Megavalanche, Alp D’Huez France


The race schedule this year had a pretty nice break from World Cups in July which gave me just enough time to slot in a trip to the Mega ! I have never actually done the mega before as 2 years ago I went and did not end up racing as a big thunderstorm came in at the start and I ended up stuck in a village with no lifts working, very wet and cold I decided to abandon it ! So this time I was determined I would make the start line. There was also one of the biggest women’s field of almost 60 riders and most definitely the most talented field with the legend Anne Caro, Sabrina and Emmeline and a load of other world cup DH girls so it was going to be a great race.

The weather was amazing all week and had obviously been dry for a good while leading up to the event as the tracks were all so dusty it was really tough to try and follow anyone. Qualifying is always great fun as it’s a fun technical track from the top with a very short climb and then wooded singletrack to finish in Oz. I had a great start just getting cut up into 2nd by Anne Caro in the first corner. I just sat in and followed her along the first fireroad. I was carrying good speed and went to go past at one stage and just got blocked so was content to follow into the first section. Just as I went to pedal up the first rocky section I dropped my chain so quickly had to get off and run and get my chain back on.

By this time Anne had put 10sec or more into me and I just had to try and catch back up. By the top of the climb I had managed to get a bit closer to her but I was not close enough to try and pass on the 2nd section of the trail as it was all singletrack and we started to catch up people. I just rode good enough to stay in 2nd ending up about 30sec back from Anne. Sabrina came in 3rd with Emmeline 4th. So I knew it was going to be a great race if I could get off the snow not too far behind Anne !!

Being my first mega I really didn’t know what to expect as I had never raced down the snow. Although the weather had been really hot and the snow was really soft it still looked pretty daunting lining up at the top of the piste ! I was more nervous than at a world cup downhill race ! Finally it was time to start after a long wait at the top. I had a pretty good start although lost a lot of time to Anne on the second section of snow as I was still scooting down with one foot trailing, Anne was feet up accelerating ! So by the time I hit the flat section she was already half way along it. I was with Hannah Barnes who had the best start and Emmeline who caught up to us. We were all trying to jog, walk and slide through the snow dragging our bikes ! It was a tough 10-15mins of trudging through snow which left you exhausted before you started the real riding ! I managed to get into 2nd place off the snow and started to try and make up some time as by this time Anne Caro was nowhere in sight !!

As soon as I came to the first small pedalling section about 5 mins into the rocks I realised I had a problem as my chain had come off and twisted so I could no longer pedal. I couldn’t fix it and just freewheeled and ran up all the climbs until the trail came round above Alp D’Huez village. I then came into a section with a big crowd and asked if anyone had a chain ! Luckily one of the spectators had their bike with them and I was able to take their chain and put it on my bike ! I then had a lot of work to do as I dropped back to about 20th place so I pushed really hard all the way just slowly picking off riders until I reached the finish to find out I had managed to get back up to 5th place ! I was so happy to be able to finish the race and really happy to have felt so strong. I hope I will be back next year with a chain device and some practice on the snow ready to put up a really good challenge !!

Thanks to Trek France for the help and support and to Olivia and the organisers for such a fun race.

Tracy

Tracy