[Closed] Pretending to do Megavalanche next year

Aaaaaand finally, ESSENTIALS, what should I pack with me? Would get some tires with me, but apart from that anything else that would come handy and plausible to break?

There's a decent bike shop in Alpe D'Huez.

All Megavalanche threads needs the soundtrack

Personally speaking, I wouldn't want to do the Mega on my own - half the fun is the social side of things. Furthermore, there is the risk of injury and/or broken bike etc. - having mates is incredibly useful at times like this - not being able to retrieve yourself from the hospital isn't likely to be fun.

Simply don't underestimate the Mega and how much potential there is for things to go wrong - its a great experience and I've been pretty lucky out of 4 times racing to only not finish twice due to bike mechanicals - every race I've gone to, we've had someone end up in hospital with some form of pretty painful injury.

However, there is nothing better than the top of Pic Blanc as the sun rises, or flowing through the meadows in the sun, or the crazy dust/mud of the woods heading into the valley.

ALLEZ ALLEZ ALLEZ!

Alarma!

>shudderswithhotstickyexcitement/fear<

Did it in 2012. I’d stay in Alpe D’Huez, you’ll likely want to practice the top sections and qualifying track most. The qualy doesn’t (or didn’t) go all the way down.
The trek back from Allemond is longwinded.
Second Neil above, would be better with a mate, there was two of us when I did it. As he says, mechanicals or injuries are better dealt with if you have a hand.
It’s knackering, get training your cardio. If you do uplifts, and stop every couple of mins/after each section as most of us do. Try doing full runs; then times by 10. Imagine a whole day’s uplift riding back to back without out the uplifts in the middle.
Sharpen your elbows, it is aggressive. Particularly at the top with the mass starts. If you see a gap and want it, you will need to commit. The rush is great at the start, the dance music really hyped it up.
It’s easy to go very wide at the start to ‘avoid the masses’ but you’ll invariably end up on a bad line and not make up time. On race day the top piste is cambered, and it’s easy to get sucked into the pile up at the side, stay middle.
Also pay attention in practice to overtaking opportunities, easy to follow the pack without realising with a dawdler up front when an earlier spotted route can see you pass multiple riders. Try to workout the bottlenecks also and look for the slightly longer line in practice. These will save you so much time in the qualy or race.
And most importantly. Enjoy it. It’s the best race I’ve done.
Spares? Rear mech, correct length spokes, brake pads, tyres, and tubes.
There is a bike shop and trade stands, but there’s also a shit ton of people all breaking the same things. You’d potential waste a lot of time trying to buy stuff in the middle of the day when your rear mech has wrapped itself around your wheel.
Dropper post essential, the middle section just above the village is surprisingly flat and sitting for a min is a got send. There’s also a sight uphill before the woods. (If it’s rained the woods are a splippy, sloppy mud fest.

Edit. You can see the camber at the start on the above vid, and how many people get sucked in. Avoid at all costs.

Agree with OldSkool - the agressiveness of the pack is surprising - I've been shoved off the trail and down a rocky slope where I wasn't agressive enough to hold my line. Seems to me that a lot of the french riders have a bit of a chip on their shoulder from all the brits coming over.

Also, if you've never done anything like this, you will find yourself struggling for a day or two early in the week with sore arms and hands - the course is NOT forgiving! Esepcially so on a hardtail I'd say. I've never been as knackered as I have at the end of a sucessful race - I qualified into the main heat with the faster riders and the pace was insane - you will need to have a really good all round fitness to cope with the range of riding required, as well as the climbing you'll be doing fully togged up.

One tip I'd give is to share that the snow is best dealt fast - you get up onto the 'top' of the snow and you get >some< semblence of steering (no braking tho) - what you don't want to do is tripod/arse slide. Once that happens you're in the lap of the gods - inevitably you'll lose a mech, or a finger at worst as you end up being torpeoed by some other nutter out of control. Getting aahead and going fast on the snow is crucial to survival.

And it really is about survival...

That said, I think I have one more left in me...maybe...damn that mountain!

Do it for the start and the snow section, maybe a bit of singletrack. But when it starts to get technical or tricky, bugger off to the nearest pub.
And you'll not be alone, as many will have suffered catastrophic bike damage in those opening minutes and retired to exactly that.

Some good tips up there and all I would add is it might be worth doing some specific grip strength training. Trying to hang on when your arms/wrists are completely shot is not much fun.

And fitness fitness fitness - I thought I was reasonably fit when I did it, turned out it wasn't anywhere near enough really.

Came here to shout

ALARMA!

But see it’s already been done.

