Fanylion Mountain Bike Team
Official site of the Fanylion Mountain Bike Team. Includes mountain bike ride guides, gear reviews, bike maintenance, team reports and rider profiles of the Fanylion Racing Team.
Morzine
June 10, 2005, French Alps
Team FanyLion headed to France for our annual pre-season (pre-season for Morzine as the chairlifts have just opened but not pre-season for us: we ride all year round!) downhill training camp with Ride the Alps.
Arriving on Thursday night and booking into the truly beautiful Lou Bouchons chalet we awoke early Friday, built our bikes (no mishaps courtesy of easyJet) and did a couple of descents of Le Pleney.
However with no chairlifts, just a single gondola, this was slow progress and we soon headed off to the next valley for some XC riding.
One very tough fire road climb had us all breathing heavily in the hot sunshine but the following leafy gully descent was more than worth it.
The climb to Col de Coux was without a doubt one of the toughest of my MTB career and all riders were forced off their bikes at some point to carry, push and stumble their way ever upwards, but views back down the valley and an ultra rocky fireroad descent back into Morzine was recompense enough.
Friday evening saw us eating out in Morzine, tucking into superb pizzas and tartiflets, with Techno and Cliff Diver having meat and cheese overload with a huge Raclette. Plenty of beer and wine flowed and would make getting up next day difficult.
Saturday greeted us with yet more beautiful clear skies and hot sunshine as we used the now fully functioning cable cars and raped and pillaged Le Pleney until we were in the groove and riding it like pros. After lunch we headed over to Les Gets via Oxygen Alley and headed up past the Kona bike launch to check out the new Bike Parc. And oh my God, what a place.
The first obstacle was a wooden ramp leading onto the roof of a hut, then an 8ft vertical drop onto a 60deg landing slope straight into a loose bermed corner.
Total drop by the time your bike hit terra firma would be almost 12feet and the French and Italian downhillers were nailing it on their huge bikes and making us feel very puny indeed.
Even the chicken run small ramp at the side looked much bigger than its actual 2-3ft and only Kona, Potts, Hog and guide Neil took this tiddler on, the rest of the Lions skulking around looking at their shoes. Meanwhile big Jamie Carr sets up at the top of the launch ramp without even looking at the hut drop, stating that if he looked over the edge he would only get scared and it was safer to ride it blind!!!! He then rode off it, landed it and fishtailed his way to a stop on the berm: amazing!!!
We spent a while making ourselves look crap on the jumps, tabletops and berms of the bike park whilst downhillers launched off stuff and generally made us feel very queer, then we headed downhill. Whilst off-piste on a lower section of the mountain the trail steepened considerably and Ra and 10 Ton Kona were riding like Kings, showing the rest of us how to do it.
Pottsy was having a bad day and joined us at the foot of one section looking bruised and battered and with his bike seat broken. Later inspection would reveal he had popped all the welds on his seat tower and his Tomac Elie was dead. Ouch.
The Rooty Gully was next on the agenda and all riders loved the rooty, rocky, technical gully so much that we did it again staright away, and whilst Jamie fixed his 5th puncture of the day new rider Ross saw fit to stack it on an inoccuous section of the trail and break his arm. A bad ending to a great day.
Jamie took Ross off to A&E whilst Neil guided us back to Morzine where we hit Le Planey a couple more times before watching Lance Armstrong finish 7th in the mountain stage of the Dauphene Libere, then we headed back to the chalet to help Chris celebrate his 40th birthday with a brilliant BBQ with beer, wine and gorgeous food to boot. We retired to bed with full stomachs and woozy heads, hoping that our new buddy Ross was comfortable in his hospital bed.
Sunday was still hot and sunny and we set off again to Le Pleney, with Jamie resplendent on his new Patriot and decked out in full face helmet and body armour, declaring firmly he was not a downhiller but that he was going to have some fun today on the Hut. After a sketchy descent of Le Planey I decided that today wasn’t going well for me: I was suffering a good amount of pain in my thumb from a previous crash in the month and I was not on my game and a World Championship downhill course is no place for someone who is not riding well, so I called it a day early and headed back to the chalet for a gentle afternoon with the Wife.
Unfortunately I missed the return to the Bike Parc, where Jamie nailed the Hut huck at least four more times. Pottsy on his Scot Nitrous hire bike had swollen balls of steel and nailed it also, though apparently it took him 30mins of looking at it to decide to do it. Neil the guide was not to be outdone and showed his skills by landing the beast also. All other riders nailed the small ramp and Team FanyLion had once again pushed the envelope. Pottsy assured me that if I had been there I would have done the Hut, but I’m not sure….
High Tea back at the chalet, bikes packed, the return of Ross with two titanium pins in his arm (I give you, Team Twin Pin), and we were heading off to Geneva airport, battered and bruised, bu having had another suiperb weekend with Jamie Carr, Chris and Ally Hodgson at Lou Bouchons, and we had indeed Ridden the Alps.
Hog, out.
Riders present
Hog
Shack
Mastiles
Downhill Maniac
Cliff Diver
Techno
Ra
10 Ton Kona
Significant others
Ross Borthwick
Enjoyment level
Alpine