Stuff getting conquered-ed

Friday was Day 2 of riding for our merry band of misfits, and we thought it may be less eina on the hands and arms. We were wrong. Very wrong.

Riding in Vallnord is different to home, and similar to other European bike parks in that it sees a lot of traffic. To get to the top of the park there is a system of three ski lifts, which start in the very centre of the town of La Massana. We can pedal to the gondola in under 5 minutes from our apartment, pedalling back takes about 20 minutes. 10 of these are spent pedalling and 10 of these are spent pushing and sweating. Nigel has a secret pathway down from their spot which seems way quicker, so we’re going to try find that tomorrow. Anyway, I digress.

You can find your way from one ski-lift to the next via various runs: green (easy), blue (easy but keep your eyes open) and red (rather check things before hitting them first time). We actually struggled to understand how to get from lift to lift on Day 1, which was how we found our Danish friends Henri and René. They heard me saying “Sorry, do you speak English?” to about seven Spanish riders who answered by just staring at me…René saved me when he yelled “I DO!”. They were such cool cats, and actually took us under their wing, riding with us for about two hours showing us the ropes. We’ve exchanged details and they’re keen to hit up SA. Henri mentioned to me that he’d watched Greg Minnaar winning the World Champs in 2013 on home soil (on TV) and it had moved him so much that he decided right then he wanted to one day ride Cascades. Cray-cray! We hope they come.

So we figured out how the system worked and pretty much rode everything, including the renowned Route 66 which is like…hmm…how can I describe it: dropping in to a motorway of dirt and slate that steadily gets steeper, sliding you from left to right, bank to bank, over tables and small doubles that just disappear beneath you…until you suddenly drop into a mixing bowl of switch backs that fold back on each other like chocolate cake batter…filled with rock shards…until you’re spat out onto a wet fire road that leads you onto tar and then the final section of the Commencal trail. I shat myself first time down it, but now I kind of can’t wait to just do it again and again – if my hands didn’t feel like they’d been beaten with 10-pound hammers.

Why do I keep moaning about my hands? When the traffic is combined with limestone-based slate/shale, which characterises almost every trail, it’s sort of like riding a sea of crazy, harsh bumps for 5 to 6 hours a day. Don’t get me wrong, the trails are super cool – but they will work you over and leave you howling while unclenching your hand from the bars finger-by-finger with eyes squinted up and lips impersonating a cat’s rear end. No amount of suspension fiddling and glove changing and brake rearranging will save you.

Despite the fatigue, everyone had a successful day out with drops and doubles being conquered, and we all finally got onto the Cedric Gracia trail. This one was a black trail, and many gutsier, meaty sections and rocky, rutty, ripped up soil and interesting lines. It reminded me of the secret trails in Morzine that would lead you through rocky streambeds and rooty sections that would carry on forever. Rika, Mark, Cobus and I all did the road gap (but I was literally kakking in my broeks, Rika said my eyes were as big as my goggles – I was so happy I was alive afterwards). It’s really not very big (like the first small road gap at Cascades near the top, or like Contermans road gap apparently), but having Cedric Gracia’s name attached to stuff kind of freaks one out a tad. Nigel heads back there ASAP to add his name to the list.

Jo and Peter are styling their European experience and progressing very quickly, Peter is looking so relaxed about everything…he just waltzes up and goes “okay”…boom, in the bank. As Jo mentioned in her post, she’s been progressing well and going faster and faster. She has a wooden drop with her name on it for tomorrow (Saturday), but after seeing her styling Cedric Gracia like it was literally a piece of cake that drop is in the bag.

Cobus may very well be the star of the show today though, with a Cannonball Koos manoeuvre that is captured on film and brought to you for your viewing pleasure by Mark’s GoPro. Seconded by Rika’s wipe out shortly after doing the Cedric Drop…look out for that.

This video is a kind of mish-mash of everyone’s footage and could have been like a gazillion minutes long…but I squished it into four minutes. Just to narrate it a bit here, Mark’s footage is the Bell helmet and he is wearing orange, blue and white. Cobus’s footage has the Giro helmet in it, and when is in the shot he is wearing red and black. Rika’s footage doesn’t have a helmet in view but her shots are ultra bright and she is wearing grey and blue. I forgot to charge my GoPro, so I just borrowed everyone else’s to get side shots, but I’m wearing white shorts so easy to spot. The Hicks crew are in leopard print pants, and Peter is in blue shorts.

Enjoy, and we’ll give you a brief breakdown of Saturday…er…on Sunday. Sunday is track walk day so we are all reasonably fearful. Cobus walked down the track a few days ago and said he literally had to climb down some sections they were so steep. Frik.