Can really recommend The White Room in Sainte Foy. Nice resort, chalets, great food & service… we’ll be back there for the 5th/6th year on the trot in February, don’t even have to think about it.

Can also recommend The White Room. I’ve ridden with groups made up of individual strangers there (although on hol with my wife) and seen plenty of people turn up alone and get on fine too. Will be back there ourselves in August, despite now living next to the Swiss Alps – looking forward to it!

The White Room

Can’t recommend these guys enough. Been there several years on the trot, summer and winter. Top trails, independent uplift, great food. No commission for recommending them, will just have to hope for an extra piece of cake when I’m there in a week’s time!

another glowing recommendation for the White Room here – nothing but great food, guiding and trails! we like it so much we’ve been there summer and winter without fail for several years now.

torsoinalake – I’ve done two backcountry weeks with The White Room (same as recommended for summer bike hols!) as a solo. There were other solos and I found since everyone was there out of a common interest we got on ok. Can only help that The White Room do a great job too.

potatoes are generally regarded as ok in limited quantities, certainly better than wheat-based carbs.

on the primal site you can find a graph suggesting under 150g carbs a day for your general wellbeing.

agree that lentils are a good filler, lower carb than chick peas too. Recently discovered ‘spaghetti squash’ which I thought was great. Pretty seasonal I guess.

In the absence of bacon, just have a bit of steak for breakfast! I do and it’s great! If you like it, a bit of liver fried in curry (madras/vindaloo) paste is really filling and chock full of vitamins.

on the HIIT thing too – I’ve done intervals and intense rides on low carb without issues. Your body will still fill up your glycogen stores with glucose made from proteins, just more slowly. Full glycogen stores should give you enough for an hour or two at high intensity. You can also ‘carb reload’ on safe carbs once in a while.

Mike, the more butter/coconut oil I used in cooking and made sure to lick up the less other hunger I had and the more weight I lost. unbelievable really.

http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance

interesting too – full ketosis and still performing at a high level. There was a runner who won some big ultramarathon event recently on a very low carb plan too.

can definitely recommend reading this:

Home

miketually also speaks the truth. you’d be amazed how few carbs you actually need for sports if you adapt to eating that way.

FYI http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-does-it-mean-to-be-fat-adapted/#axzz2BeVBMpb7

you’re in france right? then salami-type sausages are good too. scrambled eggs are my most go-to breakfast. sweet potatoes are a ‘safe’ carb, but I’ve been amazed how little carbs I need even for big bits of cycling now.

bacon

and bacon

seriously.

did 80 km in chaingang on the cx after a bacon only breakfast a couple of weeks ago without any trouble. much of the point of paleo/primal is to switch over to burning fat instead of carbs.

same problem here, ‘server error’ via firefox, by shortcut and by clicking ‘forum’ if I first go to the home page…. works fine in IE!

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/winintro.htm#.T88qGcVXKZQ

If you’re not fixed on Nancroix or self-catering, we’ve been here several times and highly recommend it. Just down the valley with quick access to Les Arcs from the Villaroger side.

http://www.photosromantica.com/

guy I know whose work looks pretty good. also Solihull area.

http://www.marksdailyapple.com//welcome-to-marks-daily-apple/#axzz1o3VlEeCA

Try here.

I find I don’t have to be hungry but keep weight off and am as fit/strong as ever. Plus bacon and eggs for breakfast every day and lots of steaks isn’t a bad situation to be in!

yes.

probably more than 10% faster…

Another recommendation for the White Room here, we’ll be there end of July. Been there several times now and it’s never failed to be great.

Woody, still plenty of space on this off-piste course:

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/win_backcountry_weeks.htm

short notice though!

The Primal Blueprint Cookbook

sounds like it would suit your selection (and avoidance) of foods well.

camera with high frame rate, ideally on a tripod, but not essential, combine in photoshop and reveal the rider from each frame/layer.

some compacts can apparently do it automatically now…

My ABS is indeed pretty heavy, but comfortable once on. Haven’t had to use it so far and would prefer to keep it that way!

Have seen a fair bit of discussion that people are just treating them as a get out of jail free card to ride risky slopes/conditions. I read of at least one instance in France last season where a group of people wearing them got caught – some seemingly panicked and didn’t fire them anyway and were buried/killed…

(also had snow shoes in their bag inside without any apparent trouble)

and as an aside – don’t forget to check your insurance! I love France because for a few extra euros on your ski pass you have basic off-piste cover (afaik) no questions asked.

other policies have nice small print saying off piste at all isn’t covered, and some only with guide, max avalanche rating 3 etc….

I think Snow Card was one of the good ones if you’re in the UK.

Graham – the guides sound expensive, but even alone I would say it’s well worth it if you find a well recommended one. I’ve had some 1-to-1 with Alex Rippe in ST Foy and Nico Glize in Val, and I thought it was well worth it. If you can find a way to split the costs with mates or joining a group of people staying in the same chalet then the price obviously falls quickly. In some cases you also get shown routes that you can later do alone if you’re sure of the conditions.

To start learning I recommend:

Home

There was a series of videos which were pretty good for a small cost. I also got a couple of books about avalanche safety from outdoorsy shops.

By going out with guides I’ve got to practice with the transceivers and Stevo did a lesson/practice as part of the backcountry week with the White Room last year.

I figure that I’ll have to pay for guides etc up to a point that I really feel that I know enough, but frankly I suspect that unless you live in the mountains to get a feel for the conditions properly it’ll never really happen.

great site in general IMO, certainly working for me.

