French Champs

I know I'm a bit late with this but... It was the French Champs in Les Gets at the weekend, so I popped over to get rained on and watch people struggle in the mud. It was a long day, with lots of waiting around, mainly due to people crashing and having to be airlifted. Inconsiderate eh?

There was also the xc finals which I saw a bit of. I wanted to be open to the thought that it might be good. But no. It was bloody pathetic. The track looked alright, but the riders were just hopeless. They crawled down the slightest of slopes, and when it got ever so slightly steeper, they got off and pushed! I was shocked to say the least! I can't help but think that with a tiny bit of skill/balls and a dropper post, loads of time could be made up on the downhills.

The dh track however looked pretty good, a mix of tight bits through the trees mixed with several French hucks, with the last bit being a classic off camber blast across the piste, with another mega huck out to the finish. I did plan to make a quick edit from some clips, but lack of time mixed with rubbish weather on the day means I think I'll leave that and throw in a few photos instead. And, I won't lie, I don't know who won or what happened. It's pretty hard to find information on it online...

Big sender on the piste

Big sloppy ruts to land in

Yeh, it was really wet and mucky

More ruts

There was a pretty cool huck over a root that stuck out of the bank. Few of the girls sent this, but Ragot did, and crashed, on what I presume was her race run, and still took the win!

All the above: mud

The view from the La Turche end of Les Gets

Air Miles

Here's Riders Retreat guest James Gould's attempt at flying. Just a few scrapes though, good effort!

La Clusaz

Yesterday I drove over to see my family who are staying in La Clusaz. The drive over was pretty epic, over Col de Colombiere. It doesn't go particularly high, about 1600m, but it certainly feels it as the road winds up. It's super steep (the sign says 12%) and my advice would be take a bigger engine! 2nd gear a fair amount of the time on the way up. And go steady on the brakes on the way down!

As for the riding, I rode with my brother which was cool, don't get to ride with him as much as when we were younger. La Clusaz was our first taste of Alpine mountain biking back when I was about 15. Unfortunately, they appeared to be building a new lift, and so only one side of town was open. The track itself has a few different lines down and is mostly rough, rocky and fast but does have some decent rooty lines and tight switchbacks. There's also a 'north shore' area. The main track does have a rope bridge though, which is the dodgiest thing ever to ride over!

Weather is sunny again in Morzine, but not quite as hot as it has been. Tracks are running dry and dusty!

Marsh Guard

Finally rocking one of these bad boys! For those not in the know, Marsh Guards are available anywhere in town for 10 Euros, or better still, from Morzine MountainBike Mechanics in Les Lindarets for just 8.50! Tested it out today on some ultra muddy tracks and it certainly works. Looks neat too. The Syndicate are running them, what more do you need to know?

Guest Vid!

Morzine 2012 Contour HD on Pinkbike

Check out Riders Retreat guest Danny Wilson's footage of his week here!

Productive Week

Been a stressful week, looking after both chalets just when the boiler decides not to work... Hence, not much riding. I put my wet tyres on ready to face the mud, but then couldn't go out, so ended up changing them back for the next day. Fun.

A few of us also went up to the mines at sunsent. A big storm looked to be rolling in but it disappeared somewhere and we stayed dry.

We also did some filming with Geebeebee Media over at Chatel to test out their new camera. Despite me riding like a donkey for every shot, everyone else made the video look good!
Chatel - People from geebeebee media on Vimeo.

Passportes du Soleil

 So it seems I waited for the rain before I chose to go and get some photos of what was going on in town. The Passportes is not an event I take a massive interest being more xc/all mountain orientated. However, you get people entering on DH bikes, and you don't have to ride everything if you don't want to.

Labyrinth were here, I think it's a pretty good looking bike

YT industries were there with some nice looking bikes, they were hiding their top model a bit though!

   

Electronic shocks eh? Not sure if these were available to test or not

Some more unusual bikes were on display too. Clean lines on this

Our friends Hope were there

YT also had this mega truck for some reason. It was loud as hell!

Fortunately I arrived in time for this bizarre French trials/drums fusion