We’re at Betws-y-coed, riding the Marin trail on a damp Monday after­noon. It’s the final leg of Alex’s stag weekend, which has involved the fantastic Penmachno trails, gorge walking, a crazy tree-top adven­ture, a parachute simulator and the odd pint of local ale, amongst other things.

We roll off the fire-road and into the final descent. Simon first, then Brett, me, Anton, Alex and Matt. Si sets off in his usual style: like an ICBM aimed at the far end of the trail. The rest of us roll in behind him, pedalling like maniacs to try and keep up.

We’re moving down the single­track at ludicrous speed. It’s big, wet, rocky stuff. Properly rocky. North Wales rocky. It gets to the point where I have to back off a bit because my forks aren’t working very well I’m getting really quite scared.

We arrive at a partic­u­larly evil off-camber corner with a really rough run-in. Si has a big moment on the way through and stops a bit further up. Brett gets it wrong on the way in and has to really wrestle the bike around. I get all slidey going through the corner but manage to hold it together. Anton goes one better, losing the front wheel on the wet rocks and going down hard.

He bounces straight back up looking more or less unscathed, but for some reason he’s saying “That’s not good. That’s really not good.”

I look him up and down and can’t see what’s wrong. Then I look at his bike, which seems to be in one piece. I’m about to congrat­u­late him on a spectac­u­lar crash when he lifts up the leg of his shorts to reveal the gash in his knee.

I can see his kneecap.

That’s really quite unpleasant.

Several stitches later, he’s off the bike for a few weeks while it heals up.

Earlier that day, when we were getting changed into our biking kit, he put his shoes on before realising he hadn’t put on his knee pads. “Ah bugger it” he said, and didn’t bother.

I broke a gear cable on the Cannondale, so when last tuesday’s Hotsingletrack ride rolled around, Tim very kindly lent me his classic Voodoo.

We met up with the others on Leckhampton Hill in the pouring rain. Luckily that eased off a bit, but after a few weeks of foul weather the trails were coated in a thick layer of thick, wet mud. Here I was, on a completely unfamil­iar bike, riding in some of the most challen­ging condi­tions I could imagine. In the dark. Game on.

Just like the last time I borrowed it, I finished up the ride wanting to keep the Voodoo. It’s a lovely bike, all light, pingy and playful. It’s an XC race bike at heart, though. You can’t just sit back and cruise. Faced with a climb? Hammer up it. Deep mud? Hammer through it. Stretch of road? Big ring it leaving every­one else for dead.

And the descents? YEAH BABY! Off the brakes, BRAARP! OK, so I spent more time travel­ling sideways than forwards and there was at least one spectac­u­lar leapfrog-the-bars dismount. It was proper fun though, drift­ing every­where, mud flying in all direc­tions, whoop­ing as we went. Especially comical was the sight of the two Marks dragging their bikes across a field, wheels completely clogged up with the thick, claggy mud.

I still haven’t fixed the ‘dale, and Tim’s put a shorter stem and wider bars on the Voodoo now. I wonder…

Me: Was that rain? Or maybe snow?

Brett: Neither. I blew my nose.

Me: AARGHH! NOOOO!

I nearly always bring a bike when I come back to Guildford, but I never seem to actually ride the thing. Last time I was all set for a ride with Raoul before realising my helmet was still in Cheltenham. Bugger. This time though, things were going to be differ­ent. This time, I got up on Christmas Eve, chucked the bike in the car and headed towards vaguely famil­iar territory.

I’d not ridden around Peaslake for years — not since the heady days of my GT LTS singlespeed. My memor­ies of the place were all a bit hazy…

Now, I’ve not been out on the bike at all for a week or three. I had a couple of “can’t be arsed” weeks, followed by a bout of the dreaded man-flu. So perhaps charging up the opening climb like a bat out of hell wasn’t my best move. Where’s my lung capacity gone? Why am I trying to cough them up? Why do I feel like I’m going to vomit? Surely it shouldn’t hurt this much…ooo single­track! Lets see where that goes!

And so it begins. I followed myriad trails up and over and down and around. My mental map of the place started to return, or so I thought. I rode all the way up one myster­i­ous bike-tracked path until I reached a car park on top of the hill. “That one’d be really good in the other direc­tion” thought I. So I turned around and hammered back down it.

With the excep­tion of the odd puddle twenty foot deep bog of death, it was fantastic! I found myself drift­ing through loamy turns, railing natural berms, pumping the undula­tions and getting all sketchy over the exposed roots. Awesome. But my mental map had let me down. Somewhere I’d taken a wrong turn and ended up by a reser­voir I’d forgot­ten even existed. I was about to ride off up a rather dull-looking trail when I spotted another bit of single­track over the road…

Oh man. I remembered this one from years gone by. That ride when we broke Tim springs to mind. Back then, it was a fun and sinewy little bit of single­track. Good, but nothing really special. Someone’s been tinker­ing since then though. The fun factor’s been turned up to eleven. Loads of little jumps, whoops, drop-ins, fantastic zig-zag berms, endless roots and whoops of delight. Oh, and it’s really very fast indeed.

One moment stands out vividly. I came charging though a corner, saw some evil-looking roots ahead of me and instinct­ively pumped the front of the bike to lift it over them. Usually in these situations the back wheel follows without issue. Not this time. The rear shot sideways at light-speed before gripping hard. The back of the bike was now point­ing in an entirely differ­ent direc­tion to the front and moving just as quickly. I’ve no idea how I held it all together, but I pin-balled wildly into the next section with a massive grin on my face. BRAAARRP!

The descent finished within sight of the village. Whist resting there, I spotted adverts on the village notice­board for biking compan­ies based in Morzine and near Glentress, and that the village welcomes mountain bikers. Refreshing.

My second loop took an altogether differ­ent route around the woods, before quite coincid­ent­ally ending up at that car-park on top of the hill. Same again? Well, it’d be rude not to, wouldn’t it?

WHOOOP WHOOOOOOP!

Picture the scene: It’s the evening before the Megavalanche quali­fier. We’ve all returned from a day of riding and a few of use are out on the balcony, fettling bikes.

One of the guys staying on the floor above us leans over their balcony:

Excuse me, do you guys have a 7mm screwdriver?

Funnily enough, we don’t, but it’s not long before Brett’s upstairs taking on the role of works mechanic and bleed­ing brakes for them. It turns out they were legendary downhill world cup racers Tommi and Pau Misser (now co-owners of the mighty Guak empire), who’d come to the mega with their mum. She was busy cooking them dinner and shout­ing at them every time there was any danger of grease going anywhere near the carpet. Brilliant.

Tommi went on to win his quali­fier the follow­ing day, with Pau finish­ing fourth in his. Whether it was because they couldn’t stop, we may never know…

For us though, “Guak” took on a whole new meaning. It became the call of some sort of rare animal, and could be heard ringing out across alpine valleys for the next week and a bit. GUUAAAARRRK! GUUUAAAAARRRRRK!

You probably had to be there.

You ride in and it all feels fine for the first couple of corners. You’ve got a nagging doubt though.

They say Brendan Fairclough built this trail so he could practise for Champery (widely regarded as the toughest track on the world cup downhill circuit, especially when it rains). The really steep descents have never been your strong point.

A few corners further down the hill and your internal monologue isn’t fit for public­a­tion. This is utterly ridicu­lous! How in the name of your favoured deity are you supposed to ride down it? That Fairclough fellow is a bounder and a cad!

Before you know it, you’ve let the gradi­ent get the better of you. Mild panic, slippery roots and a tad too much front brake mean you find yourself in the under­growth, entangled in your bicycle. After a bit of strug­gling and a lot more swear­ing — mainly at yourself — you manage to extric­ate yourself and get back on it.

Fresh start. You’ve just watched Si, Jon and Alex disap­pear down the trail ahead of you. If they can do it, so can you. You’ve ridden Sixt, so just apply the same techniques here. You’ve got the storm trooper kit on, so even if it goes wrong, it’s not going to hurt too much. You’re not exactly going at light-speed anyway.