Pack isn’t that bad if you’ve done any kind of group racing.

Grip strength helps

Check your brake lines for air before you go. Air you don’t notice on a UK descent = no brakes after 10 mins in the alps.

As I recall nothing enormous And completely unridable on a hardtail If you are good on one but a full run would be a Really tough gig. Alpdhuez down is pretty groomed But by then you will be knackered from lots and lots of rocks, steps, little drops, and landings you’ll want help To get right. If anything braking grip might be an issue. I think akrigg failed to make it down on a hardtail one year for reference.

Oh and do the linked oz enduro. Almost more fun Than the mega. Old French National downhill track 😍

ALARMA!

The old Oz DH run is a real treat - steep as buggery, and lethal in the wet. some of the runs into the berms are FAST. Love that track.

Is it no longer a standalone DH race as part of the week now?

ps ALAAAAAARMAAAA!

commentator starting the race: "Now, nobody has died at the Mega. Yet. Be nice to each other

Billy Thackray ex Dirt Web Gadgey, now Trail Builder Supremo At BPW did it on a HT in 2007 when I was out there?
Did rather well AFAIK

Done 5ish, couldn't do the race in 2014 as I'd dislocated my shoulder twice in qualifying, most of the aggressive riding is during quali in my opinion. Nobody wants to be in the spanner race.

Stay out of trouble in the switch backs, never had any issues on the snow as you're all falling at roughly the same speed (except when I didn't make the first corner an hit the icebank, pisted snow is hard).

Sticky tough tyres and frame protection for when those tyres send Lumps of rock at your frame.

I like staying in Alp Duez, my Oh prefers Allermont as it's warmer

Not done it on a Hardtail but on an old Santa Cruz bullet in 2013 with some old single crown bombers. Was fine just nowhere near as fast as a modern trail bike.
I've done it totally alone and it's a bit daunting but still great fun.

I'd take a set of mud spikes just in case.
Spares wise, I like an extra bike! But realistically, mech hangers, mech if possible, brake pads etc.
Warm gloves and clothes just in case, it can be rancid weather wise.

ALARMA!

HOOOOOOONNNK

OK so, I did it last year, it was more awesome and also kind of also less awesome than I expected, is the short version. I may do it again but not for a couple of years, and I'll do it different, but I'm still really glad we did it and I had a great time.

I think it could be pretty lonely to do it solo. Are there still tour companies that do mega packages? That'd be a better way if so. Or find some randoms. MC is desperate enough to do it again that he suffered my terrible chat after all.

The long version...

We pretty much did it how MC told us to, which was- drive down about 10 days before, spend a few days in les 2 alpes which is basically Glentress Up A Mountain, and a nice wee town. Very straightforward bikepark stuff of good quality and with a decent variety, very easy to navigate, and there's absolutely shitloads of it. Had a very nice time there but I could never stop thinking about the riding we'd be doing if we'd gone to white room or riviera bike or somewhere. Different sort of holiday. I wouldn't go back there for day after day of riding but I'd like to stop there again for a couple of days of just brain-out happy unstressful riding, kind of like how Flyup 417 isn't as good as FOD and BMCC but it works well in a week of that riding to have a chill day.

Then we went over to alpe d'huez about 5 days before the race. We stayed in les residences pierre & vacancies les bergers, which is on the edge of the main resort- sort of annoyingly far, and at the bottom of the big hill up to the lifts, but otherwise pretty much perfect. Mostly they were completely unfazed at discovering their hotel was full of bikes and mud. Decent value, too. Would recommend, in a sort of low energy way.

Crap

Alpe d'huez is surprisingly crap. An ugly concrete alpine resort with no sense of a real life. The town feels simultaneously really spread out, run down and empty, and also when you do find stuff it's really crowded because it's mega week. But basically, you'd be insane to go there for a mountain bike holiday if it weren't for the race. It's the worst continental riding location I've been to, by a pretty long way. When I go back, it'll be for practice and raceday and nothing else. (yes MC I did say when, you can write that down) So, that's a bit of a downer really. It's a bit like the first time you go to Fort William and you've driven through glencoe and you've got all the memories of videos of the worldcup and that and a dream of awesomeness, and then you arrive in town and find it's it's a hideous industrial estate full of pound shops and scottish people.

Quali

The Mega qualifier track is awesome, I loved it. Hard enough (for me) to demand respect, but easy enough to attack it as hard as I could, and easy to access (the top part is fiddlier, the bottom is a lap from the lifts and ends in town, perfect). I could run laps of it all day, man I wish it was closer to home. We practiced it in horrible skitey wet conditions which helped, race day was easy mode. Add in the mass start on gravel piste at the top (where you can do stuff like, say, deliberately ride right over a person and not even really understand that you did it til a couple of hours later, or huck off a 6 foot drop into a snow patch literally right over a fallen rider with no planning at all just because you've forgotten where the actual trail is, and somehow survive.)

