The Best Job in the World!

Crikey…it’s been ages since I wrote a blog, or even had time to sit down and think about writing! The summer guiding season has been in full swing here, and whilst I know a large proportion of my friends and family probably think my job is just a bit of bike riding followed by lots of time sitting round in the sun, I can promise you it’s not!

Since the start of June it’s been all go, with no days off. Trans-Provence guided weeks, straight into a whistle-stop trip up to the Northern Alps for a recon trip, and then straight into the start of the new “Enduro fusion trip”. Today I'm on my way up to guide a Morzine to Alpe d’Huez trip, followed by my sole week off this summer, and then back into more EFT guiding!

Crazy trails on the Morzine to Alpe d' Huez trip! (Photo: Ben Jones)

A day in my life whilst in TP guiding mode goes something like this…

Up at 6 -6.30a.m, pack bags and start loading into the van and putting bikes onto the trailer. Wolf down a quick breakfast, check guests have got all they need for the day and returned hotel keys etc, drive guests up to drop-off point. Either guide all morning, or drive the van round to the meet up point (usually a couple of hours drive) stopping on the way to buy food for a buffet-style lunch, then set up ready for guests to arrive. Either guide all afternoon, or drive the van on shuttles, and eventually to hotel. Unload bags, sort out room allocations, help guests with bike mechanical issues, quick shower, eat dinner, brief guests on the following day, collapse into bed usually about 10.30-11pm, sleep deeply, wake up and repeat…. Throw in a couple of 4.30am get-ups on a Saturday for airport transfers as well and it’s no surprise I have little problem sleeping during the summer! There’s usually about an hour to grab a coffee on a Saturday at the airport between dropping one group of guests off and picking up the next, but that is literally the only time to “chill” all week.

Above Tende with the first group of EFT guests

Despite all this, I have no complaints and I honestly believe that I have the best job in the World. The long and busy days, constant fatigue, responsibility for safety and wellbeing of guests, necessity to be cheerful and chatty and fun every minute of the day, and lack of any time to yourself….they’re nothing compared to having to sit inside an office all day and count down the hours until home-time!

It's not always sunny but it's always fun on TP weeks!

This year’s TP trips passed by in a flash. Good guests, fun trails, no major injuries….

Unfortunately I had a slight disagreement with a barely visible, thin metal fence post at the side of the trail, that I managed to clip on a descent with my little finger. One minute I was cruising down the trail, the next I was stopped dead, wincing with the most intense pain in my finger and hand wondering what had suddenly happened. I hadn’t seen it at all. Fortunately it was at the end of the day and near the bottom of the last trail, so I was able to roll down to the van before the pain became too much to hold on. Convincing myself I’d just sprained the ligaments between the bones in my hand, I dosed myself up with strong anti-inflammatories, taped it up, grabbed ice-packs for it whenever I could, and carried on guiding the rest of the week. When 2 weeks later, it was looking no better, and as soon as I stopped taking strong painkillers I was in agony, I began to think that it might be broken. The problem is, finding somewhere to get an x-ray in rural France when you’re in a different village each night and the days are so busy and full is pretty much impossible. It wasn’t bad enough to warrant not working, so I chose the “ignore it and it’ll go away approach”. Anyway, four weeks on, I can ride without taping it or taking painkillers, and have near-enough full movement…but as the swelling as gone down, I still have enough residual physio palpation skills to know exactly what an x-ray would show me…

Enduro Fusion Tour guests on the hike up to Big Dog Zone

Anyway, I decided to make this summer even more busy for myself by taking on a couple of weeks extra work for Ben, a guy who was working for Ash on the TP last summer, who has now set up his own company running similar style adventure biking trips in the Northern Alps (www.benjonesmtb.com) So in between the TP guided weeks finishing, and the EFT starting, I dragged myself out of bed at the start of my “week off” at 4am to go and catch a flight up to Geneva to help Ben and Chris do some final trail-reconnaissance for the MAD (Morzine-Alpe d’Huez) trip I’d be guiding in August. By early afternoon, I was out on the hills of the Haute Savoie, riding with Ben and Rich. Well, riding may not be the correct word…I was actually fighting my way through a section of jungle (to call it a trail would just be lying) in the pouring rain, wondering why I’d left behind the sunny south, and thinking that this didn’t really resemble the “ribbons of endless singletrack through Alpine meadows” that Ben had used to tempt me into coming along…!

Rich carrying up a section that even HE couldn't ride!

Ben and Chris in full trail-scouting mode

We eventually battled our way out, decided that trail was not a “keeper” for the trip, and went in search of better things. We found them thankfully, and despite Rich and Ben insisting on throwing themselves off their bikes on steep wet slippery hillsides, we managed to roll down just before it got dark, to a van full of dry kit, pizza, and whiskey!

The rest of the week was great. Long days out exploring new trails in incredible places. A LOT of walking, pushing and carrying, but also some of the most mind-blowingly good riding I’ve ever done. And also some of the most insane! Rich kept us entertained with his insistence on trying to ride absolutely everything, even when there was no way it could end well, and Chris‘s demonic grin when he noticed there was a trail marked on the map descending a sheer vertical  cliff that we could ride is still giving me nightmares.

We did find those ribbons of singletrack that Ben promised in the end! (Photo: Ben Jones)

Lots of them!

