Back Home Now

It's all over, I'm back in lovely England. My last week in Morzine incorporated a little bit of last minute riding the steeps on Pleney, followed by some solid cleaning, a thunderstorm, and a delightfully lonely drive back. The weather was a bit different too, it became pretty cold, with plenty of snow on the peaks.

The season has been great, riding has been awesome. Here's a few of my bests and worsts:

Best tracks: Da Trail, Hattock, Chatel Blackshore, Gueps, Dre dans le Pentu, Run of the Mill, probably more...
Best place to ride: Super Morzine/Zore tracks
Worst place to ride: Les Gets!
Best crash: Tackling a tree somewhere down a track on Pleney, good laugh
Worst crash: That one from the beginning of the season, look back through my blog for the pictures. That hurt
Best new thing I rode: Tie between Champery WC track and the step up in chatel, I was chuffed with both of them
Worst braking bumps: Chaux Fleurie track - it eventually got closed it was so bad!
Best braking bumps (smoothest track!): Pleney blue! But the Zore tracks got plenty of maintenance and were usually good too
Best road driven: Col de Colombiere
Best moment: How can I choose?!
Worst moment: Climbing Roc d'Enfer

So I guess that's all from me. I hope everyone has enjoyed my blog and/or found it helpful, it's extremely unlikely I'll be in Morzine for another season, so this is MarkInMorzine signing out!

More Climbing

After Ressachaux I was invited to do Roc d'Enfer, a slightly higher mountain (2244m) out the back of Les Gets. Expecting a similar walk, I thought I'd give it a go. Well, it was more a climb than a walk for several bits. A knife edge ridge high above the valley below. Lots of clinging to what were essentially cliffs, hoping not to fall off.

I don't think it was as insane as it felt to me, I think I just don't quite have the head for heights that I thought I had. Either way, it was the most scared I've ever been. In the photo above, you can see part of the ridge we climbed across. I was very, very happy to turn off the ridge and take a (still fairly steep) path back down to the bottom. Paul's punishment for throwing snow at me was a lesson in geology, all the way down the near 1000m descent.

I think I'll cancel my plans for a quick jaunt up the north face of the Eiger, and stick to mountain biking. Which I suppose is equally dangerous. Fear is a strange thing.

Getting High

Today I hiked up Pointe de Ressachaux. It's about 1100m vertical ascent, which isn't exactly epic mountaineering, but it's the biggest mountain I've done. It takes you up to just shy of 2200m. Even with the encroaching clouds, the view from the top was pretty awesome. Some of the peaks were just popping their heads above the cloud, whilst more clouds stealthily floated up the valley behind us. The sunlight on them created an almost full circle rainbow.

We managed to get a sneaky glimpse of a two chamois (mountain goats) on the way back down before the cloud enveloped us. My legs are incredibly tired now, and looking back up at the mountain, you can't even tell it's there because of all the cloud.

Global Warming

Definitely the cause of the weather we've had. It's been raining non stop for 2 and a half days now. And it's cold. But that means some awesome riding for the last week of the PDS. Though as it happens, today I stuck to Pleney anyway.

The weather was horrible, so cold and wet, I couldn't see a thing with the amount of rain on my goggles. But the riding itself was awesome. Tested myself on some off the main line riding, steep, muddy, rooty. For someone who hates riding in the wet, I was pretty pleased with my riding. I just tried to look past the wetness, and go really fast.

Plenty of this

And these

Busting out the spikes! These tyres really work out here, somehow when it's wet, you still grip. Which is just great really.

Fresh snow I snapped through a gap in the cloud on Ressachaux. Though when I went up to Avoriaz, there had been an awful lot of snow on the surrounding peaks. It even started sleeting on us in the town. Fun!

After riding. Rather wet

The End is Near

Some hefty downpours and epic thunderstorms persuaded me to break out the wet screams for today. I was glad to have them on, but it was nowhere nearly as muddy as I'd expected, perhaps a reflection of how dry it has been over the past few weeks.

