I always look forward to the next trip to the Les Gets Bike Park, hot sunny days, hard baked berms and swooping down through the trees. The drive from Morillon is about 30 minutes so I needed to pack the bike into the back of the car and get all my stuff together.
The last trip to Les Gets was good but didn’t quite go according to plan thanks to the ever present Gremlins in my life. I had planned to video the runs for the YouTube channel so that people planning to visit could get a little insight into what awaited them.
top of Les Gets bike park
Last time I arrived at Les Gets I put the bike together and got to the top of the Chavannes Express lift, only to discover that the battery in my Go Pro camera was flat. I decided to go back down and try and buy a battery, which wasted an hour and produced no new battery. I had a great day on the bike but no YouTube content, even worse, I had a crash and smashed the camera mount anyway, so that was the end of that.
I wasn’t going to make the same mistake this time, double checked all the gear and packed it into my rucksack, packed the bike, made sure I had all the tools and repair kits, and off I went. In the underground car park I assembled the bike, put all the gear on and the last job was to attach the Go Pro. To my absolute horror the little bolt that attaches the camera to the mounting wasn’t there, how could that be?
View from the Triple 8 run
Gremlin attack
I had used it on the previous day on the Morillon runs, it couldn’t have disappeared from the mount, but it had. I searched the car, all the bags but nope, it wasn’t there. That meant it must have come off back in the garage and I had a spare in the apartment, but it meant a 1 hour round trip, that damned Gremlin. I didn’t bother stripping off padding, just jumped in the car and high tailed it back to Morillon, thank God for air conditioning and the patience of my wife to listen to my woes.
Just over 1 hour later, I was back in the same car parking bay, in exactly the same position I had been before but this time the camera was attached the bike, and I was ready to. I wasted no time getting out of there and up on the Chavanne Express lift for the first run and to make up for the hour I had wasted.
Some of you may have read the blog about my winter season in the Alps, when, after 65 years, I had concluded that quite randomly, I would have a quite irrational approach to risky situations at times, in fact I concluded I had a personal Gremlin living in my head that was trying to kill me.
View from La Nauchets lift, Les Gets
Risk Aversion
In response, I had decided that for my summer season mountain biking I needed to be a bit more grown up. Unlike snowboarding which happens in the ski area near our apartment, I had to drive to the bike parks so if I got injured, I would not only have the problem getting me down with not help, but getting the car home car as well, something as simple as a dislocated shoulder would be a disaster.
I made a rule, not just a promise, that I would only do blue runs, they are hairy enough at times and I still have crashed on them. However, as I had done most of them before. I knew where most of the dangers lay, so that is why the videos supporting this story are of the blue runs, for once in my life, I stuck to my rule.
The ride up on the Chavannes Express took me over the jump park and the Foue Libre trail, which is the run home, not only that, but you also get glimpses of some hairy looking black trails lurking in the woods. When I arrived out at the top of the Chavannes Express, I was ready for action and unhindered by mates.
Les Gets bike park top section
On previous trips my mates, notably The Chemist and The Mechanic have accompanied me. Despite explaining the routes to them they either shoot off in the wrong direction or just shoot off anyway and I spend the rest of the afternoon trying to work out where they have gone. When I eventually find them, they are normally going on about a Strava time rather than the hassle they have caused me, I have even found them in the undergrowth after crashes.
I checked the camera, and everything was working so it was time to go. At the top of this lift you can head back into Les Gets, head round the mountain to Morzine or head over to the Nauchets chair lift that takes you up to top of the mountain and the really steep runs, naturally I headed to the Nauchets lift.
I’ve had a great year mountain biking, 2 great trips to France bouncing down the best that they have to offer and then there was the tour of the north with my mate. Lots of fun, a bit too much of the old Gremlins for my liking, but it’s been a great summer.
However, there is something very special about the Forest of Dean trails. The trails are excellent, with a huge blue run called the Verderers Trail and an equally huge red call the Freeminers trail. Both of them stretch to about 10km each, and to spice things up there is a specialist downhill area with huge jumps and drops, the kind of thing you won’t find a man of my age doing much of anytime soon.
