Last weekend I took on a rather large ride, I decided to ride from sunrise to sunset and to explore the Belledonne mountains just outside Grenoble, with the aim of reaching La Croix de Belledonne at 2926m. We have been having some crazy warm and sunny weather recently so weirdly 3000m in mid November on a bike isn’t out of the questions.

Anyway, if anyone is interested in hearing about it and looking at some nice photos then take a peak in here…

Dawn to dusk ride – Chaine de Belledone

That looks like a good day out! Enjoyed reading, thanks.

Great story and impressive ride.

I like your closing about people being happy. I live in the Austrian alps and totally agree with this. You can ride anywhere, no one complains,respect other people here and you get it back.

Awesome, I live in the southern part of the maritime alps and the temps here is in the 20’s!! did a 7 day point to point tour with mates, getting up at dawn seeing the sun rise over the med from 2000m was pretty special and hooning down alpine trails at night..

Cheers guys

Selled, nice to hear that it is like that over your way too

Nasher, now that sounds really epic! 7 days! Did you carry much with you or were you staying in proper accommodation with food each night?

Also is anyone is interested and uses facebook I have made a page where any of my wordpress/instagram/photos etc gets posted

Facebook Page

Nice, bookmarked for a better look later.

Just wondered if you’d considered using a blog format with wider pics – to do those lovely snaps more justice?

Yeah I have, I spent aggges looking through templates and playing with layouts and thought that this one was nicest/worked best for what I was trying to do. I am a bit of a beginner in playing with website design, even the wordpress ones, so there are probably better ones that could be manipulated to what I want. But yeah it would be great if they were wider! None of the free layouts allow you to have nice full page photos… now that would be cool!

I wonder if that is the sort of thing you can edit in the CSS? As once you pay for an annual subscription you can start to edit that (you have to anyway once you get past your 3gb storage limit).

Inspiring blog and an awesome day out – super jealous

Would be interested in knowing how you came to be out there and more importantly, what you do for a living (if its not too personal a question to ask). I’d love to move out there for this very reason, big days out doing proper mtb. As oppose to riding round a flat field in the south of the UK…

Nice ride. The autumn weather has been amazing, eh? Most I’ve ever ridden my bike at this time of year. Looks like it’s well and truly over now though!

You carry way too much stuff… 😉

V nice

Yeah I have, I spent aggges looking through templates and playing with layouts and thought that this one was nicest/worked best for what I was trying to do. I am a bit of a beginner in playing with website design, even the wordpress ones, so there are probably better ones that could be manipulated to what I want. But yeah it would be great if they were wider! None of the free layouts allow you to have nice full page photos… now that would be cool!

I wonder if that is the sort of thing you can edit in the CSS? As once you pay for an annual subscription you can start to edit that (you have to anyway once you get past your 3gb storage limit).

I’m a relative novice myself TBH, I went for a template with wider pics but still nowhere near full width…
http://unduro.co.uk/

This may be a blessing in disguise since most of my pics are from a mobile phone.

I paid a one-off fee for template (£30 or so) and £15 a year for hosting, plus about £7 for domain IIRC.

Nasher, now that sounds really epic! 7 days! Did you carry much with you or were you staying in proper accommodation with food each night?

We stayed in accommodation on different nights, I’m a guide in the area so know it well. We do a week trip at the end of our season.

take a look at our Facebook page where we have detailed the trip..

Flange – I updated the ‘about me’ page a little more to explain. But basically I am still a student despite being 25 although I have spent some years working! I study architecture which is a fairly long course and you sort of do it in two separate parts bachelors then masters and in between those you spend a year working; so I did my bachelors in Aberdeen then I got a job in Slovenia for a year and then decided to work for longer and spent 1.5yrs working in London, after that I decided basically that I wanted to live in the alps, simple as that really, and I spoke some french before I arrived and have always had a bit of a thing for france so yeah I applied to do my masters here in Grenoble and was accepted so here I am. I am in my last year now after having done a year exchange to Norway, some other stints working again in London and a season working as a mtb guide in Slovenia.

These last weeks have been amazing weather yeah! We had a bit of snow mid October but only for a few days but since then it has been something like 20degrees every day! Yeah I took a fair bit of stuff, I kept thinking what if I die at 2500m ha. Where are you based?

Where are you based?

If you are referring to me, Molini di Triora, just 30 mins north of Sanremo, near the french border and Monaco..

Oh and Chapaking – I am even more novice than that I think, I am still using a WordPress hosted site, so I have limited options, for now it keeps me happy but I have also installed wordpress on my laptop so that I can learn and play with more advanced stuff so once i have I will sort myself out some hosting, domain name and a bit more of a complicated site I think. I like your site though, it is not far off what I was aiming for.

Nasher – cheers for that, I might see if i can hit you up for a ride some time, do you ever venture across to France? p.s. if you work at Riveira bike in Molini then I met the guys who got into a fight and got chased out of the town whilst staying with you a few years ago this summer… if not then never mind haha.

Sorry Nasher, forgot to write that was for Stevo, now i’m referring to you ^^ ! 🙂

Grand to see more blogs appearing for alpine riding to give ideas for trips, and sharing the idea that autumn in the alps can be the best time of year (except for when it’s the worst….)
Another couple for bookmarking if it helps, bit further north mostly, are mine: http://www.chamonixbikeblog.com/ (Got a nice wee 1500m descent a couple days ago, though I think that’s riding at that altitude done for the year) and Oli Carr’s, http://chainmark.blogspot.fr/ who gets some cracking exploring done when he’s not busy being a bike guide.

Yeah I own Rivierabike, the group from Leisure lakes (my friends on my FB trip above are also from Leisure lakes) One gatecrashed a party and threw a lit BBQ at a girl, they beat the crap out of him and threw him over a wall, I then sent him to hospital and then sent him packing..

Anyway did yuo work with Ride Slovenia? I plan to go with Ride Slovenia with the “good” leisure lakes group in August..

Grum – Cheers for those! Will have a leisurely read this weekend… What do you do up there in Chamonix? As you say looks like the snow is due this weekend! It has started raining here in Grenoble today, I imagine it is snowing up high.

Nasher – yeah those lot! They were a funny/unsual/wild/unpredictable/entertaining bunch to say the least. Yeah I worked at Ride Slovenia, Ride Slovenia is just one guy though well there was also me over the summer. When are you able to ride until down your way? I mean when do you usually have guests until, what is your season?

Thanks very much for the reply chap – I envy your lifestyle!

Keep on with the blog, really good reading

Great blogs from you and your pal Grum.

You should both set up an FB page so you can let people know when you’ve got new posts up. And you should get on Instagram like your mate.

Now that was a good day! 🙂

Thanks for posting.

Paul

Good to have more people writing Anus, I started my blog partly as I was fed up reading all the inspiring skiing and climbing blogs kicking about the web and there being nothing similar for biking. 12mm/hr rain here in Chamonix, should be filling the glaciers in nicely, def looking at lower altitudes for the bike from now in though. Should be better for you around Grenoble.

Chakaping: I’ve started an instagram where I’ll put more regular ride photaes and let folks know when a new blog post is up. Most rides don’t get a blog post, but there’ll probably be a fair bit of useful trail conditions/hints cropping up there….just maybe not december to february! You can follow away at https://www.instagram.com/grahampinkerton_chamonixbike/

More riding and writing like this

Less “what tyres for my purple bike bollocks”

Very well done and inspiring

C

Hey Anus, other than christmas and january, I ride all year, if u have some free time pop down, could with a hand trail building…. And some cool rides of course..

Where are you based?

I live just outside Bourg Saint Maurice. I own The White Room.