28 days in Morzine!

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so today has been good and bad, i left my first hotel, i was booked in there for the first week because i couldn't get in to Ride Morzine's chalet for the whole month. the first hotel was way up a mountain so not ideal but i have no complaints as the guys that run it are good as gold. so now i am in Chalet Musardiere, which is a very central place and a really nice hotel with plenty of home cooked food, also my friends Phil and Dave have just turned up. so on to the bad part of the day! i left the other hotel and went for a ride before the guys got here, it wasn't raining when i left but it looked like it was going to. i managed to get out and do a couple of runs and ended up in Les Linderet, it started to rain so i thought i'd stop and have a coffee and wait for it to clear a bit, it took 2 hours! so i had lunch aswel! when i finally got on the bike to leave it was'nt too bad but then i had to descend from Avoriaz back to Morzine, by this time the weather had turned again, so i had been sitting o the chairlift getting pelted with rain, i was wet and getting cold so i hit the road descent whiv usually i love but french roads are quite slippy especially on 2.35 maxxis high roller tyres so it wasn't the most fun descent, also i didn't want to go to fast because the faster i went the colder i got!

i arrived at the chalet just in time to meet my friends turning up, perfect. showered and sorted we went into town to get Phil's rental bike, a Nuke proof all mountain 6" travel bike, we're now sat chilling out waiting for dinner in about an hour :D

no amazing panoramic pics today as the view was obscured by clouds and mist and rain!

but here's a pic of my coffee in the rain! :D


IMG_2451 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

IMG_2452 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr
 
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ok following on from the other day, i got sick, really sick, i think it was the chicken nuggets i had while waiting for the rain to stop, that night was a horrible nightmare! i think i lost a noticeable amount of weight that night! horrid!

unfortunately that was also the night my 2 friends Phil and dave turned up, they were tired form the drive so just had dinner and hit the sack ready to ride the next day, i got up and felt awful after broken sleep and stomach issues! i decided not to have breakfast as i wasn't sure i'd keep it down or not let it out!
2 Imodium tablets later i thought i'd risk going out with them, i wanted to ease them into sensible non specific downhill trails as opposed to the full on DH courses so we headed out on the previous route i'd done last week of part of the Passporte du Soliel, we cut out the big climbs and the guys were amazed by the views and how quickly we could move around the area. not to mention amount of fun to be had on the trails, towards the end of the ride we came down "puncture alley" where Dave did actually succumb to an inevitable flat rear tyre, we took our time fixing it because we'd just overtaken 3 cute girls when it happened! we chatted to them as they went past then got going and overtook them again with a little more banter!


after this we stopped for a drink in Les Linderet, we kept getting the smell of burnt cabbage wafting towards us, turns out a car with a burnt out clutch was attempting to move which had caused a massive traffic jam in the village, we looked at the queue on the Avoriaz express lift and decided to head down the mountain on the road (that or a black ski run and we felt a bit dead) where we overtook cars at 40mph plus! this dropped us out at the Lac de Montriond, we rode round this at which Carl and Sian (who run the chalet we are in) caught up with us so we rode with them back to the chalet.

good days riding!

the lift out of Champousan

champousan lift 2 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

looking up through the clouds

champousan lift by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

Dave, what you can't see here because of the cloud is the drop to the right, this is riding on an edge

IMG_2457 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

also, got this pic from the whip competition

backflip by Dr. Branom, on Flickr
 
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today started on a bit of a downer, the only thing i had eaten was a bit of munching at dinner last night, i felt ok so i dragged my arse out of bed and looked out the window, pissing down! for me it's not an issue to have a day as i'm here for a while but i was hoping for good weather for the guys as they only have a week long visit so was hoping they could ride everyday if they wanted. then Dave showed me his sunburnt legs! christ! i thought i was bad with sunburn being a lilly skinned ginger bloke but Dave was pretty bad, he decided to leave it for today, Phil on the other hand was up for it, although i hinted that we wait a couple of hours as it was likely to get better. it did.

we headed up the Pleney lift once it stopped raining and took a muddy wet trail over to Les Gets where there is a bike park, a place where there are loads of downhill trails, reds/blues/blacks etc so we sampled as many as we could bearing in mind they were in places still very wet due to the rain. phil was in his element, this is the stuff he likes, i just attempt to keep him in sight! (also bear in mind he's on a rental bike, a good one though!)

the rain started again, so we headed back to the top of the mountain and descended the Col du Joux Plane 1/2 way down on the road then picked up a nice little trail back to the Pleney, turned out to be great afternoon on the bikes! we also saw Carl heading UP the mountain with fellow guest Robin (who is riding a Fat bike!)

infact this pic was taken yesterday by Sian of Robin on his bike!