On the second day of the trip, it was the 13^th July, Gareth’s birthday….And we ended up on a suitably epic adventure that Gareth himself would have been proud of. Never before have I had to kick steps into and up a near vertical mud slope, whilst trying to lift a bike above me, to get out of a totally impenetrable forest. Not just a few trees to walk around and over and under, I mean fully impenetrable….even just walking through without a bike would have been virtually impossible. It took probably an hour to cover a few hundred meters! We had some of the gnarliest rocky trails I’ve ever taken a bike on, via ferrata down the side of a waterfall (quite scary when carrying a bike), steep narrow trails that were overgrown and hiding slippery sniper rocks to throw you off at any second, and to finish, a super exposed section along a cliff edge on which Rich discovered that the sticky rubber on Five10 shoes doesn’t help you grip on wet clay….. It wasn’t the best day’s riding I’ve ever had and we won’t be using most of the trails on the trip, but it was certainly an adventure I won’t forget for a long time, and it was  fitting that it was on a day when I was thinking of Gareth a lot, just his kind of epic adventure! 

Chris and I on an incredible long, flowing descent above La Grave (Photo: Ben Jones)

The second half of the week saw us riding unbelievably good trails with stunning backdrops of snow-covered mountains and glaciers, and I can’t wait to guide the full trip this week!

Ben shredding down a sublime section of high Alpine singletrack

It was straight back to Nice at the end of that week for the first Enduro Fusion Tour trip. For these trips we’re based in one hotel, riding the dozens of trails in the surrounding area. There is less climbing than on a TransProvence trip and more use of the van to shuttle up for long descents. Of course there’s still a bit of pushing and carrying to get to the very best trails, and the descents are long and technical and physically demanding, but a LOT of fun :)

Ash dropping in at the top of another great descent at the top end of the Roya Valley

For me it’s really nice to be in one place. I have my own Scandinavian style little log cabin up above the Auberge where the guests stay. It’s my own space, peaceful and quiet, and gives me chance to feel like I’ve got a break from work as I’m not there with the guests in the same hotel  and feeling like I’m working 24 hours a day.

Sarah and Alan riding up past the old military buildings on the Col de Tende during an EFT week

The Auberge, and my cabin, sit alone, high on a Col above the towns of Sospel and Breil sur Roya and so there is very little light or noise at night. Every night, I walk back up after dinner, gazing up at the millions of stars, with dozens of fireflies lighting the way, and the distant view of the silhouettes of mountains all around. It’s very “me”. Quiet, beautiful, and a place to make me stop and appreciate how lucky I am to be there. I wake up each morning as daylight breaks through the chalet windows, and the early morning light and mist in the valleys below gives the surrounding mountains a magical feel.

View from my front door!

There are moments this summer, for the first time since I lost Gareth, when I haven’t felt the same kind of loneliness that I have until now. I’m so busy and surrounded by people all the time that there isn’t a lot of time to feel “alone” in the same way that I did before. Maybe it’s the quiet, beautiful place I come back to each evening, and the time I have to sit and think whilst gazing at the incredible view from my front door, but I feel like he’s close by all the time, and that gives me a sense of peace and an inner strength and self-confidence in myself again that has taken a long time to find since I lost him. There are many many times when I long for his companionship, to be there on those quiet evenings, just in each other’s presence, sharing the view and the chance to be in such a special place together, and to feel that security and  feeling of being safe and protected that I had from him. I guess that’s something I didn’t even realise I felt until it was gone. But there are times now, even if I’m feeling alone and missing him, that I know he is somewhere close, that he is part of me, he’s everywhere I go and in everything I do, and that gives me the strength and courage to know that I can continue to keep slowly building this new life I’ve been making for myself. When I have moments where I’m doubting myself and anxious about what the future will bring, even though he’s physically not there, I know I will always feel his love and support encouraging me on…

Looking out over the mountains above La Grave

My beautiful Juliana Roubion is standing up well to everything I can throw at it, and is a complete joy to ride every day. I’m riding more difficult trails and sections of trail than I would have felt comfortable on last year, and riding them smoother and faster thanks to how confidence-inspiring the bike feels. I feel very lucky to have the support of such a great company behind me, and hope that as an Ambassador for Juliana Bicycles, through the guiding and racing I’m doing and the people I meet, that I can inspire other girls and women to get out and ride and have more adventures on their bikes, especially now companies like Santa Cruz/Juliana are recognising there are a lot of female shredders who want awesome bikes, and producing them for us! I’m proud and very excited to have my own little profile page on the new Juliana Bicycles website…check it out here! (http://www.julianabicycles.com/en/uk/rider/julia-hobson)

My Roubion and Chris atop another Col during our recce week

The invisiframe that Lee put on my bike when I first got it has also been Amazing, and despite 6 months of constant daily abuse on rough terrain, numerous big crashes and rock hits, loading on and off various trailers, and a few flights, it has protected the frame so well that it looks almost as shiny and new as when I first got it! I will definitely be using it on any bikes I ever have in the future, and can’t recommend it highly enough, especially to anyone with a bling carbon frame! (www.invisiframe.co.uk)

Well, that’s all until the next chance I find to write! Ciao for now !

L' Ete en France

It’s been a non-stop few weeks since I started work back in France, and this is the first time I’ve actually had a day to stop and even open up the computer to start typing!

