Sorry still camera free…….
The old mercury has been climbing steadily the last few days, the sun has been blazing and I’ve been able to make some real headway on this summers ‘pad tan’. The braking bumps have also been baked nicely into shape. Riding Pleney main line at the moment makes you think that your suspension has broken and that your bike is about to disintegrate into a fine aluminium powder and settle with the rest of the dust in the little troughs between the bumps. Theres always somewhere to ride off the (heavily) beaten track though and some of the singletracks were in perfect condition, so I could get away from the hordes of euro=flouro’s that are in town at the moment with their crazy bikes, kit and riding styles!
I should recap on the midweek BMX mission, as promised. We headed off to Aigle later than planned but with plenty of time in the bag only stopping in Morgins to stuff our faces with Swiss chocolate! I know its a stereotype but these things have to be done! Aston had already located the track on a previous mission and was quick to point it out as we turned off the main road. I couldn’t see it, just the UCI building containing its Velodrome, indoor BMX gate facilities and a weird blue building out the front. As we got nearer and approached from a different angle I realised that this blue building was in fact the start ramp! It must have been ten metres high! This dropped riders into the sweetest BMX track I’ve ever seen, tarmac berms and manicured jumps with loads of variety. The pro line even had its own covers for the jumps to keep them fresh! Luckily (for me, Aston was up for it though…) a chain was over the start gate, so we couldn’t hit the first straight too hard. I haven’t been on a BMX track for a couple of years so contented myself with pumping round and just trying to stay smooth while Paul was having a proper go at couple of the straights… This is when we met the Legend. A few other people were about, inlcuding a guy on a Lopes replica 4X frame who obviously knew the place pretty well, we got chatting and he turned out to not only work for the UCI but to be in charge of track building and event management for BMX! He’d just got back from the Worlds in China and was enjoying a bit of time on his bike before heading to Woodward Camp (for an ‘out of office UCI meeting’!!) and then onto Whistler to stay with Travis Pastrana for three weeks and go riding! He explained that elements of the track at Aigle were scaled down versions of the Olympic track in China, apparently the Olypic athletes will be facing a 18 metre triple when they race there! The more we chatted the more our jaws dropped as this guy reeled out anecdotes from his previous careers…..8 years racing yachts around the world…..10 years pro snowboarder….now pretty much running the UCI BMX tour and riding MTB’s, roadbikes, track bikes etc etc etc…what a life! After another hour or so at Aigle, Matti (I’ve got no idea how you spell his name, he was swedish and although it sounded like Matti he pronounced it in some crazy way) offered to show us another spot a few K’s down the road.
I’m keeping quiet on the location of this place but its on the list for The Search because as we pulled into the fireroad that accesses this little spot a group of riders rolled out the woods on freeride bikes… I turns out a little haven of DH tracks is on the hill and they finish in the same area as a great little BMX track! Oh, and there is a funicular railway to carry your DH bike to the top! We were already knackered from riding at Aigle but on seeing the fun that could be had here we were straight back on the bikes again. This track was more up my street, it was a lot less racy and much more enjoyable with roll-ins to many sections so you didn’t have to sprint like mad to do the jumps. By the time we stopped riding the sun had set and our arms and legs were like jelly….
The valley from lake Geneva to Martigny has to be one of the best places in the world to ride bikes, not just mountainbikes, all types of bicycles. The number of people we saw cycling was amazing, from a few families out for a gentle ride to gaggles of roadies belting down the tarmac, downhillers BMXers and we were told there was a huge trials park further down the valley. It doesn’t get better than this, and the Swiss make the best chocolate in the world….