If you’ve had The Trans-Savoie Big Alpine Enduro on your bucket list for quite a while – act fast! This year is the 10th and final one. Ever.
Press Release:
Going out on a high
But all is not lost – If you’re quick, 2 cancelation slots are still available*. Blink, and you’ll miss ‘em!
*At the time of writing, 2 cancelation slots were still available for the last-ever Trans-Savoie 50/50 event this August 20-27, 2022. See the Trans-Savoie website to register.
10 Years Ago: before The EWS existed and when the genre of Enduro was still finding its feet, The Trans-Savoie was an early pioneer of point-to-point Enduro with its 6-Day epic event across the French Alps. To this day, Trans-Savoie is still the only multi-day event (at least, that we know of) to ever have combined the elements of natural alpine single-track trails, point-to-point adventure, and ski-lift-assisted uplifts.
Whilst the route and format of the event has evolved over the years, the core elements of 20-minute-plus descents, epic Alpine scenery, and mind-boggling statistics have remained. Typically around 22 – 25,000m of descent versus 6,000m climbing resulting in a total on-stage time of 4 hours or more over the week, even for the fastest riders. To put that in perspective, this is roughly equivalent to completing an entire race-season of the EWS.
Here’s the background, direct from Ali:
“10 Years of organising the Trans-Savoie has been quite a ride and has taken us on some amazing highs and lows. It’s been a privilege to share my take on what big-mountain adventure should be all about. I’ve met some truly amazing and inspirational people from all over the world. However organising such a complex event is as challenging as it is rewarding, and it feels like the right time to make some space in my schedule to develop some new projects in other parts of the world that I’ve been eyeing up for quite some time. I also want to have the chance to enter other Trans-style events for myself – these events largely didn’t exist 10 years ago, but now there’s a whole host of amazing races and adventures out there that share a similar ethos to the Trans-Savoie…it would be rude not to!”
“I also would like to ‘go back to my roots’ and focus more time and energy on personally leading Guided Adventures via our parent operation trailAddiction – both in the Alps, and with some new backcountry / Heli-tours on the South Island of New Zealand. MTB Guiding was my original passion and indeed it was my years of working as a guide that enabled the Trans-Savoie Enduro in the first place. My passion for Adventure rather than out-and-out racing was reflected in our relaunch of the Trans-Savoie in a non-competitive “50/50” format, more recently. But whilst it’s always a buzz to share the energy of participants in our events, there’s no substitute to sharing the whole ride tyre-to-tyre with my clients, as their guide”
“That said, I’m very excited about this summer’s Trans-Savoie. Being the last one, we’ve pulled out all the stops to do some cool things with the route this year that we’ve never managed to do before. For example, staying one night at a mountain refuge in a stunning setting on the border of the Vanoise National Park, and getting exclusive access to an impressive new Télécabine in a valley we’ve never visited before with the Trans-Savoie – it’s usually prohibited to bikes. This lift spits you out at over 2800m, directly onto 1500m+ vertical of Alpine single-track. I’m confident that we’ll be going out on a high, both metaphorically and literally!”
*At the time of writing, 2 cancelation slots were still available for the last-ever Trans-Savoie 50/50 event this August 20-27. See the Trans-Savoie website for details / to register for one of the cancelation slots, this year.
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