The trails are good, but there is something else that makes it special. During the winter I’m normally pedalling around the local woods or around North Somerset wrapped up warm and enduring the weather, but when spring breaks through and there is a bit of warmth in the sun, I head to the Forest of Dean to celebrate. It’s the same around now, as we get to the end of September and the sun is still warm, I can’t help myself from heading over there to enjoy the last of the summer.
I was pondering why it was so special, and then I realised it was one of the few places I get to use all my boy toys. The drive over in the camper van is fun, it takes about an hour, so I pump up the volume on the stereo and set off, the route makes me along good, quiet roads through the Welsh border countryside pondering life and thinking how lucky I am.
I think it’s the whole package that makes it a special trip; I don’t go too often in case I spoil the magic.
There is something about the light in the trees in spring and autumn that just seems to make it better and when it’s all over and I’m feeling suitably knackered, I sit on the step of the van, pop the top on a beer and sit there chilling, listening to my favourite music, and sitting in my favourite place, the side step of the van. Watching the other riders coming and going, knowing they are envious of my van and rather perfect moment, it invariably ends up in a chat with someone about how their day went on the mountain trails.
To be honest, it hasn’t always ended well, 5 years ago I was enjoying my September experience at the Forest of Dean and was happily cruising back when disaster struck, I was in the traffic jam that is normally referred to as Chepstow. The engine started to judder, and by the time I realised the engine was overheating the damage was done and the engine seized up, a common fault water hose bursting problem on this model and you literally have about a minute to cut the engine if it happens and I was too late. Sadly, that started an 18 month torment with 2 replacement engines and no trips to the Forest of Dean.
Back to the mountain biking, the runs involve a long tour of the forest with plenty of climbing that is well managed by the design, and when you get to the top the runs down are brilliant. The sweeping run down the Verderers trail takes between 10 and 15 minutes and fully justifies the 40 odd minutes climbing and swooping to get you there. The red Freeminers isn’t quite so straight forward but it’s fine if you are on an e-bike, unless you are young and good and do rooty climbs!
These are the highlights of today’s visit.
Dizzys Decent red run
This video is showing a new red run that I found, seemed to be called Dizzys Drop or Dizzys Decent. It was challenging at the start, and I suspect it would be a bit hairy on a wet day over those roots on the steep section, but today it was lots of fun and tricky bits to deal with.
Countdown trail from top to bottom
This video is of a run that called Countdown, it’s the only blue run in the downhill section. The top section is nice and fast but isn’t particularly challenging, but the lower section is very fast and swoops up and down the sides of the valley, just as much fun as some of the French runs.
Twisted Sister down hill trail
Last video is from the downhill section, and is appropriately called Twisted Sister, just like my own sister, if you take your mind off it for a second you will end up in trouble. The last section is very steep and coming down over lots of roots and rocks, I did it in the wet last year and it was more about survival than fun, but today it was nice and dry.
Les Carroz, French Gremlins and downhill mountain bike records
After the success of my Winter Season in the Alps and all that snowboarding, I decided that I would try the same with my other passion, mountain biking. The lifts are open for the summer French holidays, July and August, and the bigger resorts open for June as well.
My first visit was a family summer holiday 10 years ago, I loved the mountains and all the activities but unfortunately, I went home with broken ribs from a crash. I’d been back a few times since, normally bringing a mate along. I’d end up being more of a tour guide around the routes and annoyingly, they would be faster than me on the straight bits and invariably get lost.
Solo mountain biking
Consequently I would then waste a lot of time trying to find them so I wasn’t too fussed that I was going to be on my own, but it has to be recognised that downhill mountain biking is dangerous against pretty much any criteria, so I was mindful of the fact this could all go horribly wrong if I had a serious crash, minor crashes are a daily event but it’s often a very fine line between minor and major.
In preparation for my summer of fun, I’d invested in new Enduro bike because having the right gear is essential. This started as a plan to buy a second-hand bike to avoid the expensive rentals, but a great deal on a new one appeared so I bought it. It was a beaty, much better than the rental bikes so I was really looking forward to cracking on.
10 days and a 1000 miles after my mountain biking adventures on the borders of Scotland came to an end, I found myself in the French Alps at the home of one of Europe’s downhill mountain biking meccas, namely Morzine.