Almost everything else is disappointing

The rest of the bike park is OK, but it's all over the place- there's brilliant trails that go places that don't have a lift back so you have to get the bus (which is hoaching in Mega week), there's a bunch of really basic stuff under the main lift that you can have fun on but you tire of fast. And there's some really decent stuff, but the better it is, the more randomly hard to navigate or access, there's no coordination at all. It's all just a bit second rate. It's not awful, in fact it's pretty good. but you're in the Land Of Awesome Biking. so "pretty good" isn't good enough for me. And it's just a massive shame that so much of the best riding isn't on the main chairlift network- I'd have done laps of the bottom of the mega route too, except that it was such a pain in the cock to get back up. Not least because all the organisation is french, so you're never sure where the bus will stop or if there's a queue. Imagine if Bike Park Wales decided to build a bunch of new, fantastic trails but they were nowhere near the uplift pickup so once you were done, you had to use a local bus service that was all in Welsh to get back to the park.

The actual thing though

In practice, the glacier was so hashed up that I just hated it. I love riding in snow but it was basically all rutted rotten slush. Also, you're pretty high up and the air's thin. Couple of minutes of enjoying the madness then the rest was just a soul destroying slog. Then you get into some fairly nice alpine rocky singletrack, which stands out as good stuff in huez but wouldn't really register on your brain at La Thuile, and which will be inexplicably covered in people who can't ride down slopes over 45 degrees.

Then you pedal forever, basically across the entire resort and then up a bastard road. Apart from the awesomeness of the mass start, which is everything you think, I would happily never do any of this ever again. In practice, I basically had a temper tantrum because I just couldn't understand why people got excited about riding it.

On race day, it was a lot better as they'd pistebashed the hell out of the glacier and it was so much nicer to ride. And you have the sheer madness of the mass start too. I accidentally qualified onto the second row of our start (not the good one, one of the mass-starts-for-civilians) and that was a little more than I'd bargained for 🙂 But the miserable slog of practice just didn't happen in the race, I died many times but honourably. The singletrack, well, I wasn't fast enough to get there before the crowds or aggressive enough to pass people who were a bit slower than me, so ironically it just kind of dribbled past. (you know if you do the Glentress Seven or something, and you arrive at a bit of trail you know is fun and that you can ride fast, but there's 5 triathletes in front of you? Exactly that.) The climb was improved only by having people push me up it.

The other best bit

Then you get past the endless pedal, and the next 30 minutes or... something like that, I dunno... is just a massive hallucination of really nice wooded riding, with occasional pedals and hard bits but mostly sort of innerleithenish flow that just doesn't end. On practice days, it's very good. In the race, I can't explain what it's like, but it's incredible. Absolute flow-state, zen like euphoria. I had to do the last 5 minutes or so on a near-flat front (with a foam) which livened up the end quite a bit and gave it a bit of undeserved heroism when I passed folk too. If I could have just been held up a bit less in the megainnerleithen bits I would call it a perfect biking experience

(aside- the only reason I got badly held up down a lot of the track, is that I'm a pretty good rider but was unfit. I'd had an injury and then just let things slide and never got properly back into riding, let alone training, I did more riding in these 10 days than I had in a year. And because I wasn't fast overall I didn't feel like being aggressive with other not-fast people. So it was mostly self-inflicted but in the end, speed mismatches re just a part of mass racing and have to be lived with, unless you're absolutely at the front or the back)

And then, they give you free beer which kicks in at the same time as the exhaustion and euphoria and the adrenaline crash, and little kids treat you like a hero and you hug random strangers and they even let you steal all the banners. I've felt this 3 times on a bike- once at the end of the first tweedlove EWS, once at the end of one of the fort william endurance dhs where it turned into a huge finish with random bus parties spectating. I cried a bit, and did a fair amount of just walking around in circles grinning like I'd suffered a head injury.

The Big Lie

is that it's a holiday with a race at the end. If you try and do this, you'll end up probably having a fairly weak holiday that's still always got the shadow of the race over it, then not really being able to do the race properly, and falling between two stools. Everyone says it, but I think it's absolutely the case that when you go to alpe d'huez as a biker it should be to Race The Mega or possibly Ride A Road Bike Up A Road, and you should just not go there otherwise, ever. This is mostly expectation setting. Don't be put off, "a holiday with a race at the end" is not the greatest thing in the world really but when you're expecting it to be like that it's a jolt when it's not.

