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Re: The French Connection!
day 8
(a day late, french wifi sucks)
i met up with Kev Duckworth and his mate Ben, they had a day of downhilling planned, Kev has been out here a week or so and has done the mega avalanche enduro and is doing the mountain of hell this weekend before heading home, both these races are predominantly downhill but do have climbing sections in them most of the time the bikes are 6 inch travel bikes as opposed to full on downhill bikes, Kev is riding a Santa Cruz heckler for example with an air shock so is pretty happy going up as well as down.
we got on the lift to the highest biking point which is 2600metres, came out of the lift and started descending a weird gravel path thing, it was loose like sand but off camber and very steep, once off that awful barely rideable trail we found the actual downhill track and wow, berm, hairpin, steep, berm, steep, hairpin, more berm, more steep, braking bumps etc etc etc.
my hands and arms were in bits! it gets tough to brake and control the bike, i was almost relieved when we got to the bottom, Kev and Ben politely waited for me, they are both very good downhillers.
we carried on to another lift and then on to another downhill, it was called "666" so i/we had to do it. this one rolled better than the others as there were less braking bumps but was still very steep, this through us out at the top of the Venosc descent, steep, dusty huge banks and berms and it went on for ages but it wasn't too harsh so it was doable in one go.
we then got the lift back up to Les Deux Alpes and rode through town to the other end where there is another lift with a specific fun downhill, it's a little easier so you can play on it a bit more if that makes sense! with some of the downhills you can't see what's coming up but with this one it's very open and fast flowing so you can jump more with confidence whereas the Venosc downhill is loads of blind corners so the speed is alot lower.
after this i did one more downhill as it was getting to the point where i couldn't brake, holding the bar was becoming uncomfortable so i thought i'd better stop, Kev and Ben were still well up for riding so after lunch at at around 2pm i left them to watch the Tour in the hotel bar, it turns out they did about 3 more runs of the Venosc downhill as well as the main downhill here called the "fury" which i believe is the longest here.
the bar was very busy though, as you can imagine the Tour is big news here and the bar gradually filled as the race neared the end of the stage. there have always been someone to chat to as there are loads of english/dutch/swiss and not to mention french people who love it all here.
anyway, here's a few pics.
oh and the Patriot now has a new (to me) fork as my single crown Z1 freeride blew, not sure which model i have now as it has no stickers but it seems to work fine and has about 150mm of travel so that helps abit.
day 8
(a day late, french wifi sucks)i met up with Kev Duckworth and his mate Ben, they had a day of downhilling planned, Kev has been out here a week or so and has done the mega avalanche enduro and is doing the mountain of hell this weekend before heading home, both these races are predominantly downhill but do have climbing sections in them most of the time the bikes are 6 inch travel bikes as opposed to full on downhill bikes, Kev is riding a Santa Cruz heckler for example with an air shock so is pretty happy going up as well as down.
we got on the lift to the highest biking point which is 2600metres, came out of the lift and started descending a weird gravel path thing, it was loose like sand but off camber and very steep, once off that awful barely rideable trail we found the actual downhill track and wow, berm, hairpin, steep, berm, steep, hairpin, more berm, more steep, braking bumps etc etc etc.
my hands and arms were in bits! it gets tough to brake and control the bike, i was almost relieved when we got to the bottom, Kev and Ben politely waited for me, they are both very good downhillers.
we carried on to another lift and then on to another downhill, it was called "666" so i/we had to do it. this one rolled better than the others as there were less braking bumps but was still very steep, this through us out at the top of the Venosc descent, steep, dusty huge banks and berms and it went on for ages but it wasn't too harsh so it was doable in one go.
we then got the lift back up to Les Deux Alpes and rode through town to the other end where there is another lift with a specific fun downhill, it's a little easier so you can play on it a bit more if that makes sense! with some of the downhills you can't see what's coming up but with this one it's very open and fast flowing so you can jump more with confidence whereas the Venosc downhill is loads of blind corners so the speed is alot lower.
after this i did one more downhill as it was getting to the point where i couldn't brake, holding the bar was becoming uncomfortable so i thought i'd better stop, Kev and Ben were still well up for riding so after lunch at at around 2pm i left them to watch the Tour in the hotel bar, it turns out they did about 3 more runs of the Venosc downhill as well as the main downhill here called the "fury" which i believe is the longest here.
the bar was very busy though, as you can imagine the Tour is big news here and the bar gradually filled as the race neared the end of the stage. there have always been someone to chat to as there are loads of english/dutch/swiss and not to mention french people who love it all here.
anyway, here's a few pics.
oh and the Patriot now has a new (to me) fork as my single crown Z1 freeride blew, not sure which model i have now as it has no stickers but it seems to work fine and has about 150mm of travel so that helps abit.