Technically I was in the next valley over, Morillon, which is part of the Grand Massif. It is also a mecca for those crazy road riding dudes who seemed to take fun in pedalling up the mountains. The mountain bikers as a smarter breed and use the lift systems as their means for getting up the mountains. They have also renamed themselves Enduro riders, is less of a mouthful and sounds cooler.
The drive down was complicated
A new first for me was the drive down from Bristol, as my wife wasn’t very interested in being an Enduro widow and she declined the offer to keep me company on the journey, so I had to do it on my own. This wasn’t without incident, normally we go via Dover, but I didn’t fancy a 14-hour drive on my own, so I booked the ferry from Portsmouth, so I had an overnight kip and a fresh start. The driving time was due to be 8 hours, so not much different to Calais.
What I hadn’t noticed was there was two ferry routes into France, and I booked the wrong one. We landed at Cherbourg not Caen, I set my Satnav and it said TWELVE hours, my heart sank, where had the other 4 hours come from, I just assumed it was a hold up and in the absence of any other options I set off, I worked out that about 1 hour additional time was due to Cherbourg rather than Caen.
I settled in for a very long day on the road with a heavy heart. I noticed that my route left the motorway and took me south on A roads towards Paris and even more depressingly, I noticed Bordeaux appear on some of the long-range signs, Bordeaux is as far from the Alps as anywhere in France. As I chewed over these unexpected developments in my mind it occurred to me that maybe the Iphone Satnav might be playing tricks, as there is more than one town with the name of my destination, so I cancelled the trip and reset it.
Then we found the source of the problem, the Iphone offered the fastest trip, but I hadn’t realised it offered the fastest trip WITHOUT toll roads. A quick change of settings and suddenly I was 3 hours closer to Morillon that I expected, absolutely wonderful, my world was a happier place. Unfortunately, quite a bit of damage had been done to the timescale by taking me west of Paris and it ended up being 10 hours, but still better than 12 hours.
What most people don’t realise is that the Alps are very hot in the summer, so I arrived at the end of a hot day and temperatures that felt like 30 degrees. I emptied the car of all the gear, including my brand-new mountain bike and put my feet up on the balcony, had a warm beer and crashed out. Luckily, I had bought one of those Dyson cool fans with me and it got to work on the heat.
First Gremlin attack
Next day, glorious sunshine and after spending the morning getting this sorted out, I decided it was time to test out my new bike. So, in the heat, I put on all the protective gear and collected the bike from the garage sweating buckets. The lift is only 50m from the apartment, so I pedalled around in all the gear to the lift and noticed something wasn’t quite right.
The lift was stationary, and the ticket office was closed, what on earth was going on. I checked in at the Tourist Information, the opening date had been delayed saving money. It opened officially, the day I was coming home. Not to worry, the lift at Les Carroz was open on the other side of the mountain.
Obviously, those Gremlins that had haunted my trip around the bike rides in the north of England had migrated to France, or the Gremlin jungle drums had got the local French Gremlins on my case.
Now I required the car, which was sat in the sun and showing 35c as the outside temperature and heaven knows what on the inside. In all the gear, strip the bike down, pack it in the car, jump in and drive for 30 mins, still with most of the gear on and sweating.
30 minutes later I arrive in Les Carroz after a drive through the winding mountain roads only inhabited by agricultural machinery and redundant Italian racing car drivers. As I approached the lifts I glanced up, and to my horror, the lift wasn’t moving. I could not believe my eyes, this cannot be.
I drove up to gondola station, surely this lift wasn’t closed as well. I parked outside the ticket office and walked over, it was clearly not open, it was as shut as a shut ticket office can be. I rested against the bonnet of the car and seriously considered crying as well as sweating, before driving back to Morillon. Those French Gremlins were having a right laugh today.
As I sat there, I heard a metallic clanking sound followed by a whirring noise from the direction of the lifts. I walked around the side of the building, and to my delight the lift had started running – we are all systems go and stuff you Gremlins.
Time to rip up the trails
I parked up, assembled the bike, got padded up and pedalled over to the lift ready sweating profusely. Except for one thing, I couldn’t find my lift pass. Those Gremlins had taken it out of my pocket and left it back in the apartment, but I wasn’t to be stopped, straight up to the little ticket booth and bought a one-day pass, we are off.
Finally, 2 hours later, I arrive at the top of the Les Carroz gondola ready to go. All the mountains have spectacular views and this is no exception, as always it takes me time to enjoy the serenity before heading down the runs.
For the first time I was here on my own, I didn’t have to take a mate on a tour of the runs for a change. The French grading system is different, all the runs are incredibly steep, running through trees, with technical section and large berms (banked turns).I was never able to do the very difficult black runs (jumps and serious danger) though there are normally routes around the big obstacles, I was capable enough on the red runs, going carefully, these tend to be gnarly and difficult, so more of a challenge that a pleasure, which left the blue runs. Wider, faster, challenging but most of all, fun.
This was probably my 4th trip to this bike park and as I stood there, armed with the right equipment and relatively empty slopes, I decided that I was going to stick to the blues. At my age I’m not going to get much better, the difficult stuff is more dangerous on my own, so I would just do the blue runs and get to know them a bit better.
Most sports folks use an app called Strava. It records your times against previous visits, and it also grades you against other athletes against various categories. I don’t tend to look at my comparisons because I am normally somewhere in the average category which isn’t particularly motivational. However, last summer, I turned 65 and I happened to look where I sat in the all time Over 65 categories, and I was rather pleased to note that I was quite near the top of this category, clearly the competition was either dying off, had been seriously injured and retired, or had finally grown up. So, I had a target, to be the fastest old bloke on the mountain.
Les Carroz bike park is a little gem. Within 10 miles are some of the most famous bike parks in the world and dwarf this one, but it is being expanded but it only has about 6 runs and they are fabulous. They mix cross country and technical Enduro riding with the adrenalin pumping of steep down hill drops that take you from the top, across the forests and back down to the car park in about 15 minutes of jarring, bouncing and skidding excitement.
The first section of the Wood Rider runs from the Gondola through the woods and into some complicated berms that are more like being in a corkscrew as they twist around and get steeper. One of the problems at the moment is they are very very dry, so the sections where people are breaking are becoming very soft so they are like hitting a sand bunker, so if you don’t get it right you are over the handle bars before you know it, happened to me a few times until you know where they are.
Woodbiker trail
Second section is a run into the woods that is traversing the mountain and involves lots of twists and turns rather than speed, but it is all about keeping the bike balanced and keeping up momentum. When it is wet this can more complicated as there are streams running down of rocks that make things very slippery, but that wasn’t a problem on this trip.
Third section takes us back to the car park and involves much faster and steeper sections with more obstacles and “features” including flat tops so you can get some air under the wheels as you take off a little.
Fastest oldie on the mountain
So, at the end of the afternoon, and equipped with my new bike, all the frustration was gone. A wonderful afternoon blasting through the forests and Janner Boy is now the fastest old bloke on the mountain, having set the fastest times since the park opened in 2016 – yessss.
Les Gets, La Chatel and Avoriaz still to come, but today is going to be difficult to beat.
The daylight was fading in the grey wet skies as we set off from Grisdale. Our next destination was Kielder Forest on the border with Scotland, after a long rainy night, and being soaking wet after the trails, the advice from the Satnav that it was nearly 3 hours drive wasn’t particularly welcome.
The journey out of the Lake District was slow and very wet. There were waterwalls cascading out of the cliffs everywhere, roads with rivers running across them, it is amazing how much water 2 inches of rain on mountains can produce. It occurred to me that I would probably never have another holiday in the Lake District so I might as well try to enjoy these views, the floods will be my permanent memory of the Lake District.
Road to Scotland
The route to Kielder Forest campsite took us over the border into Scotland and a 3 hour drive through the Kielder National park. I managed to lose my mate in the Jeep, who was a bit quicker than my old van and our route was rather meandering and my GPS seemed to be sending me in a different direction, so we decided to make our way separately to the camp site. We later realised I was using Waze, which had a different view of the borders than the Apple route.
Gremlins strike
Gremlin Strike – I should have guessed, the Gremlin was in the satnav. It took me off the main road on to narrow single track roads but when it turned into a mountain pass with just gravel I decided it was trying to kill me, so I gingerly turned the van around on the edge of a cliff and headed back to civilisation and the long way round.
Eventually I arrived at the campsite where my mate was getting organised. What we hadn’t expected was the storm of midges that awaited us, clearly the Gremlin had recruited its mates to help out with it’s attack on me and the van.
