Mega was sick. Weather was sick. Traveling was shit. I was Sick.

Megavalanche 2011 Alpe d'Huez from 1628films on Vimeo.

Just got back from the mega avalanche yesterday. 9 of us drove the 2000mile round trip(which sucked) to Alpe D'Huez for the biggest DH race in the World. Im not a downhiller by any standards, but for a 1st time competeing id like to think i did pretty well. the week started out with some casual riding, just flowing down some of the fast and fun trails with tables n big berms(which suit me alot). we had been riding the qualifying run quite alot, stopping a few times on the way down to recover the masses of arm pump, i really wanted to get a good qualiy time so i could make it into one of the 3 races that were a le mans style mass start.

On qualifing day i was pretty pumped up and ready to set my time untill we were lined up on the back line of the qualifing pack. this meant i had 180 people in front of me all wanting to get into that top 35 to qualify for the mega avalanche. As it turns out i qualified 50th with a time of 27m.12s and overtook 130 people, this meant i was into the mega challenge, the second of the mass starts. i was over the moon with this result as i said i would be happy with a time of anything under 35m, and all i really wanted was to be in one of the 3 races with a mass start.

Come race day my bike was cleaned, preped and shiney ready to be on the ski lift to the top at 6.20am! my race wasnt to start until 9.30 but with soo much going on the race organisers had to plan everything down to a tee.

They called my name to line up. At this point i was shaking, not because i was nervious, but beacuase i have been stood at 3300m on the top of a mountian in only a jersey for about 2hour. i walked to the start line and stood next to too guys who, by the looks of things were just as cold. star jumps were the warm up of the hour, so i proceeded to just about on the spot, in snow, for about 5mins until another voice came over the speaker of 30s till start. this is when the infamous megaavalanche music play. from the video above it just sounds anoying, but at 3300m up, stood with your bike on snow, with 400 other nutters, it gets your blood pumping better than any areobic warm up.

The yellow tape was raised and the carnage had begun. people were going down left, right and centre, taking others out with them. i managed to stay on my feet /bike. the first part of the race was easily the hardest, crossing glaciers, then rocky mountain paths, and huge open meadows, followed by a short(but what seemd like forever) up hill section. from the uphill we dived into trees and sandy berms, this was heaven to my battered aching arms. this trail carried on like this for the rest of the race barr some pretty awfull rooty sections. i crossed the line in 1hr 15m 47s in 218th place. i was just happy it was over. for this result in my first ever race i was exstatic. i couldnt have asked for a better week.