Chocolate Log

Earlier this year, Riz and Whitish took a trip with TrailAddiction, whilst I was out of action. Riz eventually pulled his finger out and wrote a few words. So forget about the rain for a bit, and have a think about next summer.

Les Arcs

6 days of guided (ahem… accompanied) riding on hundreds of kilometres of Les Arcs natural, sweet, and often secret singletrack. Nice.

5.30 am, get up, car, plane, wait, van, chalet….. ride!

We’d been itching to get on the bikes all day, so even though most people would settle in for the afternoon with a cold one we wanted to hit it up NOW. So as soon as we got to the TrailAddiction chalet we built the bikes, threw on some kit, got a van up to the Valandres chairlift and…went nowhere. It had shut 5 minutes ago. Fuck.

Plan B meant we took a cheeky little trail called Lobster Pots, one which we were to do many times. It was a quick, fun blast down the hill to Moulin, and it brought us the first off of the week – a pathetic front wheel slide on a dirt track – the bike was fine as I’d cunningly managed to manoeuvre my head in front of it. The small child standing innocuously round the blind spot on the corner had come out unscathed (a good thing as almost all the family had rushed outside ready to set the dogs on any Englishman foolhardy enough to dismember their precious child with something so primitive as a 35lb lump pf aluminium). So, only stopping to check out the shore potential of the crash barrier (not today, that’s a 20 foot drop), we headed back to the gaff and got stuck into a beer.

Run by Gordy and Sophie in Peisey-Nancroix our kingly residence was The Goat Shed. Top accommodation and the food was great - especially the green Tai curry!

Half an hour into our first day of real riding, (hitting some flowing singletrack to loosen up), and Chris, one of the cheeky Swiss contingent (who says the Swiss haven’t got a sense of humour) decided to fall on his wheel and buckle it to f*cK. Scott - wheels of cheese. Just before lunch Ian hit up a pretty kicky jump in the woods, and instead of hitting the tree we were all worried about, he nosed it, got a little more rebound than expected and took the dirt trip with his face. After repeating himself every ten seconds at lunch (after the 25th time of responding to ‘That was my nastiest crash in a long time’ I was beginning to run out of responses!) a well deserved trip to the hospital was in order.

Loads more singletrack later on the run in to a chapel nestled between the mountains, in a fit of over exuberance Adam threw himself over the bars and was left a little shook up. He soldered on for most of the holiday, and only found out later that he’d fractured his shoulder.

Next day and time to do it again. One of the highlights of our trip was Rodderz poor attempt to find Black 8. Inept was the word that sprung to mind! Sorry Rodderz, but you knew you wouldn’t get away with that. Only Rene enjoyed the laborious slog uphill! Once we got there it was a pretty cool trail, with loads of switchbacks, techy bits (although not a patch on what we’d do later in the week), some flat out bits, and a cheeky wall drop.

In the next few days we hit trails with names like:

• Double Header – techy 8km route winding down through the steep Malgovert forest to the outskirts of Bourg St. Maurice
• Grange Hill - a long route in wild surroundings which passes through the southern bowl of the Les Arcs mountain
• La Varda - a more "extreme" out of bounds version of the above. Doing this after a full days Alpine riding I showed my lax fitness levels. Half hour ride/push from the top lift and I could barely go a pace further. An so we started one of the most tech trails we rode. Tight twisted singletrack perched on the side of the mountain (someone died last year and was found the next day in pieces at the bottom – cheers for that Jay), hairpin after hairpin calculatingly filled with rocks designed to shunt your wheels over the edge, the trail went on a kept scaring the s**t out of me. Quality.

A mention has to go to Mickey, our jocular Geordie and his long-suffering bike. Every night without fail Mickey was in the workshop mending something – in the we had a sweepstake on what we going to go next. Once cash was on the table the problems mysteriously stopped happening, and anyway we’d pledged the money to go towards a new set of forks. What did happen to the cash anyway? Oh and Mick, glad to be of help with your girl troubles! Anything more to report on the tattoo front?

…and the girls, they just kept on keeping on, especially Helen who was black and blue than any other colour by the end of the week. Are you still getting away with your Wednesday afternoons riding after coming back looking like that?

Nice vid ‘Extreme Fireroad’ from Jonny, although I haven’t quite had time to watch it all yet.

2 days riding to go and it pissed it down. In spite of this we had a blast, hitting Black 8 sideways and pinning the wall drop (well you had to didn’t you Stu, after the poor excuse – ‘Oh…I rode right past it’ – earlier in the week).

Worst injury of the week, well there’s a few contenders. Adams shoulder, Jo’s leg, Ian’s head are all bad, but I think Helen wins with just the sheer single minded and continuous bludgeoning of her body.

Worst mechanical (acute) – Stu’s pedal falling off, Stu’s front wheel falling off – sense a pattern here?

Worst mechanical (chronic) – no one apart from Mickey was ever in the running.

And the best was saved to the last – the backcountry day. This was what it was all about, and the guys here know their stuff. 5 van accessed trails with vertical drops of 1000m each, this was singletrack heaven. Fire-Engine, Hot Loving, Southside Finale, Lost Trail, Premier League – sweet.

8.00 am, get up, van, wait, plane, car, home ….. f*ck!