Monday, July 02, 2007

Passportes Du Soleil 2007

So the day started early, 8am start from Chatel. Met with the Bad Brains boys (Glen, Ant, Dan, Ian and Gary) at their apartment, then straight to the Super Chatel lift for the first leg over to Morgins. The guys had been riding for 2 days solid, so I figured I may be able to keep up with them on the Vp-Free (big rig as it became dubbed). Great first section, what alpine riding is all about, skijumps, doubles, berms and lots of grinning!

Which stopped as soon as we came to the first of 315m of climbing, a small section of road to Morgins. Ah now I doubt a heavy bike and full face helmet is such a great idea. No matter, still over 5500m of descending to go..... onwards to Morgins, then Champoussin;

between Champoussin and Les Crosets, we have the first incident of the day, Glen snaps his mech hanger under mysterious circumstances which may or may not have had something to do with some riders stopped on the trail...
Here is Ian and Glen making fire - sorry thats trying to remove the broken hanger from the mech. This never happened, so 30minutes later Glen became Chainless boy No.1. (more of chainless boy later...). This small hiatus allowed us to get our breath back, and get some pics:

and so it continued, to Les Crosets and then Champery, from there onto a belting fast descent for lunch in Les Linderets jumping or manualing drainage ditches all the way down, avoiding riders became as much of a sport as riding the trail. A sneaky beer with lunch for some too.....and Glen gets the Mavic guys to help recover his mech... Some mention of the weather by persons who shall remain nameless (!) as there was a possibility of a storm sometime in the afternoon. Regardless, we continued onto Morzine and then Les Gets, where a tannoy announced a dirt jump competition, and a puncture for Glen. Fairly tired at this point, just over half way around (!) Up the Chavannes lift then down to Morzine, including a horrible climb, or in my case push. Plain sailing now up the Super Morzine lift and Zore telesiege for a good descent back to Les Linderets - pushing on now as the clouds had started to gather.....I somehow (because of riding slowly) lost the guys on the way into Les Linderets, and in a state of confusion got the next lift upto the Chatel Bike park - while they had a beer in Les Linderets. However, this was good, I got chance for protein bar and a few moments of reflection on the ride so far.

Only one more lift to make from here, then a big descent to Chatel. In steps Chainless Boy no. 2, as Gary rips his rear mech of on the Chatel loop called "Panaoramic". Still Gary rode like a demon with no chain, only being held back on the uphills.

So final descent into Chatel, I was running on empty - I was a passenger I admit, and whose that on a storming run? Its Ian, ripping not at all like a man on the last run of a 3 day session in the alps. I managed to keep it all together, to meet Ian by an electricty sub-station(!) absolutley buzzing with his best run of the weekend - gowan lad!

As we arrived in Chatel, the heavens opened, and a well needed beer was consumed.

Big respect goes to Ant for riding the whole thing on his Inbred - and to everyone for giving me their free lift pass vouchers - cheers guys - a great day.

So, it took us 9hrs 20mins (moving time of 6hrs 14mins - 3hrs stood or sat around!) - and we managed 6154m of descending (just double checked my data and it says 20191ft or 6154m), and covered 61miles (this including the lift journeys)

My maximum speed was 37.2mph (best ever)

Take a look via motionbased and google maps at the whole thing here as recorded by my GPS: http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/player/3174233

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