Fat Biking in the PDS (9) by Carl and Sian, on Flickr
 
I'm loving your approach to life. It looks great there - almost makes me want to leave my welsh mountain fastness.
 
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can't type, bit pissed, have some pics! :D

clean!

IMG_2461 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

dirty after one run!

IMG_2464 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

these guys got a bit close to the chairlift!

IMG_2465 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

respect the Mutzig!

IMG_2468 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

view from the chalet!

IMG_2469 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

meat!!

IMG_2470 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

today= got up, brakes dead on the patriot, took the ST4 out instead, rode alot, cleaned bikes, fixed bikes, got food, loads of food, went to the Bhuddha bar, had a few drinks, home now.

preparing for a good ride tomorrow, my mate Chris has turned up, used to train with Thor Hushovd, may get my legs ripped off tomorrow! :shock:
 
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today turned out to be a bit of wash out, we got up and headed for breakfast, it was raining, so we thought we'd wait a bit till it got better, it didn't, at all.

by 14.00 we were sick of waiting so me and Chris (who it turns out had signed with Credit Agricole but lost his contract due to a severely broken leg a while ago) went out, it was still pissing down, we headed up super morzine and descended to Les Linderet, it was horrible, we decided the better part of valour was the way forward so decided to abandon! Chris wanted to warm up a bit so i headed up the avoriaz express lift and he climbed on the road, we met again at 1km from the top or the road descent, obviously i got there first as i downhilled the 1km after the (slow) lift dropped me off but chris was only about 5 mins behind me by riding the 7km to that point! we headed down the descent to Morzine, Chris was on a flying mission, he'd told me the night before he used to train with Thor Hushovd regularly back in the day specifically at downhilling on the road to find the limits of their skill and kit, as a result we were sprinting out of every hairpin and tucking in on every straight! bearing in mind how wet it was i don't think i have ever gone down that descent as fast, overall chris gained about 50 metres on me by the bottom but i think he eased off! he was on a 29er hardtail and i was on my 26" 4/5 inch full suss so i don't feel that bad that he pulled away!! :D so the plan now is to do the ride we wanted to do today tomorrow instead!

here's the view from where i met Chris after his climb against the lift, usually you can see another mountain but today it was only cloud!

IMG_2471 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr
 
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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! :LOL: 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!! :D so second puncture repaired we finished to offroad ride and rolled back to Morzine.

60km mostly offroad done. :D

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!! :D

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.
 
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so today i dragged my bum out of bed after yesterday, felt ok after the battering from Chris, especially since i have been suffering a dodgy tummy for a few days, i haven't been eating very much so i have lost a noticeable amount of weight (believe it or not), i have to use the next rung up on my belt on my jeans and they still feel like they are falling down! :shock:

chris decided to head off to avoid the french holiday traffic this weekend and then do a road ride near Lyon rather than a road ride here so i saw him off but i may well be seeing him in a couple of weeks time on the way (sort of) home, that's to be decided.

so i met up with Phil and Dave, this was their last day riding as they leave very early tomorrow, it was only gonna be a short hack ride for me as the tummy was playing up so we headed up to the Mossette lift, the guys wanted one more blast of Puncture alley. it's not a downhill course, frankly it's just a means to an end trail, but they love it, and so do i, it's fast and in places you can really let off the brakes aswel as hit a few small kickers that because of the speed make you feel like you're in the air for ages :cool:

anyway, here's some pics :D

also a comparison picture, looking across from Avoriaz 2 days ago

IMG_2471 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

but this is the same spot today!

IMG_2503 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

so the sun was out this morning

IMG_2502 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

some trails were still muddy though!

IMG_2506 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

Phil mucking about!

IMG_2508 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

looking up towards the top of the Mossette lift

IMG_2509 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

the grey line is the start of puncture alley

IMG_2511 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

at the top of the Mossette lift station, phil, dave then me. my right shoulder is blocking out where Avoriaz is.

IMG_2512 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

Phil brings "props" to "hat" animals, today it was a beret for a goat!

IMG_2514 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

IMG_2518 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

the other day he "helmeted" a cow!

IMG_2459 by Dr. Branom, on Flickr

after this we dropped Phil's hire bike back at the shop and met up with some more of my mates who i'll be riding with for the third week of the holiday, Matt and Adam.

loving it here. :D
 
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