Sunday Day 2

A BIG day on the bikes, six stages to complete and this time we didn’t have the luxury of passing HQ and our van at all, so our packs were laden with extra food an drink to see us through. Up early in the queue to ride at the front again, up the funicular and chairlift, then some slight confusion with wind blown course tape meant a large pack of riders getting to stage one at the same time, not before we got to warm up by rolling through the bike park stage one from yesterday that is (this was way more fun without being against the clock!).

So stage one and the talk was of the trail having a technical climb near the beginning, soon riders started moving and it transpired that the start of the stage would be after the climb, having ridden up it everyone was glad of that fact! Woody and Dan again set off ahead of us, we set off in hot pursuit.  By now all pairs had their plans worked out, where the rider with the timing chip was allowed up to 10 secs max to catch their partner ahead, either the second was faster or had more strength to hold on for the long tracks, but your time wasn’t stopped until both riders were together at the finish.

I set off in hot pursuit of James, the trail was really good, natural single track with roots and rocks and plenty of turns in and out of the woods and crossing a ski piste or two also.  About halfway I had managed to catch up to James, another advantage of following was that you could see how fast to ride sections by how the rider in front was riding, especially tight corners.

Here i caught glimpses of Dan and Woody in front of us, we were on it or something had happened to them.  They let us past and me and James misjudged a corner each, meaning the rider behind got it right so it evened out nicely, we finished the stage and saw the pain on Dan’s face, he had saved a big high side but then got thrown into a tree and into the ground hard.

An afternoon in hospital getting checked out and he had dislocated his shoulder but it went back in, damaging a nerve in the process but should be fine in a few weeks, heal up Dan!  Woody re-appeared after lunch as he had seen Dan to hospital and then carried on as a single rider, clocking his times but won’t get a final result now.

Up the chairlift and roll down to stage two. A big mix of trail here, mostly the same nice natural single track, into some switchback turns in a deep rutted grass field then drop onto a road thinking it was the finish only to be told by a marshall to go the other way, which turned out to be a two minute tarmac road climb, being the fitter of the two of us I set the pace for James to keep with here and I could hear how hard he was breathing and so nearing the top I backed off and put true teamwork to practice by giving him a push over the top.  Once atop the climb, with lungs in your mouth, you dropped into more rutted turns before finally getting to the finish.

Stage three and after the only real climbing on a transition (which wasn’t too bad) it was a relatively short trail down by a stream at the bottom of the valley, mostly flowing and quite fast with a little stream crossing to get over then some super tight switchback again before the run into the finish which was down an overgrown grassy little trail that you were unsure if there rocks in there to catch you out or not.

Stage four we arrived early for the lunch break and so opted to go up and get another stage in the bag. turned out to be over eight mins of bike park trail, so flowed well with some really nice turns in the woods and in the open along with rolling jumps as well. Again a fun trail to ride but very physical to race.

Monday Day Three

The weather was a pleasant surprise Saturday as rain was on the cards, but the sun shone most of the day and the same occurred Monday for the final three stages of the event. Up the funicular and chairlift and it was straight back down one of Les Arcs DH trails, halfway cut across the piste and resort (which was interesting as a large excavator was in action here and had to raise his bucket for us to go under!) to join bike park trail to finish up, lengthening the track out to over seven mins.

A fun transition trail (we were worried it was the actual stage) and some roads to get to stage two ‘Granny’s Garden’, named so due to the fact you ride through a small group of houses and down some steps in someone’s gardens! The start marshall warned us of fallen trees, so one we had to prepare to dismount to get under, another ‘should’ be able to hop over. The stage was a lot of fun, fast double track with plenty of loose rocks on to start, under and over the fallen trees no issues, through the village down the steps then some great switchbacks that seemed to be a perfect shape, a bit more wet and rocky sections and over some bigger fallen trees that did need to be scrambled over and finish.

No more pedalling now as it was one last trip up the funicular and roll down the road to ‘Black 8’, a stage we raced Saturday straight after the storm, hence this time we went a minute faster!  Conditions were awesome, dry roots and rocks and dirt with some of it tacky and rutted ready to rail and let the bike go, for us nine and a half minutes of blasting to the line even if we both took a small tumble, but that just meant we swapped the lead to the line and didn’t lose much time as a result.

So that was the event over by lunchtime, time to swap stories in the sun at the HQ cafe bar area, tag in your timing chip and check your printout to see your times.  So, the Brits (of which half the field seemed to be made up of) faired well in the end with Phil and Sam Shucksmith holding 2nd place, Ian and James for Hope Technology keeping 6th, James and I bagged 8th for Cannondale UK, we would have been content with finishing without punctures and mechanicals so to do that and finish with a top ten we were really happy and had a great time in the process.

This event and format of racing should be one to tick off for most mountain bikers, the great trails, lifts to the top (mostly), racing with a friend, set off when you wanted to, it really is a great event that is well worth the trip.  I mean, we raced for 1hr 49mins in the end which is about the equivalent of 2 seasons of UK enduro races in 3 days!

Thanks to the Trail Addiction Crew for a great event and to all the riders who made the event what it was.