Thursday 6 October 2011

Winter is on its way?

Just finished 2 tour du Mont Blanc cycling trips with GPM10, the first was in terrible weather with snow to 1300m (a group consisting of mainly Scott's so they didn't really notice the hypo thermic conditions), the 2nd in perfect Autumn weather with quiet roads and fantastic riding.

In between the 2 trips I managed to take my first crash of the year as a wasp flew into my sunglasses and stung me right between the eyes! In wild panic I hit the cerb and slid across the pavement into some railings.

Adrenalin is a magical thing and I got up and road home wondering if the road rash was going to hurt more than the wasp sting! In the end it did!!

After the 2nd trip I hit a couple of group rides out with friends during the week. The group consists of mainly fanatical Mtn Guides, all secretly training, but making out that they've not been out on the bike for months.

Obviously not a super highly competitive group of really unusually fit people! Yeah right!!

A couple of big rides with the guys and then it was off to Annecy for one of the last big bike races of the summer Calendar!

A perfect day and a fantastic course over 98km and with 3 cols and 2000m of climbs. I paced myself well and came strong towards the end catching one of the leading groups after 92Km with only 8K to go. Over enthusiastic as ever I over cooked a corner on the last descent and skidded out at 60kmh grinding across the road on my hip shin and elbow. Lycra doesn't offer much protection at 60kmh and so I have a fairly large amount of road rash on my hip and elbow and a 2nd degree asphalt burn down my shin.

Again adrenalin worked its wonders and I managed do to get straight back on and finish but lost about 20 places finishing 61st.

All that effort waisted! Maybe I should have crashed 6k into the race instead!!

Anyway, I also had a lucky escape in a 60kmh sprint when my chain came off, released my foot and I managed to stay upright catching myself on the top tube. I'm going to include this as one of my 3 so hopefully I'm all done with it now!

Sore leg but back on the bike today and it still felt just as difficult as ever!

The winter is fast approaching and today the weather turned and we have snow forecast down to 1300m and maybe lower.

The weather came in so fast, it was pretty impressive with not a cloud in the sky all day until tell tale high altitude lenticular clouds appeared over the summit of Mont Blanc and the Aiguille Vert, classic signs of changing weather.

An hour later it was raining and full on storm mode.

Glad I wasn't up the hill climbing!!

It'll do the mountains a lot of good though and start setting up a base on the glaciers for the pre season riding so all good!

It looks like I'm in for a pretty busy season again. I start riding towards the end of November in Tignes with some bespoke work and then have my pre season tech clinic, again in Tignes, before some more bespoke work here in Chamonix and ten my winter courses kick in and keep me going through until the last course which is the Mont Blanc ascent/descent, first week of May.

I have about 14 weeks of BC/splitboard riding and 1 splitboard trip to Norway (which I'm very excited about) a few Tech clinics on the Jones Mountain Twin which is always great and a couple of Off Piste clinics on the Hovercraft!

All in all it looks like a good winter ahead and we've only 9 places left (infact I think we had 3 more spaces taken today and some more for reserve/waiting lists) so busy, busy, busy! Maybe only 6 places left now!!

I received a couple of boxes of Billabong kit last week, kit from the regular 11/12 range and then I should receive the 12/13 'Advanced range' sample kit (that I have been working on) in November when it is ready and I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks.

I've switched all my transceivers to the Ortovox 3+ this year. I was very impressed with the performance and simplicity of this model last season. It's small, compact and robust and super easy to use so if you're looking at getting yourself one this winter maybe check them out.

All in all things are pretty good so far, there's a lot to get ready before things fully kick off but I'm getting very excited about the ride ahead.

Anyway, a cold snowy weekend forecast but then back to some clear Autumn weather and some time back out on the bike.

Got to get those legs strong for the winter!

All is good in Chamonix!

Neil.