Mega Avalanche 2008

Published on July 22, 2008

The Mega Avalanche is meant to be one of the hardest mountain bike races with a 32km descent starting at the top of Pic Blanc which peaks at 3330m then finishing in Allemont which has a altitude of 720m, so 2610m off vertical drop certainly sounds impressive! Surely it couldn’t be too bad ?

How wrong we were. After the 12 hour drive we woke up and practiced the Mega Avalanche track along with the qualifying course. Heading up the lift we were excited about riding the famous snow section. With the impression that snow was like riding wet mud I went out with confidence which I lost after the first 5 meters. In the snow I was out of control sliding down going faster and faster. After a while I managed to get a technique where I mostly stayed on my feet. Further down there was some amazing single track, which was on a steep side of a valley, meaning if you crashed you would of tumbled down quite a few metres !

Eventually we moved on to the shorter qualifying track which featured rocky chutes and tones of loose rocks. It was a wicked track which was really enjoyable the whole way down though I was wondering how overtaking was going to be possible on such tight track. Going back to the hotel we were looking forward to a good meal before the qualifying. At dinner we spoke to some of the other riders and found out some useful information that both tracks didn’t finish in Alpe d’heuz like we thought, but the qualifying finished in Oz and the Mega track finished all the way down in Allemont ! So we had left out half of the Qualifying track and tons of the Mega track ! We thought the first part was hard enough physically after arm pump and constantly gasping for air. To say we were shocked that we missed most of the tracks was a bit of an understatement.

Waking up on Friday we were nervous of what was ahead. We got the lift up to the qualifying start and were put in our rows. As the countdown number boards kept decreasing I was slightly excited, but slight worried and scared as 200 middle age men surrounded me. Some dodgy music indicated that there were only 30 seconds left. The tape lifted and I pedaled as hard as I could being elbow to elbow with the people next to me. The start went ok getting towards the front of the pack. I lost tonnes of places after deciding to walk up the fire road. But tried to catch up places on the downhill through the woods,but my chain jamming didn’t help. I qualified 56th missing out on the main race but meaning I started in an Early row at the Promo race.

After finding out about the ridiculous start times we had to be at the race I set my alarm to 6:15am I woke up to grey sky’s and pouring rain, waterproofs it was then. Getting to the lift at around 7am we found out the race would not start at the top of Pic Blanc due to safety issues instead it started at the qualifying track again. Riding down to the other lift in the pouring rain and then finding out the lift wasn’t open was certainly something I didn’t want to hear. So about 700 riders were huddled in or near the lift cabin with wet clothes shivering. It started to become a test of endurance of who could stand the cold the longest. Many riders left as they were too cold seeing some had been at the lift station at 6am. The lifts finally moved at around 10:30am which was to everyone’s relief.

At the top of the race we had to wait longer to be lined up in our rows. The usual dodgy music signified 30 seconds left. Screaming men charging down the track was all I could see and hear for the first few 100 metres. After totally messing up the start I overtook quite a few people on the inside of the berms. The section we hadn’t done yet, provided quite a few uphills where all the XC’ers overtook me, but later I was stuck behind them on the downhill. With no idea how far to still go I just pedaled and tried to concentrate. When we reached a town with people cheering I knew we were close. Everyone was sprinting to the big Inflatable arch, so I also decided to use the rest of my energy. When crossing the line there were different emotions going through my head first relief that I had completed one of the most challenging races. The sense of accomplishment was great and the free meal provided afterwards was really good so I managed to eat it in about a minute.

Ive never had so much fun at a race and it was well worth the trip despite the changes to the course, though the weather could have been a lot better ! Experience definitely helps and I would do things slightly differently next time. It was the best 70euros I have spent and made English races look like a right rip off. If your thinking of trying the Mega it is definitely worth a go. Hopefully I will be back out next year !

This years winner was Rene Wildhaber winning another Mega with a scorching time of 45minutes.

Top 5 of the Mega Avalanche were:

1. Rene Wildhaber (Scott) 45:37;360

2. Renny Absalon (Commençal) 46:05;300

3. Gregory Doucende (Lapierre Salomon) 46:56;970

4. Jerome Clementz (MBK) 48:20;320

5. Alexandre Balaud (FMF Rocky Mountain) 48:23;860