It’s so great to be back in France and I spent this morning on Les 2 Alpes’ glacier. There was plenty of snow, beautiful sunshine and the lift queues were much shorter than in the Summer. So if you’re a keen skier or snowboarder, make sure you remember to book your holiday here for half-term week 2011 and check out today’s video:
21-Aug-2010
Cycle race commemorates Italian legend
Category : Cycling, Events, Les 2 Alpes
This weekend the Marco Pantani Memorial Cycle Race comes to Les 2 Alpes. Today entrants in the Open Challenge are riding as fast as possible up the 9km road into resort and the fastest time is currently 21 minutes. Tomorrow the cyclists will ride the long or short course, taking them either 164km or 64km across local mountain passes.
It still seems strange to me that a whole weekend in a French resort is dedicated to the memory of an Italian cyclist who died from a cocaine overdose aged 34. There’s no disputing his achievements as a professional cyclist and he still holds the time for the fastest ascent of Alpe d’Huez’s 21 bends (00:37:35), but neither can you escape the fact that his career was marred by rumours of drug and alcohol abuse.
For now though, the race provides a challenge for hundreds of cyclists including friends in the Polar Bear Pub team (Kelly, Paul, James and James) who are competing tomorrow… good luck guys!
19-Jul-2010
An exhausting weekend but worth every minute
Category : Events, Les 2 Alpes, MTB
As you can see from the photos, posts and video, I spent most of the weekend trailing MTB riders around Les 2 Alpes. Despite this year’s winner knocking a whopping eight minutes off last year’s winning time, there weren’t too many injuries. Only one trauma was reported, two broken elbows and one broken knee… ouch!
19-Jul-2010
18-Jul-2010
Riders in today’s Mountain of Hell MTB race in Les 2 Alpes needn’t have worried about the snow slowing them down on the first descent… a clear night meant hard packed, icy snow on the glacier and a chance to get up some serious speed.
17-Jul-2010
Mountain of Hell qualifying results
Category : Events, Les 2 Alpes, MTB
British rider Hazel Wakefield stunned herself and her team-mates by finishing top in the female category of this year’s downhill race, the Mountain of Hell. With a time of 00:39:09 she beat off fierce French competition but had no expectations of a place on the podium. The 27 year old isn’t a professional rider and came out to Les 2 Alpes for the first time this weekend with a group of friends from the Cornwall Freeriders club.
12-Jul-2010
The 2010 Megavalanche is over and I had a great time filming and photographing the crazy event, widely considered to be the most extreme MTB race in the world. Check out my flickr page for more photos and here’s the video of yesterday’s final…
