Megavalanche 2014

So while I was injured during the winter Jordan Kelly (Bespoke Cycles) contacted me to see if I was interested in doing the Megavalanche this year and of course I said yes. How could you turn down the biggest  mass start enduro race there is to do! So after some organising we got our stuff together and on the 6th of July Jordan, Killian, Robb, Marcus, Michal and myself headed to the airport to fly to Alpe D'Huez. After the 2 hour flight and a 2 hour transfer from Lyon airport we finally arrive at our Chalet in Alpe D'Huez. We spent the rest of the day building the bikes back up and getting the chalet stocked with food. The first 2 days were spent just riding the bike park trails and some of the race track. The trails are amazing in Alpe D'Huez. There's a mix of everything from fast flowing berm/jump tracks to the rocky alpine singletrack you would expect from the Alps. The only thing we didn't expect was the constant rain!

Wednesday saw the start of official practice. I was up at 7am to catch the uplift at 8am to the top of Pic Blanc to have a go on the snow. After a long wait at the second lift station I finally got to the top. A lot of cloud meant you couldn't see much at the top but I made my way out onto the snow for the first time. I was riding really well on the snow and had got down the whole way without crashing until the last corner where I ran wide on the corner and found a 4 foot deep hole where a river was running under the snow. I hit the hole got launched forwards and did a full front flip still attached to the bike by my SPD's before it got flung away from me. I took quite  heavy blow of my stem which left me with a nice deep cut. As I turned around after getting up I saw one of the french riders I had shared the uplift up also on the ground. He had also crashed but had come of worse with a broken collar bone. So after this it was a case of just get down off the mountain. So I limped down the Mega track to Alpe D'Huez which at the time was still being snowed on. I made it down and called it a day. Day 4 saw us do one run of the qualifying track before finishing up for the day.

Qualifying

I managed to get onto the front row for the qualifying race which was a 22 minute downhill race. I was lined up along side DH World Cup riders Sam Dale and Ed Masters! I got a good start off the line and got through the first corner on the snow well and got away well. I was sitting about 13 going into the first section of single track and quickly made 2 places on the large rock section just 15m into the singletrack. From here I held 11th for a good portion of the race till I was passed on a wide open section linking 2 sections of singletrack. Nearly as soon as the Guy had gone past me his tyre blew of the rim and he came to a stand still. From here I held 11th all the way to Alpe D'Huez  where I crashed in a berm in the town which let a rider get by. After that I kept it steady down to Huez where the race finished apart from one small crash when I hit another berm to hard. I qualified 12th in a time of 22 minutes 23 seconds. this put me on the 6th row of the main race on Sunday. Killian finished in a quicker time than me but finished 13 in his group so started a row behind me. Jordan finished 15th in his heat only 13s of my qualifying time.

Megavalanche Main Race

5:50AM the alarm went off. I pulled myself out of my bed and into the kitchen to have breakfast. soon after Jordan and Killian were up and in the kitchen as well. 7am came around pretty quick so it was time to head up to the Lift station to go to the top of Pic Blanc. At 10:30 everybody was ready to go. Queue the awful European techno music!! Alarma!!! And away we went down the ski slope bodies classing of each other. I got going pretty well and pic up a huge amount of speed but soon ended up on the floor and getting hit on the head by the bike. Got back on and made it down the rest of the snow fairly slowly. I ended up coming off the snow near the very back of the pack. Not the start I wanted from the 6th row but there was nothing I could really do about that. From there it was a passing game trying to make up as many places as I could down the mountain. Half way down the mountain I came across Jordan and we had a bit of craic overtaking each other and other people before I passed him on a climb and pulled away. I moved on up the rankings passing about another 10 people on the main climb. I then got to the mud and everything went south from here. The mud was just the worst thing I have ever tried to ride in. It got so bad that you couldn't cycle the bike and trying to carry a bike that is 8 kg heavier than origin is not easy at all. By the time I got out of the mud nearly everybody I had passed on the upper part of the track had gone back past me. For the last 10 minutes of trail I had a clear run down so decided to go as fast as I could down it even when there was nobody to chase. In the end I finished 261st out of the 350 starters in the main race. To say the race was hard would be a serious understatement. I'm happy to have made it to the main race but I'm not to happy with the result in the race. The main thing though is it was an amazing experience and will help a lot if I go back again next year.

I'd like to say a big thank you to my parents as without them I would never have been able to go on the trip. To Jordan as well for doing nearly all the organising for the trip and Robb, Marcus, Killian and Michal for making it some craic. Finally I'd like to thank Alfie and Robin in Expert Cycles for continuing to put their support in me and for keeping my bike running so smooth.

 

(Make sure to play in full screen and HD)