Les Arcs bike park has a couple of good blues, the legendary black 8 and a couple of decent reds. Most of the waymarked enduro stuff is pretty meh. Chablatte is good in a hand-cut rootfest kind of way. The natural riding is rad, although generally on the steeper/techier end of things.

La Plagne has a small but really well-made bikepark which is loads of fun. The marked stuff outside the little bike park is pretty patchy. Again, superb natural (unmarked) riding, arguably better (certainly flowier) than Les Arcs with loads of options for near-2000m descents straight from the lifts to the valley. You definitely don’t have to pay for a trail map! (It’s on the website even!) It’s very possible to link all the areas with no or minimal pedalling, but local knowledge is key. The lift links are better than ever this year.

Riding from Jovet back to Bourg isn’t really a thing, although many ride to Moutiers and take the train. We generally get a van to pick us up ‘cos it seems a bit antisocial to take a big group on a train with 3 bike slots! I did pedal back myself the other day just for fitness. It’s 40km just by road (on an enduro bike!).

Loving the Juice Lubes Viking Juice. It’s actually a wax in a solvent, so it goes on super-runny, then the solvent evaporates off and leaves the chain clean and non-sticky, but with long-lasting wax where it matters.

That really, really looks like a scratch. The simple test is to sand the paint back. If it disappears, it’s a scratch. If it stays visible all the way down to the bare metal, it’s a crack.

I’m in my mid-forties. Any athletic talent I had was always in sprinting (I was a national finalist sprinter as a teenager and a decent rugby wing). Since then though, all my sport has been mostly endurance based (MTB and backcountry snowboarding).

I work as a guide both summer (bike) and winter (snowboard), so I’m on the hill a LOT but usually at a pace which is very comfortable for me. In winter 2021, I got probably as fit (and as light) as I’ve ever been when we went through “the winter with no lifts” and I did about 100 days of leg-powered snowboarding. I started to notice a problem though. I could go forever at a low-ish pace, but when I tried to sprint, there just seemed to be something missing. It wasn’t even that I felt too tired to sprint or whatever, there just seemed to be a door that wouldn’t open. This bothered me as sprinting had always been something I could rely on. Since then, I’ve tried to do something about it. I’ve noticed a big difference from doing hill sprints. With a new baby at home, I’ve recently just been squeezing in training sessions rather than long rides and I actually feel fitter than usual. When I get out for a longer (solo) ride, I will do intervals up the climbs rather than climb at a steady pace. I’ve definitely noticed an improvement from this, not just in sprinting but in the sustained pace that I can hold.

I’ve generally been doing 3x3x3x3 intervals (i.e. 3 sets of 3 x 3 minutes sprint, 3 minutes easy) as that’s what one of my colleagues suggested when he used us as guinea pigs for some coaching qualis, but I’ll sometimes just set the sprint length to suit whichever hill I have handy and do laps of it. I can beast up a steep hill out of my village then cruise a flat at the top and come down some nice singletrack for about a 4 minute climb, 4 minute easy loop and that works pretty well. Pop out once the baby’s sleeping and repeat ad (literally) nauseum or until it gets dark…

It’ll be flown by an operator. They’ve been making amazing use of this in the Natural Selection snowboard contests for a couple of years.

I did exactly this back in 2019. Had it reattached a few days later by specialist arm surgeons in France.

I had the standard method of reattaching it – screw with kevlar cord attached fixed into bone and cord woven/stitched into tendon to reattach. If done quickly, the tendon should reattach itself to the bone and not just be held by the screw.

I had really good results from mine. Surgery end of April. Riding my bike by end of June. Full-time Alpine guiding a couple of weeks later! It took a while before it felt as strong as the other arm / as strong as before. I remember having some issues trying to shift some furniture six months or so afterwards. All very solid now though, don’t notice it at all any more. I have a fairly impressive looking scar as I’m prone to keloid scars, but in most cases the scar should be almost invisible.

The surgery aftermath was much more painful than the injury. As you say, I was surprisingly pain-free and capable with the bicep tendon borked. Docs explained that, while the bicep gets all the glory, there’s actually a whole bunch of muscles in your upper arm that can do a lot of the same tasks. There are some specific movements that can only or largely be performed by the bicep. Rehab wasn’t too bad, essentially just increasing the range of motion steadily over a few weeks.

Docs advice was that at my age (40 at the time) they might consider not operating if I had a desk job as most people can manage OK without a bicep. However, since I’m a pro-athlete of sorts (I’m a snowboard and mountain bike guide, the French state considers me a pro athlete!) then I need a fully-functioning bicep and they would operate immediately. I was in surgery about 18 hours after seeing my GP!

There is a more invasive but slightly more bombproof version of the surgery where they drill a hole all the way through the bone, pull the tendon through it, then stitch a button (of sorts) into the end of the tendon so that it can’t pull back out. Once the bone closes around the tendon, it’s very solid but the tendon is obviously now very short, so more rehab is required to lengthen it.

PM me if you like!

