Viewing 13 posts - 41 through 53 (of 53 total)
  • Megavalanche
  • kayak23
    Full Member

    Top section of the Mega above Alpe D’huez.

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    They made that North shore bit on the Quali was super hard this year – Big gnarly boulders on the exit- I wasn’t looking forward to ridng it having crashed in 1st practice and then almost, almost crashed on 2nd practice (basically I crashed but stayed on the bike). Ive never not ridden any part of the Mega courses through fear so was determined to try it in the race whatever the outcome – when I got there though it was al jammed up and I had to walk – What a terrible shame

    Matter of opinion of course, but personally I think they improved that section! It got easier after they removed the big pedal catching boulder on the right which forced you into a nice front wheel sized hole after the wood, which seemed to cause most of the crashes.

    Having stood & watched, there was 3 sorts of people on it. The people who were fine, the unsure brigade (of which there were a lot) and the walkers (even more!).

    There was no middle ground with it though, you either fully committed and hit it fast, manualling off the end & keeping the front light, or kept it very slow & precise. The problems came when people did neither – too slow for the former & too quick for the latter. Lots of nasty crashes there.

    Unless your name was Sam Blenkinsop of course, and you hit it flat out & gapped the whole lot 😯

    Even he admitted it was a bit wild to do that after though!

    Brycey
    Free Member

    I had sympathy for people that were intimidated by that section and weren’t comfortable riding it; it was the wallies that were standing about at the top/on it ruining it for everyone else that were a bit “frustrating”.

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middling Edition

    Fresh Goods Friday 696: The Middlin...
    Latest Singletrack Videos
    bluebird
    Free Member

    Very frustrating section that. Not really tricky to ride, but it does look intimidating and I think that caused a lot of people to mess it up due to hesitation.

    Come quail I had to push down it due to the people pushing their bikes being in the way, which slows you down a lot. Perhaps a ride around should be put in?

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    Agreed, nothing worse than towards the end of the week & trying to put some hot laps in to come into that section at full speed to get a gauge for how it is to find an awful lot of goons wandering around like lost sheep, not aware of their surroundings & stood in the middle of the track.

    Thankfully in quali I have been up the front so never had the experience of traffic at that point. There are a lot of lines there if you get creative, rather than the sheep mentality i’ve seen in various videos. Get off the bike & run round them all tip toe’ing down the boardwalk!

    I don’t think there should be a ride around though – just use it as an incentive to get there before the traffic 😉

    Ecky-Thump
    Free Member

    There was no middle ground with it though, you either fully committed and hit it fast, manualling off the end & keeping the front light, or kept it very slow & precise. The problems came when people did neither – too slow for the former & too quick for the latter. Lots of nasty crashes there.

    I popped my Mega cherry this year. First run on first day we arrived, we started with the lower end of the quali from the middlestation, so it was basically straight into that section.
    I’d foolishly perhaps, shot off first in our group and got down that section clean more by luck than skill.
    My first thought after getting through the section was “I’m probably going to die if I have to race 30 minutes of this stuff”.
    Lets just say I was somewhat relieved that it wasn’t that tough all the way.

    Had to get off and run around the bottleneck of undecided on quali day though.

    ndthornton
    Free Member

    I heard a lot of people say the section was easier after they took the bolder out – I didnt get to ride it in that state. I watched a lot of people riding it properly and they were hitting it full bore as people have said – looking completely out of control (although im sure most of them weren’t). I pride myself on riding most things but the combination of the speed required and resulting sketchiness really made me feel sick! Unfortunately riding it medium speed which was all I could force myself to do massively increased the risk of bailing. No sissy runs though please – its called Mega for a reason!

    kayak23
    Full Member

    Is there any photo/video knocking about of the boardwalk/gap jump section you are talking about? I don’t remember any boardwalk except for a short piece across a sort of stream..

    Hob-Nob
    Free Member

    This is it:

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cr99qScekCs[/video]

    Prime example of how not to do it!

    bluebird
    Free Member

    I think it’s fair enough to get off and scope it out if you haven’t ridden it before. I just think a few (well may be a lot) of riders who were unaware of how much they were hanging around and getting in the way.

    On the flip side I also saw riders who were very handy coming in too fast when they’d been warned that a rider was down and then crashed themselves.

    I think it’s just one of those bits of track that’s always likely to be congested on practise days and race days alike.

    Taz
    Full Member

    To the OP

    Either 140 or 160mm will be fine, As said before Dual Ply tyres are essential, dropper post very helpful and any low and slack bike will work (much more important than travel). A Zesty with angleset maybe so you have bike for home??

    I found that board walk section much easier BEFORE they removed that boulder. I was lucky enough to be out the week before so got some great practice runs in with no traffic. Used the boulder as a ‘berm’ to catch me after the drop and it worked great. The wheel sized hole the boulder removal created was a much trickier beast that needed speed and a leap of faith to navigate.

    Broken chain / mech meant no traffic issues for me on the race day 🙁

    Will be back next year. As will most of our group 🙂

    OP – Just do it. I seriously doubt you will be any where near the bottom of the skills list (huge array of abilities) and with a year to prep your will be in great shape 🙂 The hard section is maybe 4 mins of riding the rest is not much diffrent to your usual trail centre riidng (maybe on the tougher end of that spectrum though)

    All worked up again now. 🙂 11 months and counting 🙁

    mk1fan
    Free Member

    If I can do it then anyone can.

    CaptainFlashheart
    Free Member

    Simon – Member
    I went out to do the Mega this year, but didn’t even make it to the start of the qualifying race as I broke my thumb practising.

    Were you the chap with his hand in plaster on the train back from Hadleigh the other day? 🙂

Viewing 13 posts - 41 through 53 (of 53 total)

The topic ‘Megavalanche’ is closed to new replies.