Old ruins, springtime flowers, and one of my favourite Trans-Provence trails

First up was a Press week for Juliana Bicycles ahead of the launch of the Roubion, the bike I’ve been riding since Chile. Female journalists from around the world, Juliana brand manager Katie Zaffke, Ambassadors Anka Martin, Kathy Pruitt and myself, as well as Photographers Sven Martin and Gary Perkin, and of course Mr Trans Provence, Ash Smith who organised the week, all gathered near Roubion for a few days of riding the beautiful new bikes, on classic Trans Provence terrain. J

Kathy, me and Anka with some very pretty bikes ;) Photo: Sven Martin

These bikes can even tow chariots don't ya know?! Photo: Gary Perkin

Anka, Kathy and I shredding Grey Earth gullies Photo: Sven Martin

Riding above Roubion Photo: Sven Martin

Beautiful new Roubions on an alpine hillside

It was a fantastic week of shredding the trails with a great bunch of girls. Awesome riding, delicious food in lovely hotels, lots of red wine fuelled games during the evening, and a good time had by all. The week captured a little glimpse of what the spirit of the Juliana brand is all about. Encouraging fun adventures on great bikes in incredible places, with awesome people. I think everyone went away with the same impression I’ve had of the bike…that it is totally rad and such good fun to ride.

Roubion Bike Park

Of course there was always going to be one of the days during that week that felt harder than the others. Thursday May the 22^nd, what would have been mine and Gareth’s 4^th Wedding Anniversary. I felt pretty close to tears at the slightest thing all day if I’m honest, but somehow kept busy enough to hold them at bay for most of the day, guiding the group down the trails into Roubion village, chatting to everyone about bikes and the good food we enjoyed in the restaurant, amongst other things.

Riding down into Roubion on my Roubion!

As places to spend a wedding anniversary go, it was beautiful, but without Gareth, it could only feel empty and remind me of how much I missed him and wished he was there with me. In the afternoon, a huuuuge storm erupted above us, thunder and lightning echoing around as we rode down an increasingly slippery trail, with rain falling so heavily we were drenched completely. It was one of those times where if the rain had been like that when you set off, you would never have gone out, but once in it, the ridiculousness of how heavy it was had us all giggling with how crazy it was to be out in such weather. On reaching the bottom we learned that there’d been a landslide that had blocked the road, meaning the second group had had to turn back before even getting to the start of the trail, and we had a long diversion via another road to get back to the hotel. The day had turned into the kind of adventure that Gareth would definitely have approved of, and I couldn’t help but be cheered by that thought. Still, it felt very strange to be having fun but not in the way I ever would have expected, and without Gareth, the only other person to whom that day was so significant.

Photos of an amazingly happy day...

At the end of the Juliana week, it was straight into two weeks TP guiding. The first was definitely a shock to the system, as I did all the guiding that week due to Mary the other guide being new and never having ridden the trails. Thankfully, despite feeling quite unfit, my level of fitness was high enough that I at least was suffering less than the guests, and could still remain full of encouragement and cheerfulness when they needed a bit of motivation! J It has been so good to be back on these trails, I never get tired of them, and despite the job being physically exhausting, there is never really a bad day. When your office looks as amazing as this how could there be?! The last few weeks have just reminded me that I do indeed have the best job in the World.

Fernando from Columbia enjoying "Wild Wednesday" on the Trans-Provence guided week

We were unlucky enough to get drenched in thunderstorms every afternoon during the week, and one morning took twice as long as usual due to the large amount of snow we had to carry our bikes across, kicking steps across steep snow fields. It definitely felt more like mountaineering than riding! All part of the adventure though and the guests loved it.

Lenny from Singapore negotiating one of many snowfields en route!

The second week the sun shone brightly for us and the snow had almost all melted on the trails. I could feel my bike fitness coming back, and it was great that on my new bike I felt I could ride more smoothly and confidently through sections I’d found tricky last year.

In guiding mode high above the Vesubie valley

Straight after finishing the first 3 weeks of work, I headed to Roubion (with my Juliana Roubion!) to race in an enduro. There were a few faces I knew from guiding and other races and also some of the Roubion bike park staff who’d helped out at the Juliana week. Lots of people commented, “Oh you’re riding a Roubion!” which was awesome. This tiny village and the people in it are super proud that a bike is named after the special place they live…it felt great to take my bike to race there.

It was, like most French races, a crazy but brilliant affair. Three special stages, groups of 10 starting together, no pre-practice, a chairlift ride and short pushes for liasons, and straight into some hard riding!

The first stage was the longest, hardest stage I’ve ever done in an enduro race! It started with a steep uphill grass slope to spread us out. I pushed hard, knowing I needed to be near the front going into the singletrack as there would be few places to pass people, and managed to settle in behind the back wheel of Nadine Sapin (3 time winner of the TransVesubienne, uber-fit, seems to float effortlessly uphills…). We were quite a bit ahead of the other girls as we headed down into some swoopy grassy turns, before the trail narrowed to tight singletrack. Despite shouting, Nadine would not let me past, and it was too narrow to try and overtake, which unfortunately meant we were moving slower than I wanted to. She would gain a few metres on me on the climbs, before I gained them back on the descents. As the trail got steeper and more technical I began to get frustrated at not being able to go faster, got too close behind her as she stalled in the bottom of a compression, and then having lost all my speed, had to get off and run up the short climb. By now another girl Mary had caught us up, and as I was getting back on she came past me, then promptly crashed in front of me, blocking the whole trail! We lost sight of Nadine at that point, and yet again I found myself stuck behind someone I wanted to ride faster than who wouldn’t let me past! I was missing the normal style of Enduro races where everyone starts separately at minute intervals!  

I finally overtook her on a long climbing section, my heart pounding and lungs burning with the effort, trying to make up some of the ground we’d lost on Nadine. By this point we’d been going for 15 minutes, and I was so tired that I missed a tight corner and rode straight on into a field! In the time it took to get back up, Mary passed me, then crashed again on the next corner! I tried to take a very steep tight inside line on the switchback to ride past her, but it didn’t work and I crashed hard, landing heavily on my hip and shoulder. I was so far into race mode though that it didn’t really hurt, at least not at that moment!