It takes you a while, but you get to the bottom eventu­ally. It’s something of a relief. Si asks you if you enjoyed it. You answer honestly:

Not partic­u­larly. Can we go and do it again?

It gets eaiser. I think it’s what they call pushing the envelope.

La Clusaz, France, July 2008.

“There was this massive log-jam in the first corner, couldn’t see what caused it.“
“Yeah, that’d be me.”

It was an adven­ture just getting to the start.

Alpe d’Huez was a dark grey that morning, with the mountain-tops shrouded completely in cloud. Shortly after I left the apart­ment the rain began to fall. Then the thunder started clatter­ing around the valley and all the lifts closed. We wouldn’t be start­ing from the glacier today. Everybody took shelter under the ticket office. Some riders gave up and headed back to bed.

It took an hour or so, but we eventu­ally got the go-ahead. The race would start from the top of the quali­fier, before re-joining the main Megavalanche track a little way above Alpe d’Huez. I set off to the top with Garry. We met numer­ous riders coming back the other way — they’d got up early for the A-final, had frozen halfway up a mountain for a couple of hours and were heading back for an early bath. Infamous mountain-biking hard-nut Martyn Ogden was like a poor lost little lamb. Not us though. The thought of quitting now never even crossed our minds.

Fast-forward. I’m stood at 2800 metres again. It’s freez­ing. I, along with one of the Megavalanche girls (wearing a bright-red binbag) and a couple of others are bouncing up and down to the pumping euro-techo in an effort to keep warm. It’s almost working. A few minutes later, the A-final begins. We cheer like mad. They’re gone. Time for us B-finalists to get on the grid.

I lined up on the second row along­side Chris Seager-Smith (who went on to finish third in his category — nice work fella!). We shared an energy bar and gener­ally readied ourselves. The sun poked it’s head out from behind the clouds. It might even turn out to be a nice day!

Then comes the brief­ing. The banging techno kicks in again. Allemont! The tapes go up and we’re off. Everything goes mental. This is fantastic!

I get as far as the first corner. Someone’s pedal finds it’s way into my front wheel, which suddenly stops rotat­ing. Almost as suddenly, I find myself crash­ing to the ground, with hundreds of riders trying to get past or over me. I try to get up only to find someone is stand­ing on my head. I relax for a moment, struggle harder and get off the ground. Jump on the bike. Start riding again.

That completely knocked the wind out of my sails. I spent the next couple of miles travel­ling backwards through the field. I think Garry overtook while I was on the floor. Brett caught and passed me in the hardcore rocky stuff. Anton (who could hardly hold onto the bars thanks to some accidents earlier in the week) was with me shortly before we reached Alpe d’Huez.

Then things started to change.

By the time we reached the town we were riding in blazing sunshine. A crowd cheered us all the way through those fast open corners and out the other side of the town. The perfect catalyst. I powered through there as hard as I could, before sitting down for the slog up the fireroad.

I laughed at the super­hero helping someone fix their bike at the bottom of the evil zig-zag climb. I had a great time blast­ing down the open stuff on the other side. I got caught in traffic jam every time the trail went uphill. I chased a lad on a Commencal down the faster stuff. I charged past him up a road climb only for him to pass me once we got back into the woods. The single­track seemed to go on forever, with streams, rocks, roots and braking bumps only making it more fun. The comedy lurid mud-slides down the steep, claggy switch­backs were brilliant!

Then all of a sudden I was at the footbridge. I know this bit — it’s the bottom!

I charged through Allemont like a maniac and crossed the line smiling. I’ve finished the Megavalanche! I’m still alive! Wicked!

I looked down at my front wheel to find one spoke had snapped and was flail­ing, a couple of others were very bent and it had a hell of a wobble in it. I hadn’t noticed all the way down, which was probably a good thing.

Results? Who cares?

Oh, alright then. Charlie finished 69^th overall (great result), Alex took 103^rd, Stu came in 121^st and Rich was 190^th. In the Promo (B-final) Garry was 94^th (winning Masters 3 again!), Brett came in 150^th and I strugged into 213^th. Anton retired due to the afore­men­tioned hands thing.

Same again next year?