It was already too late for my race but I was starting to understand how this worked, having learned the hard way; everything happens on a much bigger scale than you are used to from riding trails, speeds are higher; the track is many, many times wider and a turn’s radius can be over 500m rather than 5m. Many of the steep fast sections and turns are separated by longer flatter sections, touching the brakes in one of these turns where it is not necessary will affect your speed for the next kilometre or even more and once you’ve done it there is nothing you can do as riders carrying speed gently glide past, you can’t pedal because you are going too fast for your gearing yet it feels as though you are going really slow – it’s a bizarre feeling!

From that point on it was just pure fun holding the bike wide–open down the lower slopes only to be passed by five riders on the final flat pedal just before the line.

As a race it was a disaster, I did just about everything wrong and normally I’d be angry with myself and a right miserable git, yet I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. The endorphins were pumping and as I looked out for fellow racers to cross the line they all crossed with equally big grins and were animatedly recounting their runs.

It seems that every rider had their own story of the event, Saas Fee seasonaires Richy Taylor and Aaron Mclean, were stoked, Richy appropriately saying ‘I’d dreamed of drifting like that’. Aaron had been less lucky having stacked it and lost his helmet cam in the fall, but he was still all smiles. Jonny Kaye and Geoff Purvis were both ecstatic to have survived and put in a good showing in the top half of the finishers, which was a result considering they had only travelled over from Courcheval late the night before missing out on the one practice run so had to hit the mountain completely blind, a few stacks each but both loved it.

Adam Orr had made the heroic solo journey from Scotland all the way out to Switzerland by car with his bike and board, he seemed to have had the most fun of anyone on the grid with a beaming smile telling the story loud and clear to all.

Lutz Petyo from Germany was the last man down to cross the line and received an ovation from the rest of the riders, when asked if he had enjoyed the run he replied ‘no, it scared the hell out of me’ but he’d made it down and that was the main thing. His time was some 20 minutes slower than the winner Charly Di Pasquale, a French flyer from Metabief who had beaten the locals without any preparation on the track. Last year’s winner Ben Roeschs put in a solid run to take second showing that he consistently has the speed to do well here.

Lycra and bullet peaks were definitely the order of the day with the front runners and I was kicking myself to have not found a top from somewhere and whipped the peak off as the wind was strong on the fast straights and there really is no argument as to their effect in a race like this…and they didn’t even look out of place on the big fast pistes.

The top guys were pretty crazy, not sure they were wired up right as they were flat out power sliding around the steep off camber corners with big drops off the outside, it was awesome to witness just what you can do with a big dose of confidence and being fully committed on snow.

Once at the bottom you really wanted to just do it again, suddenly you weren’t nervous you just wanted to have another go, you’d figured it out and wanted to go and put it into play but you can’t, not until next year!

As we finished our race the ski pistes were just opening up so many of the riders grabbed their skis or boards and spent the rest of the day on the slopes and I think this is the beauty of the trip you can combine both winter and summer sports over the couple of days.

With more and more ski resorts hosting races on their ski pistes for downhill bikes it’s catching on as an exciting form of racing bikes. Will I be back next year? You’ll have to wait and see.

STATS

Start height   3500m

Finish 1800m

Drop   1700m

Length of run            9.0 km

Fastest time 7min 31sec

My top speed            135.9 km/h (84 mph)

1.         Charly Di Pasquale 7min 31.4sec

2.         Bernhaed Rosch     7.38.0 +0.06.6

3.         Lukas Albert 7.38.1 +0.06.7

4.         Andreas Halter         7.39.9 +0.08.5

5.         Leander Rankwiler 7.49.1 +0.17.7