Unfortunately I was stuck behind Mary the rest of the way down, with nowhere to pass and me not feeling assertive enough to try and overtake in case I just crashed in doing so again. As we neared the bottom of the gorge we had been riding along the side of, Nadine was in sight, but then the last section was a slippery, slime covered wooden plank across a stream that you had to carry your bike over so the gap between us opened up a bit. In the end Nadine was 18 seconds ahead of Mary, and I was 6 seconds behind her, after 39 minutes of racing!! My hands were hurting from braking so much on the steep descent, my brain was frazzled from the concentration required to negotiate the steep technical, loose switchbacks, and stay focused on the narrow trail where a sheer drop of several hundred metres down to the ravine below lurked, and I couldn’t talk I was so exhausted….all I could do was collapse on the ground beside my bike whilst I tried to recover…It was an amazing, scary and super hard trail to race down!

From there we were shuttled up in a coach to the base of the chairlift again, before taking this and then another short push to the start of the next stage. I sat in the sun with a beautiful view over alpine meadows to the snow covered mountains in the distance, talking in French to some of the other girls, and trying to relax before it was time to switch into race-mode again. It was peaceful, calm and very hot, and to be honest I could quite happily have just forgotten about racing for the rest of the day and stayed up there for a snooze!

The news began to filter through that someone had fallen on stage 1 and we were going to be a bit delayed, and shortly afterwards a helicopter flew over in the direction of where stage 1 had been….never a good sign.  In the end we waited for 3 hours, lying in the sun, enjoying the view, and feeling less and less like racing again, but as stage 3 was now cancelled, it was going to be all or nothing on stage 2.

This time it was flat from the start, then into wide open grassy turns down across a big field before entering the tight twisty singletrack. I’m not great at powering off the line, and with no hill to slow the others down this time I was worried I was going to get stuck at the back and frustrated again. However, I managed to get into 3^rd place going into the first corner, then took a tight inside line on the next two, overtaking until I was in the lead. Once there I sprinted hard down the open grassy slope, pedalling like mad, and a quick glance behind showed I’d opened up a gap, exactly where I wanted to be so I wasn’t stuck behind anyone in the switchbacks. I got to the first switchback to the left and tried to put in a pedal stroke to get my right foot down for the turn…but the pedals wouldn’t turn. To my absolute dismay I looked down and saw the chain had come off and was twisted into a huge mess…presumably on the last bumpy section before the corner…merde. I decided I had to keep going as everyone would catch me if I stopped to fix it, and started praying it was downhill all the way. Two switchbacks later I was down….having to keep my feet flat in the same position meant on tight left corners my inside foot and pedal was hitting the inside corner and knocking me over, and they were such tight turns that taking a wider line wasn’t an option. Mary and Nadine came past me and there was nothing I could do…and then near the bottom there was a flat rubbly section that you needed to pedal through, great. I got off and ran, soon being passed by another girl, and ended up running for the last 3-4 minutes which was flat and uphill across the line. It’s the only time I’ve ever had a mechanical in a race so I guess my luck had to change sometime, and I’d been convinced it was impossible to drop a chain with an XX1 drivetrain…so I suppose it taught me a valuable lesson.  It meant I’d stay in third overall which I was a bit gutted about after it had been going so well at the top and I’d got myself into the best possible position to do well.

Still, it was only a race, and I’d entered it for a bit of fun, to meet people, ride great trails, and share the race atmosphere, and those boxes had definitely all been ticked! It was a great feeling to be on the podium, where I received a big basket of fruit and local foods, and experienced the scariest bit of the whole day, when I was interviewed on the podium in French! I managed to say something which I think made sense, at least everyone clapped politely anyway and liked my accent!

Big smiles after a fun day on the bike

It’s hard to imagine anyone could not have had a good day when mine had seemed so happy and fun, but on Monday morning, when checking the results and split times online, some incredibly sad news came through. The racer who had fallen on stage 1 had died of his injuries the previous evening in hospital. Suddenly the bright sunny day that we’d had seemed very different. The trails that we raced on were steep, technical and dangerous, with plenty of sections where a crash could see you falling into the canyon below…that’s part of racing and what made them so exciting and exhilarating, but in this case, that appears to be what happened, with tragic consequences.

The very nature of accidents is that they are unpredictable and unexpected, there is no way the rider or his family or friends could have known when they awoke that sunny morning, that life was going to change in a way they could never have imagined…That's what makes them so hard to understand.  The sad news inevitably brought back memories that are seared into my mind forever.

I felt deflated and sad all that day. I cried a lot. For Gareth, and for Christophe, the rider who died in the race, and his family. Remembering the terror and fear I experienced on the day of Gareth’s accident, hoping and praying that he would be ok, and knowing what Christophe’s  family and loved ones would have been feeling as they watched their son being taken to hospital in the helicopter. The long anxious hours of waiting, the uncertainty, the helplessness you feel at being unable to do anything, the disbelief that what has started out as a day like any other, could have turned into a day you hoped you would never have to experience. The feeling that time has been suspended and you’ve been removed from the real world, caring only what happens to the person you love, the sensation that what is happening isn’t real. I can imagine what that family are feeling now, and know that there are no words that will take away their pain or console them. Life has changed forever for them.

