Held over a weekend every July in the ski resort of Alpe d’Huez, the Mega (as it’s known) is a fairly new concept in mountain bike racing. It is a mass start, quickest to the bottom, heart in your mouth hell of an adventure.

The 32km black ski-run course was open for practice the whole week leading up to the race. The practice runs were essential as it gave you the opportunity to stop at various sections of the course to evaluate the best lines and of course, to have a breather!

The qualifying race was held on Saturday, with all competitors being put into heats of around 300 people. The qualification course was different than the actual Mega course, no less difficult, but slightly shorter and starting slightly lower.

Nerves were high. Very high. The only conversation on the way up was nervous and slightly hysterical. Coming to the start line at 2750m was unreal. I had heard someone describing it as lunar, which was fairly accurate. I watched the first heat go off down the 7 hairpin bends and a terrific speed and before I knew it, I was in the third line behind some barrier tape listening to a Frenchman shouting instructions down a microphone, hardly discernable above the helicopter din, and the loud music. Sod it, let’s get on with this!

The music reached fever pitch, the helicopter hovered (this was just to qualify!) and we were off……. The rest of the 40 minutes flashed by with images of people falling off at high speed, fixing punctures and generally having a ball.

After the top hairpin bends, the course went through some ice/slush which took many casualties. Next came a long, steep technical section through rocks. Maximum concentration needed here. Bits of the course that had seen heavy bouts of practice became un-rideable as people opted to get off and walk – this slowed things down.

The technical section then gave way to a flat section that needed to be pedaled at a good cadence – damn the full suit of body armour. After riding up an un-welcome hill, the bottom of the valley was in sight – it was a long way off, cars moved like ants around Lac du Verney….. Steep, technical, off camber, fast are a few words to describe the section down to the finish. I hadn’t actually ridden the last bit of the course as I took a er, deviation in practice. There were many ‘bus-stop’ sections (where a sudden sharp deviation takes you off the main track) These were enormous fun especially riding pretty much blind at full speed. I saw one fantastic crash here where a rider was going so fast there was no way he’d make the corner, he pile drived, luckily, into some hay bales, shook himself off and carried on!

Sunday was the day for race itself. The qualifying race had put riders into one of four different races according to their speed. The queue early in the morning for the gondola to Pic Blanc (at 3330m) took an age, plenty of time for nerves to spread. We were sharing the ride up with an ingenious Spaniard who’d fashioned an old Casio watch into a speedo (patent pending!)

There wasn’t quite the pomp of the qualifier as the gondola had taken so long to drop us off, all the Mega-Marshals had left. This didn’t detract from the experience of doing the whole 32 kilometers of the most demanding and stunning races in the world.

Riding down on a black ski-run on a bike sounds hard but it’s simple really; saddle down, arse on the back wheel, one foot acting as a brake in the snow with the other foot on a pedal, no brakes and hey presto! Great fun except when you fall you have to try and keep hold of your bike as you tend to slide quicker…

Descending after Glacier de Sarenne is where the technical riding really starts, rocky and loose exposed singletrack rushes all the way down to Alpe d’Huez. It’s knackering stuff but I managed to glimpse the scenery of Les Deux-Alpes and Auris en-Oisans. The course then starts to go pedally for about 5 kilometers before an exhilarating section swooping through berms. The last section of the course is very steep with hairpin bends – maximum concentration needed as ever as by now, invariably, the body’s tired.

I pass one guy walking through the hairpins and bellow “You alright?” “Fine thanks, I’ve only broken my shoulder” I keep going and shout at a marshal to go and look after him. I meet this guy, Jules, at the bottom; turns out he’d crashed heavily, twice, on the same shoulder cracking his body armour in the process…..

After some lung-busting climbs and some grin-inducing singletrack (is there anything better?!) FINISH! Time to swop stories with mates; Jimmy’s run had been slowed by 14 minutes as he and other riders had to wait as a helicopter airlifted someone off the course. One guy broke his chain (terminal) and by luck found a chain by the side of the track, fitted it and kept on pedaling. Most people were just plain happy to be down in one piece.

For anyone considering going next year, Team Mulebar will be there again. Check out the following links for videos, tips etc.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=megavalanche+2007
http://www.avalanchecup.com/
http://www.gravity-slaves.co.uk/main/?p=show_article&article_ID=217
http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1584579
http://www.flowmtb.com/

 

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