Bigfoot goes abroad; Alpe D’Huez trip
Day 1 top of climb
Earlier this month myself, Andrew, Ian, Janet & Jason took a weeks holiday at Ride Oisan run by ex-Bigfooter and our club jersey sponser Phil Topp’. All but Ian flew (Ian was taking an epic motorbike trip round the Alps on the way down as an extended 2wk holiday) from Stanstead down to Grenoble on the Sunday with about 50kg of luggage in tow.
Arriving in monsoon rain we were all a little nervous but Monday morning came and so did the sun and clear blue sky which stayed for the entire week (yay!).
Monday started with Olympic proportions of faffing, then a trip over to Les Deux Alpes and a killer climb just to acclimatise with the altitude. The rest of the day felt like a hard trail riding generally going down a lot. This got us warmed up for the week ahead.
Tuesday saw us head up to Alpe D’Huez and riding around the smaller villages surrounding the main resort. This was a bit more trail riding without the lifts or van so was pretty hard albeit in amazing alpine meadows with crystal clear glacial lakes. There was a strange atmosphere because of the large number of locals out rambling & walking. This turned out to be a Jewish Holiday coinciding with a French Bank Holiday. We managed to loose most of them as we went further a field. Some excellent single track was ridden in blistering heat. We even managed a quick toboggan ride to break up the day. We looked somewhat over dressed in biking gear riding children’s toys.
Ian and Janet off to ride a toboggan
Mid week we had to decide which side of the fence we sat; Ride the top of the Mega Avalanche, or take on the 21 turns of the legendary Alpe D’Huez tour de France climb. Ian and Andrew took the latter challenge with very respectable rankings amongst the roadie charts Phil has compiled http://www.tourdoisans.com/alpe%20d’huez_times.asp
The rest of use took the lifts right up to 3300m at Pique Blanc. It feels like the top of the world and is about 1 degree Celsius so we didn’t hang around too long. The decent starts on steep wide loose piste, then onto a surprisingly grippy glacier, a spot of snow before you ride baron open mountain terrain that eventually finds a superb fast and very rock single track path that skirts the mountainside and eventually brings you out about Alpe D’Huez.
Jason Mid way through Glacier
(Half edited headcam footage but no sound as it’s too long video)
It took about 1.5 hrs to get back with most of this descending. After a bit of a jump session for Janet & Jason at lunch we took off to ride the 2nd half of the Mega avalanche qualifier course. This was wide open meadows which soon turned into a steep switch back laden forest trail. There was a definite smell of burning brake pads all the way down this trail.
Thursday was supposed to be a rest day but we ended up going white water rafting in a glacial river. I don’t think I’ve ever been in water this cold (5 degress apparently). After warming back up me & Jason took the local bus up to Alpe D’Huez to ride the forest descent from day 1 back to Oisan as it deserved another go. This is how you end up crashing as we both wiped out 2 or 3 times because you always think you can go faster second time down a trail. Minor bruises & dented egos.
We all re-grouped for Friday as we rode for an hour up and incredibly hot mountain pass to reach a tiny village of Oulles where one of Phil’ favourite trails start from. This was a 30min trail that went down all the way, slow technical switchbacks went on forever and spat us out at the bottom of the valley. Here’s my shonky headcam footage from the trail;
Vimeo Oulles Switchbacks
The final day was always going to be a big day out. We arranged for a pretty much entirely lift assisted ride from Les Deux Alpes starting with a massive ride from the glacier where the Mountain of Hell race went the month before. Again, trails are narrow single track cutting through rock plateau and moonscape features. A few minor off’s from Jason as it got loose but we all had a fantastic day. Despite some of the best manmade single track we’d ever ridden our bodies and bikes were very tired by this time. Everyone had experience brake problems ranging from brake fade through to complete brake failure. It was time to call it a day and head back for what had become a traditional way to end the day ‘Beer o’clock’ at the local hotel in Oisan.
Picture of the week
We all had a fantastic week and were thoroughly shattered after this much riding. Thanks to Phil & Helen for the hospitality & showing us around. For more info on Oisan holidays take a look at Phils website. Just to show you how hard it was check out Phils GPS profile maps of the 5 days we rode with him.
http://blog.rideoisans.com/2009/08/21/bigfoot-mtb-trail-profiles/
See you next year?
Mark
- wish you were here???
Why I remember that like it was just the other week! Shame we couldn’t have brought some of that, now what was it they called it? Dust! That was it, shame we couldn’t have brought that back with us…
Thanks for the write up Mark – and good luck with the 10hr epic directors cut of the helmet cam footage
great write-up Mark!!!