What I'd do differently...

Less Les 2 alpes, less Alpe huez, basically. Pila, La Thuile and Les Arcs are all much, much better than Alpe d'huez and are within 3 hours drive (and basically only an extra hour and a half if you're driving from here) That's just places I know are better, but you're driving across two-thirds of France, there will be other good places that other people would recommend. So I guess I'd do something like- a day at Pila, 2 days at La Thuile, relocate to Les Arcs, do a couple of days there, then maybe to Les 2 Alpes for a day of chilled riding, then finally to Huez for the race.

God forbid

The thing to remember, is that it might all go wrong. Poor MC had a flat in his quali run and didn't make a mass start. (and though the quali race is probably the better actual race, I'd have been gutted not to get to do a main race- I don't even know if I'd have wanted to do the "solo slow dobbers" thing. Anyone can have an off and miss the race entirely. You're investing a lot of time and money in a race that is about 50% chaos. If you make an entire holiday purely about the race, that's too much risk for me. But it's hard to strike the balance. I'd say call it a holiday of two halves- you want to do enough riding first, to be sated and feel like you've had a good holiday. THEN, you want to go to Huez.

I'd rather go to White Room or Bikevillage

Basically, I can only afford 1 foreign riding holiday a year, and these guys have always given better holidays. But every 3 or 4 years I'll think about the mega.

How long did that take to write?!

About as long as my race run! I was enjoying myself though. You can tell, because there's formatting, I only do formatting when I'm really into it.

NW has it kinda right

The race itself is so bonkers that anyone could knock you off at any point & you'll go from hero to zero instantly, if you invest everything, you'll be gutted if it goes wrong or you get stuck behind a train of slower riders

So go to have fun, not to try & live our your Steve peat fantasies

Its a brilliant experience tho: the start, the music, the chopper, atmos,

The not so good is the lift queues on race day!

I agree adh is ghastly

The qualifier track is superb, the race track varies from fun to horrendous, depending on conditions - the mud edition of 2015? was horrific

Camp down in allemont with some mates & enjoy the sun & a plunge in the cold river or the pool, have a go on the climbing wall

Fresh croissants & bread from the boulangerie every day

You'll need someone to drive up to adh for start times & on race day, but in a big group, you'll be split over both days

Ride some of the other trails in the area-- Oz DH track is an essential we raced it as part of sprint avalanche series once (on 100mm xc bikes 🙄) , a day trip to les 2alps well worth it
Practice quali track twice, race track, split in 2, practice snow once then lower bit at least twice

You can get down it on any bike, but it's more fun on an enduro bike-
B4 you go bleed your brakes, service your forks, true your wheels,
pack as many spares as you can take, pads, tyres wheels, bars, brakes between your group- it's pricey out there,

Just have fun it's a brilliant experience!

Quality analysis Northwind. I’ve never done it but that frames the whole affair in the context of ‘a week away on the bike’ which is something many more can relate to

I've done this every year since it first started, apart from a couple of years when there were race issues or I just wasn't into it.
My best advice is don't fret about your kit or fitness, just have fun, make sure you have plenty of snacks and a good internet connection.

We stayed down the bottom of the valley where the race finishes. It was a lot of logistics to get enough practice in - I think we barely got one full run of the qualifier and race tracks over 4 days. On race day it was a rain storm and the race was moved to the quali track, so missed the snow. This was good as far as I'm concerned - only had one practice run and hadn't worked out how to ride it. I was erring towards waterproof shorts, sitting on my arse holding my bike...

Had shitty mechanicals all week - forks broke and needed a spare part from the supplier. In the race my chain and mech snapped off so rode the lower half chain less. Nearly poked my eye out with my handlebar. It was a tough week, be prepared. Also, was great! (This was 2008)

https://1drv.ms/u/s!Ah9YLMD2btrmtTmKuP55fC6e-1UA

5plusn8
Free Member

My best advice is don’t fret about your kit or fitness, just have fun, make sure you have plenty of snacks and a good internet connection.

I think it does make sense to fret about kit tbh, just to get stuff reliable and be less likely to mess with you.

But fitness, aye. I'd probably have enjoyed it less if I'd been at my strongest, going into it with a far from ideal runup basically forced me to put fun over results. It's not like i'm ever going to win the thing but at my best, qualifying in the top group would have been my goal, instead just making it into a mass start felt like such a result

(I've done this before; went into my second EWS round absolutely as fit as I've ever been, and with lots of good miles under my belt for bike handling. On the week, couldn't make any of that count, got pissed off, enjoyed the race only a fraction as much as I had the first one I did, and went away a bit let down)

I think there's a sort of valley of death halfway between "Can just barely do it" and "Can really have a go" and it's easy to fall in it.

