Our intrepid racing reporter takes us through the third and fourth stages of the Trans Savoie:
Day 3 Peisey-Nancroix to Bozel. 4037m descent; 58km.
The forecast was rain and that’s exactly what it did all day. I woke up to rain on my tent at around 3am and that was it for me: I couldn’t get back to sleep. I love riding in the wet and couldn’t wait to get out on the bike. However the whole tent life thing was what was stressing me out a bit to be honest. I love camping, but just keeping on top of your kit is hard work; trying to keep your dry kit away from your muddy wet kit, and drying wet shoes isn’t even an option!
Unfortunately racing had to be put on hold today due to the weather. It was a good shout for sure and the general vibe about the decision between the riders was positive. No-one seemed to have their race heads on and welcomed the idea of a bit of a rest. The mountain team had a big job on their hands to reroute the course to get us all safely to our camp as riding there was our only option.
The day turned out to be an amazing day out on the hill; a fair bit of kicking about in lift stations and coffee shops, but a lot of chat was going down between riders – and to top it off we got to ride stage 3 untimed – and what a stage it would have been, but if the s**t had hit the fan due to riders pushing hard..? It would not have been an easy task to get someone off the hill.
All in all I had a top day out on the bike with new friends; it was so cool just riding bikes and not worrying about the clock.
Day 4: Bezel to Albertville. 4179m descent; 64km.
I’m pretty sure I’ve started every days report in the same way, but that was another big day with some serious trails. Everyday I ride my bike I usually come home and say that was the best ride ever or claim that one of the trails I rode was the best trail of my life. However stage 5 is definitely high up the list; I’m still giggling about it!
The day started with a fair-sized climb from camp on a mix of road and fire road, which opened up the lungs and woke me up nicely… trust me, you really needed to be awake ready for the start of stage 1.
Stage 1: The trail description said that it was going to ‘by far the most technical stage of the week’ and ‘probably faster to run some of it’. It was a crazy relentless rock garden that had some super tight switchbacks thrown in for good measure. I was excited to get on track and try to rise to the challenge but on the first corner in the rocks I misjudged the radius and was straight over the bars, hoping I wouldn’t roll to far down the hill. Once I had climbed back up onto the track my heart rate was fully redlined and I needed to chill and gain some composure. Once you were out the rocks the trail dropped into the trees and there was some serious flow to be had, with a lot of very sideways riding going on due to the rain yesterday.
Stage 2: This took us high above Maribel, and it was going to be a monster stage. The stage was predominately marked bike trail and had some amazing flow in the middle section but needed some serious pedalling to keep your speed at race pace. Just to get an understanding of how long this stage was, Jamie Nicolle took the win in 17min 49sec!
Stage 3: This was one hell of a pedal-fest, made harder due to the rain: every time you wanted to carry some speed there was a big puddle to ride through and hope it didn’t spit you over the bars. In the dry things would have been a touch different as the there were some great ruts to rail and the punchy climbs wouldn’t have been quite so punchy.
Stage 4: This is really what riding bikes in the Alps is all about. It started high up in some alpine meadows, and wove its way down into the trees. It felt like the trail had been built for bikes, not by walkers over the years, as the corners were such good shape for riding and there were some great opportunities for some root and rock double ups on the way down.
Stage 5: This pretty much followed straight in from the stage 4 finish , apart from a short climb to link the trails. Last year it was all one trail though. I’m pleased Ali split it this year, as that climb would have sucked during a stage! The trail was all in the trees and perfectly benched into the hillside. I can’t remember too much detail about the trail as I was simply having too much fun! All I can remember is that the trail just kept on giving and for a large majority of it you were following a dark brown 12inch ribbon through the loam. The atmosphere at the bottom was crazy all I could hear was “best trail ever”, “can’t believe that’s a walkers trail”, “so much fun” everyone was giggling and smiling.
Another big day done and a few changes in the results:
And here’s a quick video **warning – includes rain**:
