It was with great relief (in the nicest possible way!) that we waved cheerio to “Team NZ” at the airport - but the newcomers for the week were somewhat confused as Martin repeatedly sprinted past them looking harangued and babbling something about lost passports! Fortunately, Martin’s wife and the other half of Singletrack Safari had just landed from the UK – so was on hand to look after the guests for half an hour or so!
Arriving on the Bristol flight with George was Kevin, who set a record for the latest booking we’d ever taken – he only reserved his spot 3 days before! Already at the airport was John, who had flown out to Geneva the night before and stayed in a local hotel – as promised he was easy to spot in the airport as he was towing his fully built bike and its box around with him. Last to appear was Feargal, who had flown across from Ireland. John, Feargal and Kevin = JFK!
The three guys were all very different characters – John is young (just about to go to Uni) and benefits from the lack of a sense of his own mortality that you lose with age, Feargal is very keen to capitalize on every moment and ride as much as possible (and loves technical terrain), whilst for Kevin the holiday was the first time he’d ridden his bike in really technical terrain and was looking forward to escaping for a week! George wasn’t planning on riding – she just wanted a week of relaxation....but somehow she still managed to arrive at the bar for post-ride beers each evening!
First ride, and we opted for a fairly gentle start – Kev in particular had said from the outset he wasn’t sure whether his experience would have fully prepared him the Alpine riding, so we headed out to take on the Valley Ride. All went smoothly until the afternoon....we had made great time so we were able to add the optional loop which takes in an extra cable car for a huge descent back into Chamonix. We discussed the plan, and agreed that whilst Kev might find certain bits very tricky we’d take it steady on the steep, technical descent and get him to the bottom in one piece. As it transpired, it wasn’t Kev that we should have been worrying about....
As we entered the high altitude meadow trail that we call “Stereotype” John led the way on his Kona hardtail – a bike which was to receive some real abuse throughout the week (both physical at John’s hands, and verbally from Ferg and Kev when they were filled with beer). He was heading through a rocky section when he suddenly vanished over the bars and tumbled down a bank of soft grass – eventually coming to a halt about 20 feet from the trail. As he clambered back up he hadn’t realised his bike had passed him in mid air, and was stuck in a tree about another 10 feet down the hill! After clambering down to retrieve it we all chuckled (in a very supportive way of course) about his stylish crash – and when Martin explained that the video camera hadn’t been switched on Feargal commented that he should do it again for posterity!
Fast forward half an hour, and after a quick repair of a broken chain on Ferg’s Giant Trance X we were hitting the most technical part of the descent – as Martin explained, it was here a few weeks beforehand where he had crashed heavily onto his face, hurting his knee in the process. Safety briefing over, and Feargal led the way, followed by John, Kev and Martin. Martin was a few feet behind John when the old adage of “be careful what you wish for” came true – John, remarkably, managed to exactly repeat his earlier crash – but on a far grander scale! Both times his tumbles were caused by a large handful of front brake being applied halfway down a drop-off, which inevitably caused him to head over the bars. This time, however, there were two differences....firstly he travelled a lot further (rolling about 40 feet down into the woods, whilst his bike probably went twice as far)...and this time it was all on camera (coming soon!)....
Remarkably he was again unhurt – having completely cleared a large pile of rocks and fallen branches John had managed to land in the soft undergrowth – albeit about 20 feet below the level of the trail! It took nearly 10 minutes for John to get back onto the trail – there was no way back up (or down to help) where he had gone off, so he had to traverse through the woods until he appeared back on the path!
Feargal had been unaware of any of this mayhem behind him, and merrily continued down the fantastic singletrack...eventually we caught up with him further down the hill, and he cursed himself for rushing ahead and missing all the excitement.
The trio were exhausted at the end of the second day - after undertaking the Border patrol ride the guys said they wanted some more – so we went up to the top of the new Flegere downhill course and descended the 1300 metres back into the valley. The guys had used up more energy than they had in their reserves – and got back to town fit to drop! We went straight to the MBC (no hurricanes this week, just blue skies) and a giant mountain of Nachos were consumed in seconds, followed by a large meal – and a few jugs of the Brasserie’s finest concoctions.
By his own later admission Kev nearly sat out Day 3 – the Passeportes Du Soleil ride – but he was extremely glad he didn’t, as it turned out to be his favourite of the week! The weather forecast was looking threatening, so instead of doing the full loop we did a highlights version instead – starting from Les Gets we rode a few descents in the bike park, then headed round to Morzine, caught the lift up to Avoriaz and descended into Les Linderets. However, at this point we took the long lift up to the highest point of the route on the Swiss border, and descended back into Les Linderets.
As we dropped down the long flowing singletrack that goes on for several miles through high meadows at high speed the GoPro video camera, unbeknownst to Martin, snapped off its seatpost mount at full steam. Cue much swearing and hunting around in the bushes for half an hour.....it makes for amusing footage though!
As we descended to Morzine Kev really found his mojo, and his handling skills really showed that they were developing as he cleared the most technical riding of the day with ease. At the same time John’s brakes boiled badly – and we ended the ride at a bike shop for a bleed and new fluid. It was during the course of this ride that Feargal coined the phrase “human cannonball” to describe John’s riding – he seemed to have an amazing capability to barrel straight through the roughest sections with no noticeable reduction in speed compared with the other people in the group – all of whom were on full sussers!
After a day off, and a move down to our second hotel in Alpe D’Huez, the guys opted for a play day in Les Deux Alpes bike park – whilst Martin and George took a day off for a walk and a bit of trail finding. Whilst walking through the town we spotted John outside the bike shop, with his bike’s brakes being worked on once more. It turned out that there was an obstruction in the system somewhere, which had caused his braking gremlins to return once more – but this time the work seemed to do the trick – just as well, because the following day the Megavalanche was on the cards!
In possibly the craziest exploit of the week, after a monster day in Les Deux Alpes, Feargal and Kevin decided that they wanted to ride up the world famous Alpe D’Huez road climb – our hotel sits right on the road, near the top. It’s a 13.8km climb, at an average gradient of 7.9% - with 21 hairpins from bottom to top. Ferg set off like a steam train, and as we stopped at the first hairpin to take a few photos he flew past grinning like a man possessed! A few minutes later and Kevin rolled into view. He then rolled to a halt, rolled his helmet off, rolled his wheels out of his frame, rolled his bike into the van, and then rolled himself into the back seat, whilst words like “stupid bloody idea”, bollocks to that” and “let him get on with it” rolled off his tongue!!
The actual descent of the Mega went very smoothly the following day– no-one really came a cropper properly on the snow up on the glacier – despite 
Kev repeatedly swearing and moaning about riding on the white stuff! We’d started a little late due to a little morning faffing, so when we got back down to Alpe D’Huez Martin separated from the group and went down to the hotel to get the van. This meant the guys didn’t have to rush to get the last lift back out of the valley at the bottom of the hill – instead they relaxed at the bottom with a few beers whilst the chauffeur brought the transport to them!
It was a really fun week – and despite three very different personalities the group gelled together really well, and we all had a great time – in fact Kevin, in particular, had such a good time that before leaving he had verbally booked to come back out and ride with us in Spain in October too! We thought this might be the end-of-holiday-back-to-work-blues talking....but we’ve just had his confirmed booking come through – so Kev sets the record for not only the latest last minute booking we’ve had, but also becomes our first returning guest, and quite probably sets an all-time record for the fastest second booking made which will be hard for anyone else to beat!