EDIT: We’d just bought our mountain bike chalet at the time and were about to start a pretty intense renovation to get it ready in time for summer. We had to start with me working one-handed (left-handed!) and giving my wife a lot of “no dear, not like that” type directions. That went down about as well as you might imagine.

Get a Trafic instead. Half the price, roomier, won’t rust out from under you.

Has anyone managed to hire a 625 bosch ebike battery?

Can’t speak for Morzine / Samoens, but round here (Les Arcs) nobody rents ebike batteries. It’s just not a thing. It was something that got talked about when the issues of travelling with ebikes became apparent, but in reality it’s just not practical or financially worthwhile for shops. There are far too many different proprietary batteries / mounts.

In France, it’s almost always the car which is insured, not the driver. The opposite is actually pretty bonkers when you think about it.

Named drivers on the policy will typically have lower excess.

Check with your friends that this is the case. We’ve been in France 16 years and every policy we’ve ever had has covered the vehicle regardless of the driver. Us plus our staff get lower excess.

Got a Stage 4 as my out of season bike. I absolutely love it. It may be my favourite bike I’ve ever owned. It can get out of it’s depth in steep choss, but it’ll still get me down. I can’t think of a trail round here (Les Arcs!) that I wouldn’t happily take it down. Otherwise, I love the speed and the positivity of it. It just always wants to GO.

My favourite local ride here, the monstrous Bec Rouge. The climb is on singletrack all the way, although you do have to push at times. The descent goes from the summit of the mountain all the way to the valley floor and is top-drawer singletrack all the way. There is (at least, depending on your skills / cojones) one big rock step that you have to hop off for. One village and road to cross to extend the descent all the way to the valley.

Probably stretching your definition a little, as it’s best done with a drop-off as high as you can (still 1000m of climbing though!). Otherwise you’d have to ride some road or skip the final descent to complete the loop. Road goes past my house though.

Instagram photies

Don’t sweat it too much. 15 years of running bike holidays in the Alps, not had a client turn up with a damaged bike yet. Think worst ever is bent rotors when people don’t take them off the wheels.

The longer I live in Europe, the more gobsmacked I am that the concept of variable rate mortgages still exists.

Fixed at 1.5% for 20 years BTW…..

@thegeneralist – drop me a PM if you want a price based on a family room

The funicular in Bourg is definitely running this year. As above, longer season too.

Stevo (White Room MTB).

As above, local seasonnaire Facebook pages probably your best bet.

But don’t go to Morzine. If there is any French resort that is fully feeling the wrath of Climate Change, it’s Morzine.

BTW, STW Tournament #1 quietly finished recently! After a mere 2 and a bit years!

Epynt a worthy winner. Joint second for myself.

Missed the last tournament due to a combo of a busy winter season and the arrival of a new small human to our household. He isn’t showing much interest in chess, bikes or snowboards yet, but his time will come, I’m sure. Happy to get involved again now that season is over and I have plenty of opportunity of being awake in the wee, small hours!

I was running a course in Switzerland back in January. There was a weird-looking chess set lying around in our favourite apres pub and I ended up playing a couple of (real life! with a board!) games with it’s owner and got the story:

Quirky chess set 1

Quirky chess set 2

This guy was travelling in Africa in a camper van when covid hit. He got stuck somewhere isolated with very little to do. Another dude in the same situation played a bit of chess. So they made a set out of nuts and bolts they had lying around so that they could pass the time.

Fun games. I won both despite having consumed a significant amount of post-snowboard beer so all the online training must be paying off!

Just forge it. No-one at the race will care in the slightest.

France requires these for almost all sporting events. My (French) GP is very happy to do them, but does take it fairly seriously. He will call me in for a check-up if he hasn’t seen me for a year or so. He wrote me a prescription for a full cardio check-up last time (I haven’t got round to it yet!), not because I’ve got any issues, just because I’m getting on a bit and it’s time to get checked-out.

I’ll play. Stevo_mcd . Chairlifts may be an issue. Rainy chairlifts by the looks of things. I need to steal one if those giant ESF capes.

With you there! The prospect of 40 more years in the office outside Glasgow that I was working in 15 years ago is the main reason most of my work these days involves chairlifts!

I was at work on the chairlift if that helps! 🤣

I’m aware that sympathy is likely to be limited on this one but I made the mistake of glancing at the phone on the chairlift this afternoon and played 3 « straightforward » moves with a 100% blunder rate. I am well aware from previous bitter experience that chairlift play does not provide the required focus. Oh well. Occupational hazard I guess!

I had a weird glitch the other day as well. Looked like I had loads of time, then suddenly jumped forward a few hours. Think it actually put me into holiday mode in one game! I’m sure the updated time was correct, just app hadn’t update correctly for a while.

@crazy-legs – let’s just say I was very happy to accept that draw!

Downtime podcast did an extremely thorough episode on this precise subject. Included timed runs of the 3 versions of the bike in the hands of a pro, a coach and a weekend warrior.

If I remember rightly, 29er was fastest, mullet very close behind, 27er slowest by a reasonable margin. All(?) of the testers either thought the mullet felt faster or thought it was more fun, but the stopwatch said otherwise. Probably worth a listen if you can’t decide.