Only 1 more week of the whole PDS being open, so I plan on trying to make the most of it. You should too, don't forget to pick up your MarshGuard from Morzine Mountainbike Mechanics though, cos a little rain is forecast midweek. I was damn happy to have mine today, clean goggles all day! The state of my kit shows that it wasn't too bad though, and a little more sunshine tomorrow should give us our dry tracks back.

5 or 6 runs and only a light smattering 

Chatel Jumps

So a few weeks ago I'd hit that step up on Fluid in Chatel Bikepark, but not the double afterwards. After explaining this to some guests, they followed me in, and I decided to lead them off the double anyway, oops! That double is sneaky though, I'd been told to slow up for it, but with a dab of brakes, I still overshot it by miles, wish I could have seen it, it felt huuuge!

Unfortunately later in the day, one of my guests crashed into a stealth drainage ditch coming out of the bottom of one of the runs. After most of us saying, 'nah, nothing's broken' he decided to pop into the medical centre, and returned with two fractured wrists and a cast on each arm. Must be awful, healing vibes to Sam Willard. He did however manage to get a super quick clip of myself and Riders Retreat guests Bruce and Glyn hitting the aforementioned step up on Fluid.


Fluid step up on Pinkbike

Photo Sesh

It's still obscene levels of hot, but complaining about it is banned in the chalet. It's the clearest I've ever seen it. So today we went back up Super Morzine to get some photos. It was a little hard in the woods, with the combination of dark shady areas and bright sunlight, but the super dry, dusty conditions meant some mega drifts were in order. Here's a few snaps of myself and Riders Retreat guest (staff member?) Tom Rogers.

The 2nd corner on the top section that leads into the red and black trails.

It's so loose due to just being rebuilt. Trail maintenance has been awesome this year on these tracks, and some new lines near the top has generated some amazing corners that flow so well. I'm sure as soon as it rains they will be ruined but oh well!

These are some of the flowiest corners in the PDS!

Hello tree

This 180 berm calls for an audacious inside line!

Rooots

An attempted root-double-up...

This small step down has a bit of a harsh landing but is the fastest way down for sure!

...and leads into this small jump over some roots. I tried to boost it here, but found out over the course of the day you can really go a lot higher than this!

Hot Stuff

Fashion error! Photo by Paul Thomas

After one night of rain the weather is back to hot and sunny, with a forecast that promises even hotter temperatures to come. Today has been fantastic, I've never seen it so clear, no clouds in the sky all day.

I spent the day sessioning the tracks under the Zore lift and they're running amazing. Some work has been done to the top section of both tracks, as well as some new lines on the red. There are some incredible new corners that you can really pop in and out of, getting both wheels sliding.

Whilst I'm posting, Paul has finished editing the blackshore video we filmed.



Chatel Black Shore - Riders Retreat from Riders Retreat on Vimeo.

Deval Karts

As a birthday present for Matt Jones (give him a follow on Twitter, he'd totally love that - @matt_jones94) I said I'd show him and the Woburn Sands crew around Chatel bike park. They didn't disappoint, sending it off all the big gaps I could show them.

After throwing down some some flips and tricks on the airbag, they wanted to try out the Deval Karts and the Luge. I got some videos of them trying to roll the Deval Karts, I should imagine it felt a lot faster if you were behind the wheel!



deval karts on Pinkbike

In other news, there's been more work done on the red track under the Zore lift, with a totally different line through the top bit. Loose dusty berms meant mega roost! There's still a few holes in the old corners, but I've really been enjoying the two tracks up there this year. Gotta fix another snapped spoke tonight though, I just can't seem to stop snapping em!

Zougouloukata

Yeh, that's the name of the new trail in Chatel Bike Park. No idea what it means. But the track starts off with a hip/drop with a squelchy narrow landing, into some doubles, a snowboard style beam sticking out of the ground, followed by a giant ravine gap. There's then a step up and a final little jump before some berms, joining onto the bottom of Fluid.

