This is the follow-up extra feature from the article first published in issue 102. Jenn Hill, our deputy editor, died of cancer in October, shortly before this article was published.
Read the full feature in issue 102
Mark’s Mountain Extras
Mark’s route was from the main lift station at Le Chable, at the base of the valley below the town of Verbier to the top of the Big One cable car that finishes at the foot of the summit glacier. It’s home to the highest restaurant in Europe.
Print constrains mean there’s a whole heap of images that just couldn’t be fit in to the feature. The beauty of digital, of course, is that space is virtual and endless. So here for your pleasure is a gallery of all the images we couldn’t lay down in print.
All photo’s by Vic Alker and Christer Lidslot
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The idea for the ultimate enduro stage was brewed up with Lucy from Bike Verbier. Here she is marking out the route on the map when we arrived. The original plan was to start the route at the Bike Verbier chalet as it’s all up hill from there, but we decided to change the start to the lift station at Le Chable for the purpose of making it repeatable. It’s still a 23km climb and 21km descent though. And it was important to find a route that was as continually up hill as possible. Apart from one bit of fireroad that levels for maybe 100yards it’s a continual positive gradient from start to finish.
It doesn’t get more Swiss than this. Chocolate on the pillows for all guests at Bike Verbier 🙂
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My principal strategy was food based. I knew I’d be burning around 6000 calories to do this climb so I had to eat a ton of food before and during. I am just never hungry at breakfast so eating enough before we left the chalet was really hard. Eating endless peanut butter sandwiches during the ride was a lot harder than I could ever have imagined too. Strangely, eating loads after the ride was very easy.
Pondering the climb to come as we stand in the carp park of the Le Chable lift station looking up at the mountain I was about to ride up.
The first few hours of the climb were warm, although I passed through pockets of cold air, which is why in some of the pictures I’m wrapped up and in others I’m down to jersey and rolled up sleeves.
Peanut butter sandwich stop – you can tell by the facial expression that I’m already starting to struggle to swallow the buggers, and I’ve not even reached the end of the tree section.
This was the flattest part of the climb at about 5500 feet. It was where I stopped for the longest as my neck was starting to get pretty stiff.
Yeah.. stiff neck. If only I had a personal physio at this point.
At about 6000 feet the trees start to give way to boulders as we approach the start of the sub alpine section.
But strangely it warmed up – hence back to shirt and no jacket.
Trees all gone now and the landscape starts to really open up as I approach the snowline. About 7000 feet I reckon.
Who watches the watchers? Photographer Christer Lidslot snapping my wife Vic snapping him. Meanwhile the trail kicks up steeper now as we meander across ski pistes at maybe 7500 feet. Christer and Vic were riding eBikes, which you can see laid out in the picture. At this point my legs are close to cramping at every bend and I’m literally nursing them up the trail at barely walking pace. I have no idea what I’m thinking at this point – I’ve been riding up constantly now for over 5 hours.
despite the blue sky it’s sub zero here as I make it to the plateau and the Mont Fort glacier. Right up until the final hairpin I really had no confidence I was really going to make it to the top, which is part of the reason at this point I became more than a little emotional.
.
I couldn’t make it to the actual summit as that is accessed by one final lift and there’s no track access. The glacier is as close as I could get, which is a few hundred metres from the official Mont Fort summit.
Coming down was much more fun than I expected it to be. I knew the trail down was amazing but I was expecting to be so incredibly tired at this point that I was sure I’d be barely holding my riding together. I think the adrenaline and euphoria of reaching the top – of having done something I’ve put off for so long – gave me a boost and I absolutely loved the descent. It’s a singletrack descent pretty much all the way from about 8000 feet back down to the valley bottom and the total distance is 21km of just DOWN.
.
Not shot on the descent itself but the previous day I’d pre-ridden the descent with Vic and guided by Lucy. It’s truly one of the best descents I’ve ever ridden anywhere in the world.
Lucy leads and Vic follows as we approach the final section of the descent on our pre-ride day. If you get the chance to ride in the Alps then September/October can be a stunning time to choose.
Sweet, sweet relief. Back at the valley floor and time to head back to the chalet and eat real food.
Lucy and me. She’s awesome too.
And finally… The day after my ascent we went back up the mountain to ride a few of the other trails – lift assisted this time. There was a snow blower being tested and it was too good an opportunity to miss. 20 minutes after this picture was taken a fell off my bike trying to cross a rutted trail and I broke my leg. Vic had to drive the van all the way home the next day.
I love my wife.
Lucy plotted this route using the app Bikemap. You can see it online here
Awesome people who deserve a lot of thanks for this challenge..
