We’ve been a bit quiet on here for the past few days, but with good reason….we got lots of snow! The past two days have been amazing, great deep powder snow, and seeing as it hasn’t been the best winter for snowfall we thought we’d take advantage of it. So we’ve had two full on powder days playing around and riding all the best spots with our mates. We’re back in the office now catching up with everything, and maybe feeling just a little sore and stiff too. More snow’s forecast for the rest of the week, so looking forward to some more great powder days…..
Archive for February, 2007
Went for a ride the other day - a short drive away from here; a couple of hundred meters lower down the hill. What I found was bone dry trails, glorious singletrack not even on the IGN (French OS) maps! Was very much needed! I was riding in the sunshine, at 800m above sea level, in a tee-shirt. In February. That can’t be right!  Some of the locals claim that this is just ‘a bad year’ - it happens occasionally. I’m not so sure - the past few winters in the alps have been the hottest on record. This winter must be one of the hottest ever.  Still, there’s snow on the forecast now, so I think the bike will have to play second fiddle to my Skis. For the time being at least.
I took some photos of the ride. They’re in the gallery.
We hope a few of you saw Ruth’s write up of her trip here in MBUK this month. We were pretty chuffed with what she had to say. We’re trying to get hold of a copy of the article from MBUK to put it up online.
Here’s something that reminded us why we do what we do…
Ben paid us a visit last September. Prior to his trip, he hadn’t done much, if any, real mountain biking. But he didn’t let that deter him from coming to Morzine for a week. He hired one of our bikes and hit the trails with avengance. We didn’t take it particularly easy on him either! Talk about being dropped in at the deep end! But he certainly didn’t sink. In fact he positively ripped up the trails and loved every minute of it! Even coming on a trip to Chamonix with us - not exactly known for its easy going mountain bike terrain.
We received an email from Ben today saying that he’s just bought himself a new bike:
Hi Guys,
I got a new bike!
After lots of research and lots of night’s dreaming of what I wanted, I settled for the Giant Trance. £1050 from Bike Shed in Exeter (they’re advertised in some magazines) They seem really helpful in there too which should come in helpful when I break it!
Been out twice on it in the last couple days despite the weather (The local common is basically a giant sandcastle so drains really quickly, most of it anyway!) and put in plenty of miles, which I don’t think I would’ve managed on my old bike. It’s such a difference both uphill and down, can’t wait to go back to France now!
Only downer today was I got a puncture about a mile from the end but has given me something to work on tonight… at least it didn’t happen half way round.
Anyway, thanks for all the advice, and no doubt I’ll be after some more soon
Ben
Ben will be out with us again in July - I can’t wait to see how much he’s improved!
I’ve been watching a few mountain biking DVDs recently - (I can legitimately call it research - nice eh?!). Been watching ‘Collectively Krankin’ up the Disorder‘, ‘Roam‘, ‘New World Disorder 7‘, ‘Super 8‘, and ‘Evermore‘. Oh and ‘Dirt’ - the (12 year) old MBUK video that was free with MBUK last month…. All great DVDs - Super 8 even has a decent soundtrack (as does Roam, not sure about the others - and a band called ‘Whoremoan’ who feature heavily on the MBUK vid!). In short - you should watch them all if you get a chance! They’re all good in their own way - Super 8 features super fast DH world cup riding - CKD is a mix of big hucks and some sweet singletrack riding… Roam you probably know already - and then you’ve got NWD7 - more big hucks and singletrack - very polished, and nice in the way it has a featured rider per section - you get to see the same riders go from slopestyle, to big cliff hucks, to singletrack - all good stuff.
And then there’s ‘Dirt’ - what a classic film that is! I’ve got the original VHS copy from when it was first featured on the front of MBUK all that time ago (12 years!) - I had completely forgotten about it. In this day of All mountain/freeride lite/extreme xc type pigeon-holing (all the same sort of riding to me…), it’s good to see these boys perform all manor of tricks on just a single bike. They’re doing trials, jumps, DH(ish), lycra clad XC (in a video!), and generally larking about on the same bikes. It also goes to show what a great talent Jason McRoy was before his tragic accident. (Who is the guy with the ridiculously short shorts and shin pads?). - check out this clip from Dirt on the Jason McRoy website if you’re not sure who he is or what the Dirt video is
So the upshot of watching these vids is… a: I want to go riding in Canada, b: I want to go riding in Morocco, c: I want to go riding in Turkey, d: I wanna go riding. Anywhere.
Damn this snow!
Might have to get in the car and drive south for a short break soon. After all, Sara has to try out her pink bike soon!
It may only be February - but that doesn’t mean that we can’t plan what we’re up to in the Autumn! Something rather special in fact… Once the lifts close for the summer here in Morzine we’re certainly not going to be hanging up our helmets. We’re heading south where the sun is still shining and the leaves can cling onto their branches for a little while longer… We have plans. Big plans. So let me tell you a bit about them: Continue reading ‘Autumnal Dreaming part 1′
Read up on what Sue Williams had to say about our August dirtgirls week - taken from Singletrack magazine, December 2006. - download the pdf or click below to read more.
We’ve just finalised details of a new skills week we’re running with Jules Fincham of Cycle Wild Scotland from 9-16 June. It’ll be a great week of riding and will include Trail Cycle Leader Award training. If you’re thinking of becoming a bike guide, or if you just feel that your navigation, bike maintenance and general riding skills could do with a bit of a help along, and you’d like to know how to look after and lead other riders then you’ll learn a lot.
Two days are spent on the training, with the rest devoted to riding some of the best trails the area has to offer. Oh and of course, plenty of great food and drink to feel you well fueled! Find out more at http://www.flowmtb.com/trailflow
After some late night cleaning up of my laptop (sad eh!) - I found this - a GPX route for the Mega Avalanche race. I must have plotted it on my Memory Map software after getting back from the race last year - So anyway I’ve added it onto the findyourflow page, and also took a look at it on Google Earth - looks pretty nice I think! (click the pic below to make it bigger)
Oh and you can look at it (and the other routes on the findyourflow page) by downloading the route (from that page again - select it from the route drop down and click the save as link) and opening it up in Google Earth.
Sadly it doesn’t have the height data, but I may be able to fix that… maybe.
And thinking about it, I might do a little screenshot from google earth to accompany each route.. looks nice!
We’re busy getting our February newsletter ready.. it’s nearly there - we’re just sorting it out with Campaign Monitor this time (and hopefully future times as well!) - It looks like a really nice way of handling mailing lists and making sure that only people who want them actually receive them! We hate spam as much as the next person, so we’ll also include not one, but two! unsubscribe links - how nice is that!?
And for those of you who are interested, we’ve also included some news in there as well
Head on over to the sign up form if you want to catch it.