Time does not heal as so many people tell you. It doesn’t make things easier or take away the pain, it simply gives you chance to slowly learn how to manage it. It will always be part of you, you just have to figure out how to live with it, and try to use it in a way that is positive, that honours the memory of the person you have lost....I'm still figuring that out, and I hope in time the family of Christophe can come to do that, but there are sure to be many hard months ahead, and my thoughts go out to them. As for Christophe, I hope, like Gareth, that he is riding free somewhere, on an endless ribbon of amazing singletrack, through the most staggering scenery it’s possible to imagine…

This week I’m taking a break from the bike, it’s had some much needed attention given to it in the form of fork and shock servicing and brake bleeding, and is taking a little rest before the next guiding stint starts! In the meantime, my Mum and Dad are here visiting, and it’s been really lovely to show them some of the places I’ve been talking about since I first started working here last spring. Despite spending lots of time in Winter in the Alps, due to work on the farm being too busy in the summer, this is the first time they’ve been able to come walking in the alps in the summer, and it hasn’t taken them long to see why I love it here so much...

Among the Alpine flowers by Lac des Millefonds

Group selfie high above Valdeblore

Dad enjoying the view above the Tinee valley

It’s been really nice for me too, to get up a bit higher than we do on the Trans Provence route, and walk some new trails with different views. You notice different things when you are walking than on the bike too, and as my mum absolutely adores the alpine flowers which are covering the meadows like blankets at this time of year, I’ve noticed them more than ever and even learnt a few of their names thanks to her too. So far we've avoided the afternoon thunderstorms each day, managing to finish just before they start...fingers crossed we stay as lucky the rest of the week! But if not it'll all be part of the adventure ;) Ciao for now!

Uh oh...storm on it's way!

Racing in France in the Bluegrass Enduro Tour

Ever since getting back from Chile, I’ve been feeling really motivated for racing. I guess I can’t deny that I’m a quietly competitive person, always have been…from being determined to be Primary school sports day champion, wanting to play in every school team, swimming competitively until I was 18, taking up adventure racing, and more recently all sorts of bike races. And even though I only dabble in races every now and then, when I find a good one, it reminds me what I love about it.

It’s not just the feeling of pushing yourself as hard as you can, it’s the whole atmosphere, from the pre-race nerves, start-line anxieties and worries that everyone is better and faster than you, the thrill of racing at your limit, the relief at finishing, the post-race adrenalin-fuelled chatter and friendships made while struggling up a hill together, or celebrating with fellow competitors at surviving another stage, or in the queue for the bike wash or tea van. It’s the satisfying feeling of exhaustion at the end of the day, and the sense of achievement no matter whether you’ve won or just finished, and many more things as well. I don’t think it matters what level you race at, those elements are still present, and what make racing special and different from just going out for a leisurely ride with friends.

When you throw in the fact that you are racing blind, ie on tracks you’ve never ridden before, then those start line emotions are quadrupled as you wait nervously for your turn, with no idea whether you’ll be able to ride what’s ahead, and the relief at surviving each stage is enormous.  There’s an even greater sense of camaraderie through the shared experience, the tougher the race, the more you feel a bond with your fellow competitors! For me as well, it’s good to race every so often, as when you work as a guide, yes you ride a lot, but you get used to riding well within your comfort zone and never pushing yourself…you have a responsibility for looking after a group of guests and can’t afford to be the one falling off all the time! You can then get pretty stuck at only riding at guiding speed so doing a race every once in a while reminds you what the thrill of riding at your limit feels like! However, I was a little bit conscious of the fact that I was about to start a summer of guiding, and falling off and hurting myself in a race before the season even started would not be good! Then again, those kind of injuries can happen anytime you’re out riding, not just in races, so there’s no point not racing for fear of what could happen!

I’d raced up in Scotland in the first round of the Scottish enduro series the weekend I got back from Chile, and whilst it was a fun weekend riding with friends in the rain, it just felt like a bit of an anticlimax after Chile. Now don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Scotland and the riding there, and No-Fuss are one of the best events organisers out there, but the race just didn’t get me excited. I know everyone has a different idea of what “Enduro racing” is, but I realised that weekend that events at Trail Centres aren’t mine! So I decided to look for some events that sounded a bit different. Which was when I came across the Bluegrass Enduro Tour. A series of events around Europe that are one day, blind racing Enduro events. A quick look at some videos from previous events, and I was sold on giving one a go.

It just so happened that there was an event in the Alsace region of France, at a place called Rombach-le-franc, in the week before I needed to be down in the South of France to start guiding for the summer again. Perfect! I knew nothing about the area, but had heard good things from people I knew who’d raced there before, and as much as anything, one of the great things about racing is the new places it takes you and the new people you meet. The race looked much more like what I’d been searching for, 5 special stages of varied riding, linked by some tough climbs on the liaisons, testing fitness, nerve, and skill. Plus, in my experience, races in France are crazy….there are no sanitized trails, they will happily send thousands of competitors down steep mountainsides on tiny goat tracks that would never be included in UK races for health and safety reasons!

Now I didn’t have the best start to the race, as 2 days before, I spent the night on the bathroom floor with the worst stomach bug I’ve had since being in Morrocco…not nice. Fortunately after starving myself, and sleeping 14 hours on the ferry to Zeebrugge, I felt much better the next day, just weak! I was still feeling a bit unsure about racing, but I don’t get chance to do loads of races as they are mostly on when I’m busy in the summer, so I didn’t want to miss this one!

Ready to go...