@northwind great summary, thanks. Put me off (in a good way) from investing a week's riding with mates in the MA.

Invest a week's riding somewhere within driving distance and then invest a few days racing in the mega 😉 If you can approach it that way I don't think you'll regret it.

@northwind - my attempt at humour passed everyone by. Thread title is PRETENDING to do mega. I've done this from my sofa many times..

I pretended to do it while halfway down a glacier in france, anything's possible when you set your mind to it

Exactly.
TBH, it was meant to be self deprecation, that alarma video is terrifying and I tip my hat to the lot of ya from my sofa.
I love dangerous sports, especially watching them, and we observers should acknowledge those who provide us with such excellent entertainement.
I'll clap for you on my porch tonight at 8pm, I suggest others do the same.

Basically Northwind has pretty much covered the salient points. I also wouldn't go near the place other than to do the race, and to be fair the extremities of the weather in 2015 resulted in me having a huge toys out of the pram moment & i've never been back.

Depending on your outlook, (survival or race for a result) can dictate how your week goes. The first year I went was a bit of a boys trip & the goal was to qualify for the main race, which somehow I did from the last row of gridding. It needed plenty of aggressive riding and some creative line choice (the tape is there as a guide, that is all). The main race ended up with a snapped chain & I pretty much rolled in last.

The second & third years I decided to give it a proper go. I qualified 3rd for the year of the mud, which was an experience, being surrounded by pretty much every know DH & enduro racer on the start line - had a blinder of a start, then got stuck in the mud, got a flat, had a strop, threw my bike in a bush, rolled down in about 90th place. That year was a war. I've never been back.

Weirdly there is talk of our riding crew maybe going next year. Cant decide if thats good or bad right now.

Even more longwinded than Northwind... http://andrewhowett.blogspot.com/2014/10/megavalanche-whole-soggy-saga.html
.
I went as a complete novice, not only to the Mega, but also to DH/Enduro riding in general. I bought a 2008 Kona Stinky off ebay a few weeks before the race (this was in 2014 so old-ish) rode it once before I headed out there and then hoped for the best.
I'm a 24hr racer so I was totally out of my depth technically but my stamina was fine, I just had to wait to for the fast guys to get tired before I could pass anyone...
Qualifying is in groups of 130, the top 70 get to compete in three races and then 'everyone else can ride the course after the races' I scraped in three rows from the back of the third race, not as good as most folks above but I was dead chuffed.

Basically Northwind has pretty much covered the salient points. I also wouldn’t go near the place other than to do the race, and to be fair the extremities of the weather in 2015 resulted in me having a huge toys out of the pram moment & i’ve never been back.

Sounds more like 2014?
I didn't protest to strongly when the doc said no bike riding. Watching the racers plod over the finish line, it looked like they'd been through the grinder.
Was the year qualifying started lower down and for me the rider in front went down and from the pics, it looked like I took the rest of the pack out. Was happy not to be last after putting my shoulder back in twice.

Just watching that reminds me of something I was told by a fun sponge.

The leading cause of injury amongst older men is doing young men's stuff...

🙂 @Northwind.

Nice write-up, if you had some quality pics it could make a nice article for the mag!

Wow, thanks a lot for all those replies everyone! Got thinks pretty clear now.

@Northwind that's a hell of a tale! 😁 I really had doubts about how it was, and you made it crystal clear! Cheers.

From what you guys say it's pretty hardcore to qualify for one of the main races (TOP 1000 more or less make it through the 3 mass start races AFAIK?), or just be lucky and don't flat right?

Got it, TIP #1 - AVOID THE MASSES

About the d'Oz Enduro I was also looking forward doing it, but not with the HT so I don't break it into pieces before the big event 😁. Are there any places to rent a full sus in Alpe D'Huez or close by? Gotta say I upgraded my Mondraker Vantage with a Marzocchi Z1 on the front together with a DT Swiss thinking mostly on enduro riding and this event 😁.

From what you guys say it’s pretty hardcore to qualify for one of the main races (TOP 1000 more or less make it through the 3 mass start races AFAIK?), or just be lucky and don’t flat right?

If you're fit and don't cock it up, getting in a mass start is fairly straightforward.
For me and I imagine most on here, the Goldilocks start is front of the Challengers or front of the next one down (can't remember the name) rather than back or middle of the main event. Although I managed to turn a front row challengers into midpack nowhere after destroying my brakes.