. As he said himself,
男士休闲皮鞋, if you weren’t smiling at the end of the trail you had no soul as a mountain biker, I tended to agree with him. This trail also caused some heart stopping moments two days later when we repeated it and found two moutainbike tourers had parked their bikes in the middle of the trail as they camped in a nearby field. 'My trousers feel heavy'.
Tour de France - here we come.
Col de Mente
Wednesday was meant to be a rest day, but as there was a guide in training and so many trails to be seen,
骆驼休闲鞋, we had the option of riding a Tour de France climb on the road. Many of us were already tired from the four days riding that had gone before, but a TdF climb was too much to turn down. The climb was the Col de Mente and was a 11km long 1,000 vertical metre accent. After climbing on loose fire trails and singletrack, tarseal lets you get back to pure blank mindset of mountain climbing. We were told beforehand that 'The Pirate' Pantani had climbed this same climb in 35 minutes- it was already his fourth climb of the day and wouldn’t be his last. Olly had done it in 45 minutes with everything hanging out. On this sunny Wednesday,
男式皮鞋, some of us were able to get up there in about an hour with the slowest of us putting in a still very respectable 1 hour 15. We encountered various roadies on the way up that wished us luck in French, some of us re-encountered our breakfasts but overall it was great to see just what the pros throw themselves up at such speed. This was just the start of the day with still many hours of singletrack and ancient horse tracks to be enjoyed. It did seem fitting however that on TdF day we ended with a road sprint back to the bar. Unfortunately no polka dot or green jersey for me.
Shuttle runs on Thursday
By Thursday, most of us had already been riding for 5 straight days and had sampled the variety of trails that were available. With this experience in mind we were on course for a day of shuttling in the Exodus van. Normally this is day for the Superbagnes Gondala, but unfortunately that was closed for maintenance. The flexibility of the van gave us the opportunity to attack some trails we had already ridden. Any trail where you only have to go down (and not up) is welcomed by me and with the prior knowledge of the trails that were on offer, we got to really let loose of some really fantastic riding. This also gave Neil the opportunity to face his demons and eventually crash on exactly the same rock section in exactly the same way � don’t worry about it mate,
哥伦比亚户外鞋, I always thought arms were overrated anyway.
Epic climbing - on grass.
Number 6
Number 6 was the first track we rode and one of my favourites of the week. Earth � real earth - was the surface on offer with plenty of little lips and more switchbacks than you can shake a stick at. For me this was a real highlight of the week. Kinda like loosing your MTB virginity all over again � you never forget your first.
The goat track
Again,
商务休闲皮鞋, another optional trail, nice and steep, technical,
Jeep 休闲鞋, twisty, rocky and slick. Enou