Riders Retreat staff ninja Will Elliot has a screw loose and hit the giant gap pretty much without even looking at it. He overshot it and crashed into the bank, then did a little celebration dance before doing it again a few times for the camera. He came up a tiny bit short on the first one, before finally throwing in a sick bar turn.



Will hitting Zougouloukata ravine gap on Pinkbike

It really is quite a large gap

Potato Pila!

Yesterday we headed over to Pila in Italy to ride some dusty dusty trails! It's a pretty epic location to ride in. The first Gondola has two mid-stations, and goes for miles up into the sky. There's then a chairlift that goes up even further, taking you right high up the mountain overlooking Aosta and the valley below, looking up towards Mont Blanc in one direction and across towards Switzerland in the other. But, you can grab another chairlift that takes you right up, bringing you some way towards the 3000m point, and the view from the top is unreal.

Now, the riding. Dusty! You can actually ride from the very top of the highest lift, to the very bottom of the valley in one go (and if you're super human, with no stops). The majority of the trails however run under the middle chairlift. Here there is the World Cup track, the recently used IXS European Cup track, and a labyrinth of other trails with varying difficulties that split and rejoin all the way down the mountain. The trail from here to the very bottom is long and again features easy and crazy sections. I found it unbelievably tough on my hands and forearms but the track is unreal!

Loose and dusty are the two words that you think of immediately after just one run. You can drift into every corner and kick up a dust explosion, making you feel like the best rider in the world. The IXS Cup and World Cup tracks are both demanding but very achievable for riders looking to take the next step, but there's also some fantastic blue and red trails (with steep black options) that criss-cross down the hillside.

As an awesome bonus, it just so happened that my brother and the Bournemouth crew were also headed to Pila on the same day, so I got a chance to ride with those guys again which was really good. Overall I'd say if you're spending some time in the Alps, Pila is well worth the trip. €20 for the day gets you access to some of the most perfectly built, mostly braking bump free in all the right places, and just plain fun tracks that you'll find.

View right from the top

Look how far below the towns in the valley are. We were high up.

Paul was absolutely piling it into this fresh corner they'd built for us. And there's the dust!

Not quite as pinned as Paul looks but oh well!

Wetness

It's been raining for the past 2 days now, which means it's very wet and I've been lazy. Tomorrow however, I'll break out the spikes and make use of my Marsh Guard and at least try a few runs. It's the kit cleaning afterwards that I can't be bothered with. Oh well, forecast for the rest of the week is good!

Dusty trails!

The weather has been so good lately, the tracks have been so dry. Unfortunately, their was a storm before we got the cameras out but it hadn't affected the trails too much the following day. Here's a handful of Riders Retreat Guest Mark Smith's photos.

Been riding some steeper trails, with lots of roots to jump, it's been so good! Finished the week with a trip to Morgins, which was awesome as always, though the black was a bit slippy. I've been doing a lot of crashing all week, but it's been pretty fun actually!

Rain?

It's been so dry and dusty lately, been awesome. I rode Champery again, hit every section, which to some people might sound pretty standard, but for me, I was pretty happy. Some of my guests that I took with me were less impressed, and the crazy French dude we met survived the whole lot then binned it on the road.

I've also been trying to get fast on Super Morzine side, which has been so loose and dusty, whenever you see anyone else you just try to kick up loads of roost and dust, it's been awesome.

So I was a little bit down-heartened to see rain yesterday, then even more so to see that it had rained all night too. So today, I can't be bothered to go and get muddy, I'll stay in and watch the World Cup. With a forecast like this, I don't think it will be long before it dries out again.

  
Also been doing some chilling up at the mines and down by the lake since it's been so hot, so here's a few snaps of that!

Found this creepy geezer living down the mines

Definitely a safe game