Re:
a wake up call.
today was the day, me and Chris were gonna go do the guts of the Passportes Du soleil route, he's on his 29er fully lycra'd up in his Torq team kit (he's team Vulca, a french semi pro team on the road but team Torq off road) and i'm in my usual baggy shorts etc on my ST4. initially we left with Phil and Dave aswel as they were going the same way to start with. we headed up the 2 Super Morzine lifts to the top of the mountain and headed across the "traverse" to the top of the first trail, a little rocky loose trail about 40secs long, once down there the group split, Phil and Dave headed through muddy trail to the Mossette lift and me and Chris heaed down the road to Linderet, we used the road as we were doing a bigger ride and didn't see the point in getting minging right at the start when there was a clean option! we got the Chatel express from Linderet and then headed for the Panoramic descent, this is a nice flowing bermed downhill with a few easy jumps and not too much of the dreaded horrible claggy mud that the downhill courses suffer from as it's more rocky etc. on this downhill i noticed i could pull away from Chris, frankly this was down to 2 things, years of riding XC and having a full suspension bike, Chris only got his first MTB 9 months ago! he'd always stuck to road riding. once at the bottom of the climb Chris then had his chance to get his own back and when we hit the climb out of the Chatel bike park he was gone in a flash! i just span up the climb at my own pace which to be fair wasn't that bad! this basically set the tone for the ride, i'd lead the downhills and Chris would lead the climbs (and then blow me out!)
we dropped into Chatel after some really awesome technical riding that unless you are prepared to climb you wouldn't even know was there and that's where the downhillers lose out, they simply can't/won't go there, sad really. once in Chatel we headed for the lace cafe and got a coffee and sandwich each. i knew then the climb after the Chatel lift was coming, so 10mins in a bubblecar lift we got out and headed further up the mountain on a gravel track that then chucked us out on a high mountain road, there were 4 roadies, Chris had rolled ahead at this point so i decided to have a little fun, while chatting to one roadie who had caught me but not Chris i hinted that Chris was quick "il est tres vite!", and like a red rag to a bull the guy (on his £5000 dura ace carbon wheeled bike) left me and rolled up to Chris who had eased off so i could roll up to his wheel, when the roadie then got along side Chris, Chris then looked back at me to see where i was so i waved him on as if to say "go on, have him!" and he did, i was watching as i could still see them and the roadie attacked, Chris just kept with him, then apparently after 4 attacks Chris just road away from him to the top of the climb!
wish i had those legs!!
we then headed down to Morgins and got the chairlift out, followed by a roll round to Champousan, again more technical riding around a mountain edge and then down into Croset, once on the Swiss side of the Mossette lif the clouds came in, we couldn't see the chair in front of us let alone the chairlift station at the top of the mountain! we got off the lift and headed down "puncture alley" towards Linderet, where i got a puncture so puncture alley lived up to its name! after this we did the road descent to the Lac du Montriond which also picks up a great little trail before actually hitting the lake, we rolled around the lake and then picked up another little trail where after a bigger jump than i would normally do left me with another puncture, Chris said i saw you launch off there and thought "i better not", apparently it looked quite good!!
so second puncture repaired we finished to offroad ride and rolled back to Morzine.
60km mostly offroad done.
that would be the end you'd think, well it was for me . . . not for Chris, hosed off his bike and he went and climbed the Col de Joux Plane! he just got back, took him an hour on an MTB, think the road record is about 44 mins, he descended it in 15mins! (i've seen the garmin computer proof)
crazy bastard!!
so now i have to sort his bike out, one of the reasons we were meeting up was that i'd brought some shiny new wheels for him, i'll fit them now and then he can test them tomorrow before he leaves to go back home to Lyon.