Midge Attack
We couldn’t eat outside thanks to the midges, the pub had stopped serving food, so we had a “date night” in the van, very cosy with tinned ravioli and tinned hot dogs. We then headed for the pub where we found a Newcastle United fan in his club shirt, and he seemed to know amazingly little about his team, either that or he couldn’t understand out southern accents.
Next morning, the weather was a bit better, and we set off on our bike ride. These rides were much better than the day before, but it is a vast area, but we had some exciting rides. There was heavy damp clouds and regular downfalls to keep us focused, but we clocked up over 30 kms.
Kielder Trails
There was a great new area with a couple of new red runs to get the adrenalin running. As with all good things, there was a downside, the climbs back up but the e-bikes make life a lot easier as we get older. This is the new track called the EE Mile.
This was followed by another red run called “Run into the Valley”, the camera missed the first section which was fantastic and the second extension was infested with low tree branches and gave our faces a good slapping on the way through but all good fun, here it is and watch out for the branches that hit me in the face.
The day ended with a long climb to the top of the mountain and a big red run, that went on for ages and dropped us down through the mists into the car park.
The top bit was still thick in cloud and we found the rest of the trail despite the signs sending us the wrong way again.
As the altitude dropped the visibility got better. The Trail splits on the way down but we worked out which way to go (not helped by the map) and then we picked up the big trail back into the car park, not overly complicated but plenty of speed on the way down.
Heading to Hamsterley Forest
Back to the car park the midges were waiting for us, and took full advantage our tiredness and attacked in full throttle. As we departed the rain started to fall again, so time to head south through the North Pennines and heading for Hamsterley Forest and our next ride and maybe some decent weather.
The 3 hour drive down from Keilder towards Consett took us along some amazing old Roman roads, they were incredible. We all learned in school about how the Romans built their roads straight, well you could really see it in that area, they just went straight over the tops of hills and down the other side – absolutely ideal for cars to overtake my camper van so I didn’t feel like a mobile traffic jam.
Having seen the countryside around the borders it is absolutely no surprise that the Romans decided to build Hadrian’s Wall to stop the Scots raiding. It is a desolate and remote place full of natural beauty, I guess the surprise is that they bothered staying that far north at all, Scots, Midges and Gremlins, and they thought a wall would save them – obviously having a laugh,
We ended up at our third campsite in the foothills of the North Pennines, more lovely people and still freezing cold in the middle of summer but at least it was dry. So, we courageously had a BBQ in the biting winds that whipped cross the hills and dried out some of our cloths.
Then we took our beer into the camp kitchen and recreation room, where it was at least warm. Armed with a couple of cold cans of beer we turned on the TV, up popped the Blues Brothers film, a chance to watch a Hollywood classic, in the eyes of some people anyway. After 30 minutes I gave up trying to watch it for the umpteenth time, and it turns out, it was the same for my mate.
Next morning we woke to bright sunshine and finally, some warm weather. I was up early, made my mate a cup of tea in bed and we had a proper camp breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs and bacon – we were ready for a big day.
Hamsterley Forest here we come, I’d even found my missing trainer hidden under the dashboard, but still no sigh of the book.
Sunny Hamsterley, broken chains and the Gremlins win.
A short drive from the campsite landed us in the Hamsterley Forest car park ready to go. My bike was assembled first so I popped to the café to order coffees before we set off.
Normally when you buy a coffee, a “standard” and “large” coffee are only about 15-20% difference. My mate is healthy chap and doesn’t really do much to excess, whereas I am a greedy bugger, so I ordered a standard for him and large for me, which seemed reasonable bearing in mind our differing consumption habits.
Massive coffee cups
When they the coffees turned up, I knew there was going to be trouble, because the large was DOUBLE the size of the standard. I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. For 40p I had twice as much coffee. My mate had finally caught up, so as I arrived at the table the look on his face was a picture, but not a very nice one. In hindsight I should have gone and got him another coffee, because he suddenly had a big coffee appetite and I had to give him most of mine.
A chat with a local helped us with our route and gave us lots of advice of short cuts and where not to go wrong, I was in memory overload with all the instructions so lucky my mate is good with detail and was paying attention. It also sounded risky, I decided I needed my elbow pads so nipped off to the van to get them, my mate was even more unhappy with this further delay as he thought my elbow pads were in my rucksack.
