode much like it walked (except for me blowing out the rear tyre at the top and having to put in a tube and Nina forgetting to let some of the 35psi out of her tires) a whole lot of flowy fun, but you really didn’t want to be going over the edge on the narrow sections.

Stage 4 was great fun to ride, how often do you get to blast through town streets, round blind crests and corners, without worrying about other people. My Sunday run down the hill was some of the most fun I’ve had on a bike in ages….despite some comedy crashes and having to stop for the paramedics carrying a stretcher.

Those were the race stages, but a big reason for doing the series was to be forced to go to new places to ride. Chatting to folk on the hill all were saying that these traces were ok but really the race should be getting held on the trails over there, pointing to the next hill over, as they were much, much better. Whilst Nina and I were racing, Spence was out checking some of the other trails and confirmed, everything here seems to be pretty amazing to ride. Plans were being hatched for a return visit without the race plates, so I guess the event did it’s job for the local economy.

How did the racing go? Nina pulled a pretty good ninth over the weekend, especially given this was a very physical race with over 2800m of climbing and Nina strength is definitely in her downhilling and she had a less than perfect lead up to the race. You can see what she thought of it all here. I tried too hard on Saturday, multiple crashes on every run, usually whilst overtaking (All the riders were excellent at getting to the side of the track as you caught them and shouted rider, alas I wasn’t so good at guessing the best side of the track to try passing on….) combined with the blow out left me way off the pace, so on Sunday I played about with various techniques and discovered doing jumps and wheelies and riding how I do normally got me my best stage placings, which is convenient.

A massive thank you to Nina’s relatives for being so welcoming to us all for the weekend and giving us the run of their amazing house. Also cheers to the team and volunteers who organised the race. Finally cheers Spencer for fixing up my bike as well in his official role as Nina’s mechanic (and doing most of the driving, photo taking, food prep……) and Concept Pro Shop for the pre-race bike tune in their incredibly well equipped workshop.

Next stop, Val d’Allos.

22/05/2014