It’s been arranged that today the majority of the group are
going mountain biking at Montgenevre at the uplift centre. This is where you take the ski lifts to the
top of the tracks (with bikes hung on the back) and cycle down. There are various routes and these ones have
good options suitable for everyone as well as some more challenging routes for
the experienced bikers in the group.
Rob, Bill Ali and Matt went to meet Tom and Tom who are arriving to join
the group today, and they did a run of the upper Guisane.
The uplift doesn’t make for a lazy start as everyone is
quite keen to make the most of a full days lift pass. We head up to the car park, get kitted up and
get our passes, and head on up on the lifts.
We gather at the top and the whole group do a run of the green route at
first. It’s barely a warm up for the experienced
guys, but we go together as group all the same.
It’s a shaky first run on my new (second hand) full Sus bike, but I
enjoy it all the same. The next run is
easier and I’m a little less hard on the brakes. Gregg and Chucky break off this time and
check out some of the blue run, to see if it’s suitable for others. The third time down I go with Keith and test
out a bit of the blue that’s next to the green, we end up on a red run and I
end up going off quite a big drop off!
Eyes on stalks, slow mo moment in my head, and I won’t be doing that
again, however, the berms after this are nice and smooth and I quite enjoy
it. I’m starting to roll a bit more on
the green sections and feeling some ’lift’ over the jumps, even if I’m not
really jumping them yet! We go for
another run down before dinner and I do the same again, minus the nasty drop!
Alex and Dylan have joined us around the third run so they
join us for lunch too, and then we all go up to the top again. This time we all go down a blue on the other
side of the lift. It’s quite a loose
rocky track and I don’t find it too enjoyable the first time down, but I made
it in one piece and we go and find that blue/red piece again on the way
through. At this point most of the group
decide they are done for the day but Keith and I hang back to do another run
with Alex and Dylan. We go for the same
Blue route again from the top, but branch off to red part way down. Then we join what is now my favourite section
of blue/red in the middle, and finish off on the green. I’ve even had a few goes at the ‘skills’
section at the bottom which has some board walks set up as jumps and
berms. I only roll the jumps, but
gradually feel better on the berms each time. As the others have taken the cars back Keith
and I ride back to the house. It’s all
down hill on the col so it’s not difficult at all and being able to go a bit
faster on tarmac is quite nice as you get a good cooling breeze as you go
along.
Back at the house Jamie is preparing for dinner, and
everyone is chilling before the evening.
Keith and I go shopping as we are cooking tomorrow. By the time we get back the paddlers have
arrived and they have had a great run of the upper Guisane, including S bend
which Ali says she felt much more comfortable about this time. She had faced her demons on it the other day
and after some further confidence boosting and testing rivers in between, S
bend was fun this time! We all have a
good chat before dinner is served, it’s a vegan curry tonight and it tastes
delicious! We use up some of the left
over puddings from the last two nights (with ice cream of course) and everyone
is full to bursting. I’ll be aiming for
a fairly early night tonight as we are heading to the Gyronde again tomorrow,
which although was fun the other day was a reasonably testing bit of water for
me.
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