Werner van der Merwe is a highly experienced Marathon Mountain Biker and Stage Racer. La Ruta, The ABSA Cape Epic, BC Bike Race, Craft Bike TransAlp… these are but a few of his past ‘holidays’. In late June he was at the infamous Beskidy Trophy. Later this year he will be in the USA racing the Breck Epic.
Are you moving out?’ That was my girlfriend Nadene’s words when she saw the heap of stuff I was taking along on my Mega Avalanche trip. It included a Specialized Big Hit downhill bike, Merida TransMission 140mm all mountain bike and enough body armour to make Robocop jealous. I was sort of forced to get all the body armour by Nadene but was very thankful after crash one of countless five minutes into my first ride (I’m not a very good technical rider). Back up – what is Mega Avalanche? It is an endurance downhill/snow sliding mass start race organised by some crazy French in the Alps. The race sees groups of 350 riders start off at 3300m and descend down to 720m over snow, ice fields and sweet singletrack.
I jumped in the car early Saturday morning and found myself in the ski resort of Vaujany 13 hours later. The drive was mostly along motorways, so not that interesting. My only gripe is that there is no decent tea to be found at any of the service stations which only have vending machines serving tea and coffee. The view from my apartment’s balcony was truly beautiful with a waterfall on the one side and the valley dropping off on the other.
Sunday (day 1). This was a relatively relaxed start to the day as registration for the Avalanche Enduro only starts at 9:00. The Avalanche Enduro consists of 5 special timed stages with linking stages in between that have to be completed within a certain time. After registration I jump on the gondola and set off up the mountain to ride the route before the seeding run in the afternoon. I thought Nadene was overprotective when she forced me to get body armour. Well I’m clearly not a very good technical rider as I’m very thankful for all the padding 5 minutes into the ride when I come off in the rocks. The top part of the course is true outback riding on hikers’ paths and you basically first try and spot the little tallow flag in the distance and you then try and head towards it where you try and spot the next flag. At one point I find myself riding on a trail that has been cut into the side of the mountain and I’m sure they will never find you again if you fall off here. Little warning signs confirm my suspicion of death (French are not really big on health and safety so when you see a warming you better heed it). I come to realise that I’m afraid of heights or I just don’t have the balls to ride some of the trails next to a cliff. I get off and push my bike along wondering how my bike collection would be divided between my friends if I were to fall off here.
Towards the end of the route I find myself on the course for the seeding run which consists of fast descents between some rock walls. This is where I pick up my first flat for the week. Turns out it would be my first issue on this part of the course. Later in the afternoon we line up to do our seeding run. I’m number 27 so luckily the wait isn’t too long and next thing you find yourself being counted off for your start. My run goes ok and I’m down in under 4 minutes but I do manage to clip my handlebar on a post on the way. My pinky is squashed in the process but I manage to stay on the bike.
Monday (day 2) and the day starts off with a 45 minute wait on the gondola. French men are running around opening panels and getting on the roof but at last we are on our merry way up the mountain. I decide to take it easy after yesterday’s finger incident. The finger is now blue and sore but I’m thinking it is only a sprain so time to suck it up (Turned out that it wasn’t quite a sprain.) We do two special stages and we then take the gondola up two stations to the top where we do a long linking stage before getting to the 3rd special stage. The linking stage started off in much the same way as yesterday’s practice when I went over the handlebar into some rocks. Luckily I had enough padding on (thanks Nadene). The 3rd special stage is bit of a shambles as people don’t set off at their allotted times (I think some of the front guys were delayed by a slow gondola). In the end special 3 was nullified. 4th special is a fun fast open track and I catch my 30 second man. He passes me on some of the tight switchbacks (I really need to learn how to ride them properly) but goes down when he hits deep mud. Luckily I know about it from the previous day’s practice and make a detour around it.
Special 5 is my old friend. In practice I ripped a tyre and in the seeding run I smashed my finger. Well, today I feel the front tyre go in one of the corners and I thought I had ripped it again. I’m in a narrow fast downhill section lined by rock wall boundary fences and have no choice but to push the bike down the track to get out of the way of the guys coming down at crazy speeds. (At the top part of the run big rocks were strewn over the track and a skid mark ran straight into the side of the wall – somebody must have really overcooked it (ouch).) I get to the bottom of the section and it turns out that the tubeless tyre came off and after a C02 bomb I was back on my way but lost 4 minutes in the process. This is quite a lot if you consider that this whole run took me under 4 minutes in practice. Not too impressed with the results – 88th out of 97 finishers. Think I need to stick to XC or really get more aggressive at the technical riding
But wait, there’s more…. in the coming days.