How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle

from what I’ve seen (i.e. not personal experience) it’s very hard to maintain any weight gained if you’re a naturally lean/smaller type. A point I would take away from the site above is that if you’re eating food that isn’t directly building your body, then you’ll probably not gain. A diet high in protein might help, and as I’m finding it doesn’t have to be that expensive, since pasta and grains (cereal) cost a lot anyway. Cutting them down and using the budget to get good but affordable meat like chicken thighs, stew meat could work.

I do think Stevo’s plan was to have two groups allowing differences in level/fitness (or ski vs board). I’m not sure how many are signed up at the mo though, what with the snow coming (seemingly) late and people maybe not booking things that rely so heavily on a decent bit of it.

If it snows right before the start of the week there may not be much need for hiking at all! (hopefully!)

Obviously I can’t assess your fitness over the internet Graham, so I’ll have to take your word for it.

Hard to know what the group is like this time round. Last year I did it at about 100kg before gear, although my fitness is always reasonable (lighter and fitter this year so looking forward to it!). One guy in the group was prob about 120 kg and with low fitness just coming back from injury. He did have a harder time of it on the longer hikes and by the end of the long descents.

The proper backcountry routes run into several km of ungroomed snow.

Most of the group was knackered by the end of the week and skipped the final afternoon. I’d cunningly spent the week before out there getting ‘acclimatised’ which helped a lot I think.

you could talk to Stevo at the White Room about doing part of the backcountry week coming up:

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/win_backcountry_weeks.htm

short notice now though, though there are places. I’ll be there and last year it was great despite lack of snow.

Make Your Own Primal Energy Bars in 10 Easy Steps

one option

or as i intend to try for myself, rice crispie bars made with coconut oil and a bit of honey

should be more than enough unless you’re starting from several days starvation

a sensible answer….

‘too much bike for you’ is used wrong IMO. ‘too much bike for the trails you mostly ride’ makes more sense to me.

a long travel full suss is loads of fun on rocky downhill singletrack in the alps, and can still be fun on flat woody terrain, but is more often a bit wallowy/sluggish if you’re only dealing with a few roots and have to accelerate constantly.

I’ve recently moved back to rigid for my local trails and just added a cx for fun, but will take the full suss in a heart beat for trails with some technical downhill.

http://www.whiteroomchalet.com/sum_alpine_first_timers_coaching_weeks.htm

highly recommended, my wife really enjoyed it (as did I obviously), and we intend to go back as long as they’ll have us.

coil swap on my u-turn sektors was basically easy. Don’t lose the little bearings under the u-turn adjuster if you have it, otherwise just big spanner and care not to cross threads. IIRC there was also a little circlip at the top of the u-turn assembly that made all the difference.

probably more of a dice with decent injury, but I guess anything could have happened –

riding in St Foy with stevomcd took a fairly innocuous tumble but found the one stretch of exposed mountain side on the trail to fall down. Saved by a nicely placed tree stump but the bike went for it. Spent half the evening abseiling down to retrieve it with stevo, for which I’m extremely grateful! (a nice bit of customer service if ever there was one). Fortunately I haven’t repeated the stunt on La Varda or similar, although I did fall through a snow bridge doing some back country snow boarding with stevo again St Foy…

little wasp nest from our shed. had to snatch it from under a single wasp working on it. probably the queen getting started I suppose.

[/url]
wasp nest 1[/url] by Geoff Warnock[/url], on Flickr

of your list there I can highly recommend the White Room. Been there several times now and will be going back as long as they’ll have me. St Foy is FAR from busy on the trails, and they’re great too.

done some spanish riding at the costa brava end of the pyrenees, but unguided/uplifted. Nice too, but the Alps are closer!

Just got a Decathlon Facet 3 full carbon job for under 1000 EUR, so you could even have some budget left over. I’m very pleased with it so far.

decathlon facet 3[/url]

probably a shame I’m a good bit closer to the build of a 100m runner than an 800 then!

I read an interesting article online about the effect of bodyweight on speed produced for a given power. Couldn’t get any serious background on the calcs, but it sounded like 10 kg cost 20% output at a given power uphill. bummer!

Thanks! I’ll mail you.

final q before I’ve gotta go for a while – only REAL way to find the bottleneck is testing I imagine, but maybe I can make some assumptions… having always played rugby, reasonably well, as a forward, and done a good bit of weight training for that, I might assume an OK anaerobic capacity. Therefore a focus on endurance and lower level training could be sensible?

Thanks LM – do you have any links to online lit? (might have access to some journals through work – uni, but not sport sci…)

I’m interested because I started training with the polar, which seems to help, combined with shifting some weight now that I’ve stopped rugby.

Doing the first hard mtb rides with it made me question the zones, since from the polar book one would assume you can’t stay in zone 3 long – first ride was 70 km xc (undulating, no long climbs) at about 20 kmph average with average HR of 162. FWIW I’m 30 so assumed max of 190 (which seems about right based on this sunday’s ride). i.e. basically 3 hrs in zone 3.

based on your info, hr 162 could pretty much be my ftp HR?

next obvious question really (sorry!) is whether more endurance training will raise the HR I can sustain, or prob better and more likely, raise the pace I can sustain at that hr of 162…?

good to get proper geeky on here for a change, since I’m a neuroscientist with a vested interest in being fit!