Gremlin strike
The first ride of the day was a black (hardest) climb. These are never fun, but it had to be done, about halfway up things got very rocky then bang – my chain snapped. We hadn’t even gone 5 minutes, and the Gremlin was at it again. I had to push the bike up the slope and was expecting communications difficulties if my mate had belted off. However, he is a good companion and was waiting at the top of the climb.
He is a great friend and is very patient, but I could tell I was pushing my luck and his patience. . Another 30 min delay while we played with various tools and eventually eventually his chain breaker did the job, and we were on our way again with 2 links missing from the chain.
It’s not easy pedalling gently up a mountain but the repair lasted for most of the day. The black turned out to be quite mild but some tricky stuff on the descent, at which point the camera moved position, so it’s not a great video to be honest.
Useless trail map
Every trail map seems to be written by an idiot or by someone who loves cryptic crosswords because they are impossible to follow, Forestry England must have a very small sign post budget, as there are just paths and no signs and those that do exist seem to point in the wrong direction. In addition, we had all the helpful advice from the guy in the café, which we wouldn’t marry up with the map. An unfortunate amount of time was lost thanks to that goddam map.
On one occasioned we pedaled for a good 20 minutes uphill to find what looked like a nice long blue run, which turned out to be a grassy lane, with wasn’t even a bike run.
Hamsterley K Line
There is one very famous ride at Hamsterley Forest called the K Line, it was once the Mountain Bike mag ride of the year, and we were determined to find it. The search involved a long climb back up a steep path and the bang; the chain went again. The repair involved the removal of 2 more links which put the chain on its last legs, so basically this was the end of the riding for this holiday and I just needed to nurture the bike gently to the top of the mountain for the last big ride down.
It was like walking on egg shells knowing that too much strain on the chain would mean no K Line, more dirty look and a long walk home. Happily we made it to the K Line and then a fantastic ride down through every type of obstacle imaginable.
Now it was time to set off. The K Line Top section has a nice steady start to get us rolling along and picking up speed winding through the trees and get us in the mood, but nothing too tricky.
Transition trail
K Line second section is called Transition, which is quite appropriate because things quickly speed up and there are lots of drops, obstacles and big humps to that get you airborne as you hit them.
K Line Accelerator
K Line final section Accelerator which is a fantastic run along tight paths through the woods, no chance to relax with trees flying past at 25kmh, it runs into the final section called Nitro’s which is a bone juddering experience as you suddenly hit a path of slabs that seems to go on forever and just when you think it’s all over, it turns left and you heading down a steep slope, still on slabs until you roll out at the end with sore arms.
After all that we headed back to the car park for a cuppa only to find the Gremlin got there first and shut the café early so we couldn’t have one. We went back to the van for an ice-cold beer from the fridge and sat in the car park in our camp chairs feeling like kings before it was time to pack up and head south to our next campsite at Settle.
What I didn’t expect was the scenery on the 2 hours. I thought I had seen the wildest and remote parts of England and Wales, Dartmoor, Central Wales, Snowdonia, the Lake District and even the borders in the days before. This scenery on the drive down the west side of the Northern Pennines and into the Yorkshire Dales was breathtaking and comparable to the Cairngorms and the Highlands and Islands.
Admittedly it was helped by beautiful weather and excellent visibility, but I honestly couldn’t believe how vast, remote, desolate and simply beautiful it is. Unfortunately, it is difficult to take photos that capture the essence of the scenery, so I have just given you a link to have a look at the national park own images.
We arrived at the campsite in Settle just in time to have dinner in the pub to mark the end of our adventure. With the broken chain there was no point in trying to ride so I decided to head home the next morning while my mate headed off to do the final trail we had planned for Tuesday.
And the good news, as I pulled everything out to do the final pack for the trip home, under the bed cushion, there it was, the missing book hiding under the bed mattress cushions that don’t get moved. You didn’t beat us Mr Gremlin, we are ready for you.
The next day the long drive back south and Bristol, 750 miles on the road trip counter and about 80km on the bikes in the forests, taking what the north could throw at us and time to plan the next adventure.