It’s surprisingly hard to deliberately do shit moves in chess

Ha, yeah, I just muck about being deliberately aggressive or setting up easy captures for him and half the time they work out better for me!

Let the AI make the poorly thought ahead stuff then play more normally together? give him chance to improve/practice separately as well as together??

A couple of “you probably don’t want to do that”s are fine IMHO but I think it’s more fun for both sides to just play and start with a few less pieces.

One thing that works quite well is handicapping. If you’re an experienced adult playing against a kid or a learner, then give yourself a handicap by starting the game without a piece or two. Works really well, means you can both play “for real” without having to hold back or deliberately make stupid moves.

I believe this used to be common in high-level chess, to allow “pro-am” type events, for gambling (can you beat a pro if he only gets one rook?) or just to even things out in a ratings mis-match.

Yup!

I’m in – stevo_mcd

Side note: Singletrack tournament #1 is STILL ongoing! Potentially (and probably ironically) could end up in a multi-way tie in the final round.

Game-wise, you into Kerbal Space Program? Playable one-handed for sure, especially given most of it is setup.

Launches might get exciting. And frustrating.

La Varda isn’t banned, but it’s generally best to avoid it at busy times. End of the day is the best time to ride it. It’s only been closed once. Not wishing to blow my own trumpet too much, but a colleague and I had a meeting with the mayor and got it sorted. Expect arguments with walkers along the top section. It IS legit, but don’t be an ar$e about it. It sure as hell isn’t a “bike trail”. And, again, go late in the day. It’ll be more fun for all involved.

Philstone – yup, that was me! I think I set her up with my friend Corinne a year or two later as well, when I wasn’t available. How’s she doing?

When the bar hits the steerer tube? Although I’m sure I’ve seen a bar with a dimple out of it for exactly that reason.

Pierre Blanches isn’t opening this year. 3rd year in a row. Think they’ve quit running it in summer. It actually had the bike carriers on it 2 years ago but didn’t open.

The trail in Phil’s link above is pretty gash. We do ride some of it on the way between lifts.

Also, to anyone riding the area, it’s pretty hard to access now anyway, but please ride White Lines very sparingly, if at all. At least ride it very late in the day, again, if at all. It’s very busy with walkers these days and now has signs up discouraging bikes. Lots of bikes on it is likely to lead to a ban. We only ride it out of lift season.

Getting over to Belle Plagne area from the Montchavin lifts is a bit of a schlep (perfectly doable though if you don’t mind a pedal). Probably easier to get the bus.

There’s only that 1030 shuttle from the Plan d’eau up to the top of La Plagne (well, there’s 1500 and 1730 as well….). Otherwise, funibus and Vanoise Express.

All the info is on the La Plagne website though!

They’re actually pretty easy to look after, much easier than a hot tub due to the much larger water volume and lower temperature.

You don’t ever empty the water, so water costs shouldn’t be high (especially in the UK!).

Ours gets shut down over the winter. When peeling the cover off in the Spring, it generally resembles Darwin’s “warm, little pond” from which the first life may have developed. Couple of days of filtering, algae and chlorine treatment and it’s sparkling again.

Ours is currently heated by burning dinosaurs, which is utterly ludicrous. We are planning to move to either a dedicated ASHP (about €1k) or moving the whole chalet over to a GSHP.

It’s all the amalgamator pages that do my nut in. Every post I do, I get at least 3 comments saying “Send to -> @CyCl1ing_iz_Gr00vy ! ” or similar.

Get your own **** content, **** grifters!

Yes, this is doable. Might require a VPN. I’ve occasionally used my Dad’s Skygo account to watch Scotland games which there just isn’t a legit way to watch in France!

Long day teaching snowboarding in atrocious conditions (snowing hard with very, very wet snow). Get back to van in the dark, ready for a treacherous drive down the hill and home. Wearily toss board and backpack into the back of the van. Step away for a pee behind a tree. Discover that van has automagically re-locked the doors (since I’ve only opened the boot, not a door). Reach for keys to unlock. They’re in my backpack.

Dynamo hub so you can recharge it as you ride.

Honestly – if you gave your NHS record control to Facebook it would be smart and seamless. Yeah, they’d harvest your data and organs, but it’s be smoooth..

If often wondered why we don’t take a Facebook-style approach to such things. With the correct access rights / authorisation levels, the whole thing would be very similar to Facebook / social media. You have a “wall” with current issues, etc. “notes” with older issues, “photos” with x-rays, test-results, etc. Anyone can log in from anywhere and can see whatever their autorisation level allows them to see.

Other things could be on the same platform (e.g. credit rating), again with appropriate access levels for appropriate users.

Missed your original post TJ, gutted for you and hope you’re doing alright. If you’re passing through the Alps on your way south, hit us up for any help / advice we can offer. Your brake pads will only last one day though.

Mono Minis should be OK as long as you don’t expect too much. Original minis had heat problems for sure. Given the choice, I’d go for the Formulas. The RX were pretty good.

If you go with the minis, fit big rotors and organic pads to minimise heat.