The day started warm and sunny, and it was great to catch up with familiar faces from Chile and the Trans Provence, and practice my French by chatting to some of the other girls who were riding. There were only 16 of us, and about 300 guys, so we were definitely in the minority, but worryingly, all of them seemed to have done way more enduro racing than me…

The first climb took us up a long way, and within minutes my legs felt empty and devoid of any strength or energy…it was going to be a long day. I guess I’d underestimated how much 2 days of not eating would affect me. Fortunately the climbs were untimed so I put my head down, and settled into my own very slow rhythm. When I finally got to the start of the 1^st special stage, I was really lightheaded, and feeling pretty nervous about the descent, knowing I was tired and likely to make mistakes, yet also knowing that once the timing chip beeped at the start, I wouldn’t be able to make myself hold back and ride sensibly!

The stage started with some technical rocky sections, soon morphing into steep loamy corners that were super tight and filled with gnarly off-camber roots. The trail was narrow and twisty and really slippery, and my inside foot was out in lots of the corners in preparation for the back end skidding out on the roots! I got about half way down before I clipped the end of my handlebar on a tree coming out of a tight corner, spinning the bars round and going head first into a rotten tree stump…thank goodness for full-face helmets! I was annoyed with myself for making the mistake and worse, I lost a lot of time having to straighten my bars, but at least I’d gotten down in one piece. One down, four to go…

How it should be ridden! (Image courtesy of enduro-mtb.com)

Another long climb followed, which even despite shoving down a banana, some haribo and a gel, felt way harder than it should have done. Stage 2 was really good though and soon made me forget my fatigue and nausea…tight switchbacks which you had to take the steep inside line or end up not making the turn (I get plenty of practice on these on the TransProvence route!),  less rooty and more muddy and rocky which suited me well. Unfortunately there was a 600m uphill pedalling sprint in the middle of the stage, where I actually felt like I was stationary I was going so slowly, so any time gains I’d made up with my smooth cornering were probably lost here! Anyway, I survived the stage with no crashes, and feeling better knowing the number of hills left to climb was slowly decreasing!

The climb to stage 3 was pretty much all pushing for me…on a normal day I’d probably have pedalled it but the legs were saying a definite “No”! This stage was freshly cut trail snaking it’s way down a steep slope. It was pretty much all off-camber grass and mud, and given that it had started raining pretty heavily, you can probably imagine the consequences! It was hilarious…I giggled the whole way down, barely able to stay upright, in fact spending most of the time lying on my side with the wheels having slid out underneath me. My tyres were fully clogged and whilst they’d been chosen for riding in dry, rocky Trans-Provence country and will be great there, they were less well suited to the claggy mud! The stage ended on a couple of wooden jumps and a wall-ride in front of the main race start/finish area, and pretty much everyone was filthy and in hysterics at the end of it! It must have looked like complete comedy to the people watching on the sides.

Liam Myonihan of the Dudes of Hazzard had ventured over from Scotland for the race too (Image from enduro-mtb.com)

For me, one of the good things about blind racing, is that if it’s a race, I see something and just ride it without letting myself get psyched out by it….sometimes this doesn’t end well but I’m normally going too fast to change my mind about it until I’m committed! There are plenty of places where I scrape through by the skin of my teeth, and know that if I were to ride the same section again, I’d probably be pretty worried knowing how difficult some of the upcoming sections were, and maybe hesitate enough to bottle it! That might not make sense to a lot of people, but I prefer it! Anyway, there were definitely a few places in this race where if I hadn’t been racing I’d have stopped and taken a while to work out how or even if, I was going to ride them!

The organisers had kindly organised a shuttle most of the way up to stage 4, phew, what a relief for my tired legs! So after some refuelling at the feed station and more chattering with other racers, we enjoyed the comfort of sitting in a coach and being whisked up the hill! By this point it was chucking it down, and stage 4 was actually some of stage 1 repeated and then extended. It was going to be mega-slippery…

Rooty singletrack in the woods :) (Image coutesy of enduro-mtb.com)

At pretty much the same point I’d crashed on stage 1, I went down again. This time landing headfirst in the mud in front of my bike…again, thank goodness for full-face helmets. My bars hadn’t spun but it took me a while to get up and get going as I was pretty shaken and wobbly. Someone overtook me as I was getting up, and I set off behind him, only for him to do pretty much exactly the same as me just further down! I had to come to a complete stop as his bike was wedged horizontal between two trees across the trail, and it took a while to move it. By this point I’d relaxed a bit, realising everyone was finding the riding slippery and sketchy, and I’d lost so much time that any chances of doing well were gone, so I may as well just enjoy it, and despite the crashes, I really was! I think I crashed another couple of times, including one just before a short steep rise, which meant I had no speed to make it up the slope, and instead was reduced to grovelling up on my knees clawing at anything I could to stop sliding back down the muddy slide…very undignified but at least I was laughing at how daft I must have looked! From the skids and handprints and shoemarks on the slope, I’d say I probably wasn’t the only one! To top off the stage, the organisers had thrown in a set of stairs which you had to run up right near the end, just when you were completely exhausted…torture!

The ride (push) up to stage 5 was thankfully short, and as it was now completely pouring down, I somehow seemed to make myself move faster up it to reach the start of the timed section. It was another stage like stage3, freshly cut and taped off camber corners on a steep grassy slope that resembled one large muddy slide. It was actually great fun, and with the finish right in the centre of the village and your name being announced as you rode into view of the large crowd of spectators, it was a good end to the day.