- Phil and Lucy at Bike Verbier
- Sally at Fit Naturally
- Nicolai Bikes UK for the bike, which is clearly a proper mountain bike.
#FORJENN
Corrections to the published article.
I rudely and ignorantly got the name of the dietary help that was so important for this challenge. I used the services of Fit Naturally although in the feature I incorrectly called her Natalie when in fact it was Sally. Sorry Sally.
Great effort
Awesome, hope you come back stronger from the break.
I’m 58 and I’ve been riding mountain bikes since 1987. I guess I’m at my lowest ebb now and I do about 60 miles per week…hopefully I will pick that up soon, once I’ve sorted a few problems I have at the moment.
I reckon your lowest gear going up that hill will have been something like 20 gear inches and your highest gear will have been about 80 gear inches. I know from my own experience that having a 17 gear inch lowest gear does you HUGE favours, as against a 20, when you are engaged on a marathon climb in mountainous country, and I also know that on smoother ground having something WAY upwards of an 80 also does you huge favours on the descents. While I do not know you, I am vaguely aware that you have a reputation for not being the most active of bikers. Coupled with that you also hold quite an influential position in the bike world by virtue of your position on this network. Surely to goodness it must be in the interests of folk like you, who are not that mountain-climbing-fit, that we encourage the bike industry to create bikes that enable Mr/Ms Average to conquer hills on the bikes the industry is turning out. Wether you like it or not you are influential in this. Yet in your Room 101 section in the mag this month you are endorsing the binning of front mechs, and the double or triple systems that would have made that trip more doable, and easier for you.
Please go take a look in a mirror Mark. My knees are not what they were. I fffffin need lower gears….and so do you. And higher top end gears are bleeding useful as well.
Come on Mark…get with the programe.
And….GOOD ON YOU FOR DOING THE TRIP.
Mark – total respect and thank you for one of the best articles I’ve read in the mag. Rarely is there so much as a mention of the pain of getting up and most weekend warriors feel that sort of pain and frustration on natural stuff way smaller than you did. Nice to have the torture so eloquently described. Very emotional read too and just a shame it had to be tinged with the sadness of Jenn, but glad she made you do it!
Not a fan of 1x then Billybob 🙂
On the way down I never went anywhere near the bottom of the block. Why would I? I was riding technical singletrack down a steep mountain for over 20km. 1x was totally fine for riding up and down a real actual mountain – My mistake was my chainring was two teeth too big for me not that I was missing a front mech, extra ring, cables and shifter.
But then, I still actually did it regardless and it was actually all about that and not about how easy it could have been.
🙂
I just think it is a bad direction for the industry to take, Mark, and it won’t be good for you personally, nor for me.
The whole joy of mountain biking when I started in 1987, was the lower gears it gave you as against hybrids and road systems of the day, and the facility that afforded ordinary folk to keep pedaling when the going got tough.
Now the industry is moving the capabilities of a lot of mainstream bikes into a more limited gear range that isn’t going to cut it for a lot of people for a lot of reasons. You because you may not have been so match-fit, and me because my knees cannot take the stresses they used to. The fact that there are firms selling T Rex and similar, 40 and 42 cogs to supplement the inadequacies of 2 x 10, or 1 x 10 systems, along with the Praxis 11/40 10spd cassettes (and rumour has it Shimano are following suit??) is proof that mainstream gearing is lacking in range for a lot of us punters out here
You shouldn’t have to stop, and spend 10/20 minutes taking your front chainring off then affixing a new smaller one, when you get to that extra steep bit of hill. That’s assuming you are carrying the tools, and the smaller toothed ring, that will enable you to do that. All you should have to do is change gear, and that lower gear should be there for you instantly.
The industry is dictating poorer gear ranges to folk, and it will hurt the mountain bike side of the bike trade, because a lot of folk won’t buy into it.
It’s a leap backwards…not a leap forwards.
It’s simpler. I like it. It suits me and how I ride. It’s a step forward for me.
That’s ok Mark, and there are a lot of folk who feel the same way as you…but the point is “choice”. The way things are developing, there is going to be no choice. And this tide is being swept along by journos saying this/that new system gives a ‘good gear range’, where in nearly every case the truth is that the this/that system they are now praising is giving a poorer gear range, than was available on most every bike five years ago.
Enter Charlie The Bikemonger…you don’t need no bloody gears….well, I’ve seen him ride up a hill on a singlespeed and he didn’t need gears…but I, and a lot of other folk I know, do.
That’s fine. No one is taking away your choice of multiple rings. There’s now MORE choice. You can have triple, double or single. That’s more choice than we had a few years ago.
No one is coming to take your rings away Billy.
This is why I still subscribe to Singletrack all the way from number one or two; I now feel inspired to find my mountain!