A year goes quickly. Very quickly. As far as Jimmy and I were concerned we’d just brushed off the ice from the glacier on Pic Blanc before July came around again.

This year we had an addition of ex-pro downhill racer, Giles Austing, to the team. Giles used to race for Giant UK and had won the SAMS overall (remember them?) 4 times.

The week was the usual practice runs, getting lines in and drinking coffee with amazing Alpine weather to dry the course out.
Giles was the quickest qualifier (39th in heat out of 200), qualifying for the Megavalanche proper with Jimmy and I coming in slightly behing qualifying for the Megapromo.
On the day of the race the clouds and heavy rain totally enveloped Alpe D’Huez and Pic Blanc (the start of the race at 3330m) Giles was up at 2750m waiting for the gondola up to the top with many other riders in the rain with no shelter, causing a lot of people to jack in and go back down the mountain. The race eventually didn’t start at 3330m due to bad weather and came down a hurridly altered course.
Giles came in 156th in his heat with Jimmy and I not really being able to compete at all due to the official timing equipment being taken down by the time we got up the mountain!
Watch out on the website for news of MuleBar providing bars for the event in 2009....