Overall winner Remy Absalon crossing the finish line in the pouring rain (Image from enduro-mtb.com)

As with many French races, there was a meal to enjoy with fellow racers once you’d finished, with everyone comparing stage times and waiting to hear the results, a really sociable atmosphere. I made a whole load of new friends from lots of different places, came a pretty respectable 5^th woman given how awful I’d felt at the start of the day, had a fantastic time riding the trails even if I wasn’t at my best, and definitely had the satisfying end-of-race fatigue that meant I knew I’d be sleeping well that night!

The race was brilliantly well organised and went smoothly from start to finish, and it’s no surprise that the Bluegrass races in France sell out when you know you can expect such great riding and racing for your money…I hope I can fit in another one at some point!

Once again, my Juliana bike was AMAZING!! It most definitely saved me from many more crashes than I actually had, was as fun as ever to ride, and drew lots of attention from other racers wanting to know about it or just generally admiring it’s loveliness! Unbelievably, despite the number of times it’s been crashed into and onto trees, rocks, and other obstacles, and the amount of hard riding it’s already done in the 4 short months since I’ve had it, it still looks like new thanks to the Invisiframe taping protecting the frame. I can’t help but think this would be very different if that wasn’t there…especially given that the only paint chips that are visible are on the tiny sections the Invisiframe doesn’t cover! To anyone getting an expensive new bike I seriously recommend this stuff!( www.invisiframe.co.uk )

Tired but happy to have finished in one piece!

Well, only a few days until I start work again for the summer, and I can’t wait to be out guiding again on the awesome trails of the Maritime Alps. With a few more races, some other exciting work, and several different trips to guide this summer, it’s going to be a busy one, but hopefully a lot of fun… Ciao for now!

Winter Adventures in the Land of the Midnight Sun

Imagine a group of islands, far away, where steep spectacular mountains rise directly from the sea, where in the winter everything is covered with a pristine blanket of snow, from the summits right down to the wild, white sand beaches.

360 degree views like this everywhere

Small pretty fishing villages dotted around the islands, houses built perched on the water’s edge, with cod hanging to dry on traditional wooden racks as though you have stepped back in time, with a friendly, slow pace of life to match.

Cod drying on traditional racks

Where on a clear night, there are perfect views of the most incredible light show on earth. A place that time forgot, and where it’s easy to forget time, and just live simply. Sleep when it’s dark, eat when you’re hungry, forget about phones, computers, TV, and other gadgets and ‘necessities’ of the modern world that we sometimes feel we can’t live without.

Old farming relics

As well as all this, imagine if this group of islands were one huge playground for outdoor sports. With perfect conditions for ski mountaineering…easily accessible peaks where it’s possible to ski up from the beach to a summit, take in the most incredible 360 degree views of the mountains, islands, and ocean around, then pick any kind of descent, from wide mellow bowls, to steep, narrow couloirs, all with perfect powder, and finish down by the sea again. I must be dreaming right?

The magnificent view from Geitgaljen

Think again…this place exists and I’ve just been there J!

I should probably be keeping this a secret, as it’s the kind of place you don’t ever want to change and develop as more people discover it. But a) I’m not that selfish, and b) the effort required to get there and the adventurous nature of taking part in the activities on offer there will mean it’s not going to become a mainstream destination any time soon.

View from our lodge

The Lofoten islands lie north of the Arctic Circle, off the far north west coast of Norway, and are one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been lucky enough to visit.

Hilda, me, and Leanne

My companions on the trip were Leanne (by day an anaesthetist, by night a gnarly climber, mountaineer and skier, with bags of experience from first ascents and expeditions to remote places like Greenland, and Patagonia….very cool!) and Hilda (by day a GP and mother of two, by night a superfit ultrarunner, cyclist, and skier, who told me she once rode up and down the Alpe d’Huez climb 6 times in a row….for fun….my kind of girls!), who had planned the whole trip between them, leaving me just to turn up with my kit at the airport ready for 2 weeks of fun and adventure!

Celebrating another awesome view

I should add that I only met Hilda whilst skiing in La Grave at New Year, and Leanne whilst in Chamonix in January, and having only spent a grand total of about 2 days with each of them, I felt very honoured that they were willing to invite me on their annual ski touring trip! I can’t speak for them, but I had a brilliant time, and I hope there’ll be more adventures together in the future!

Lofoten Ski Lodge

We stayed at the Lofoten Ski lodge, which was absolutely fantastic. Comfortable cosy wooden cabins, with a huge communal building where we ate delicious meals each day, and cosy sheepskin rug-covered chairs by a roaring fire to curl up in after a long day out on the hills. The Norwegians certainly know how to do hospitality.

Menu board!

Getting to the Islands is not the easiest task from the UK, and involved several flights, a midnight ferry, and a long car drive at a ridiculous time in the morning, but after a short sleep in the (very full of kit) car, we arrived in time for breakfast of homemade bread, smoked salmon and eggs, cereals, fruit, porridge, and most importantly strong coffee, and were able to get straight out skiing for the day!

Still as glass

The skiing experience in Lofoten is pretty magical. There can’t be many places in the world where you put your skis on at sea level, climb to a summit, and descend back to finish at the sea! 

Adventure every day!

Every day was different but equally brilliant, with some great skiing in soft, hero powder, and some classic summits and descents ticked.

Shredding fresh pow on the way down from Torskmannen (The Cod man!)

 We were definitely in the minority as an unguided group (especially of all girls!), but with a pretty comprehensive background of experience in the mountains in winter between us, we made a strong team, and the route planning, weather watching and decision making needed were all part of the adventure for us.

Descending icy summits

Several of the summits needed a boot up in crampons and with an axe, which added nicely to the experience, and the views from the tops are something which even thinking about them now still take my breath away.

Just your average Lofoten summit view

Taking in yet another spectacular vista

 Maybe it’s the position of the sun in the sky there, or maybe it’s just the beautiful landscape and scenery around you, but the light in Lofoten is amazing.

Another day of stunning light

Everywhere you look you could take a snapshot image and it would be like a postcard view….sunlight breaking through clouds and hitting a snow arête, making the snow sparkle and glimmer in front of you. Even when the weather turns bad, and it can do….quickly!, the views are awe-inspiring and totally captivating.

And another one...

Yes, the weather is pretty unpredictable! It seems unusual to get a solid block of very settled weather, so you need to make plans quickly and go when it looks like you have chance! We had a few days of beautiful clear, sunny skies, but also some days where the weather was somewhat more ‘Scottish’, with zero visibility and horizontal sleet one minute, and brief weather windows of sun the next!

Getting ready to drop-in for the descent during a sunny weather window

Heading up to a summit in slightly more "Scottish" weather!

As the time went on, we settled into a routine involving skiing hard all day, heading back to the lodge for delicious waffles and mugs of tea, taking part in the exhilarating Norwegian tradition of alternating Sauna with a dip in the sea (definitely the coldest water I’ve ever been in…there was sea ice just around the corner!), eating more tasty food, often involving fresh cod, Lofoten’s main industry, then sleeping….lots. Must have been all that fresh air. It was simple, and wonderful.

Mmmm....waffles!

It's good for you.....honest!!

During the second half of the trip, we organised a boat trip into the Trollfjord, Norway’s deepest and most famous fjord. Incredibly remote, with no road access, inhabitants, or phone signal, it’s a place where you are very much on your own, from when the boatman drops you off until you are picked up.

Trollfjord

It’s also home to some amazing looking steep skiing lines. Unfortunately on the day we went (the best looking weather day of the days we had left), the weather was a bit changeable, and after breaking trail through the fresh overnight snow, sheltering in a bothy shelter when we lost all visibility and the wind picked up, we only had time to make it to a hut.

Hilda booting up a short icy section 

Leanne breaking trail in the remote Trollfjord

But it was a great recce trip, when the skies cleared we could see the possibilities for future tours all around, and the hut was well stocked with wood for the fire, comfortable beds, and even a sauna, meaning it’d be a great place to base yourself for a few days and do trips out of there…next time!

Trollfjordhytta....luxury Norwegian hut!

Outside the Trollfjordhytta

I’d thoroughly recommend Lofoten as a ski-mountaineering destination, but it’s not for everyone, and definitely not a place to go for your first trip, unless you hire a guide. There are none of the lifts to help you gain height that you find in places like Chamonix, far fewer people to help if anything goes wrong, less predictable weather than the Alps, and little chance of being able to call for a chopper rescue as it takes several hours to get there from its base on the mainland. It’s wild and remote terrain where you are much more on your own, but if you’re prepared for that, it all adds to give the place a sense of adventure that it’s hard to find in the busier places in the Alps.

Wild, remote, spectacular

One of the things I’d been most excited about for the trip, as well as all the great skiing, was the possibility of seeing the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. I’d never seen them before, and it’d been on my wishlist of things to see and do for a long time. Being so far north, lying under the Auroral belt, and having so little light pollution, northern Norway is one of the best places in the world to witness the Aurora, and I was desperately hoping we would. As the trip went on however, and even after sunny days, the sky became overcast each night, it seemed like it was just going to have to wait for another trip.

The Hurtigruten....slightly more upmarket than your average Dover-Calais ferry!

But on our last night, aboard the overnight Hurtigruten ferry back to Bodo, I got lucky J From midnight until 2 am, I sat out on a deck chair underneath a perfectly clear sky, watching shooting stars, and the most amazing natural phenomenon I’ve ever seen (as well as getting mildly hypothermic!)

 

A bit blurry but they are not very easy to photograph on a moving boat!

The whole sky was alive with light. A constantly changing curtain, rippling in waves across the sky, then more vivid shafts of light, almost unreal, as though they were being generated by a huge spotlight. It was so silent and unbelievably magical. It made me really emotional to think how lucky I was to be witnessing something so special, and I spent a long time sitting on my own with silent tears running down my face. I thought of Gareth and how much he would have loved to see them there with me, and of how he would have loved the adventure of the whole trip.

A beautiful final sunset from our last night in Norway

Ever since losing Gareth, I feel like I am so much more grateful and appreciative of the opportunities I have and the things I see and places I go. I take much less for granted, realising that life can change so suddenly and all these wonderful things can be gone in a second. Gareth loved life and was full of energy and joy for life, and it would feel like a dishonour to not be incredibly grateful for the opportunity to see things like this, when he no longer can. Although it hasn’t always felt like it this winter as I’ve moved from one place to another, my pace of life is so much slower than it used to be, and that means I’m lucky to be able to spend time taking in everything around me…the sights, the sounds, the feel of places, to experience everything more fully.  Whatever I do and wherever I go in the future, I hope I don’t lose that, and can always remember not to take anything for granted.

Yes it's uphill and yes, I am smiling! It's hard not too when you're in such a stunning place

Feeling very fortunate to be doing the things I have this winter

So as you can probably tell if you’ve read through to here, I thought Lofoten was an incredible place and I’d love to go back! There are loads of lines to ski that I spied for future trips, the climbing on the huge granite cliffs rising from the sea looks amazing, and don’t even get me started on how much potential this place has for some out-of-this-world mountain biking!!

Hilda and me jumping to stay warm on one of Lofoten's wild beaches