French National Championships - Oisans, France

My Journey To The Alps. By Ben Roff

We were up early in the morning ready to leave for the airport to catch our plane to France. It was a long plane journey but we finally landed in Geneva, Switzerland. We had a three hour drive from the airport through the amazing scenery of the Alps before we finally reached our hotel.

We settled down for the night and checked out the stunning views of the valleys. We woke up the next morning and got ready to go to the race venue Oz En, Oisans. At the arena there were loads of stands and a huge crowd who were there to watch the down hill and the 4X that were there as well as the XC course. We went on a practice ride of the course and it was super technical and slippy on the decent and steep and slippy on the up hill. It was a really fun and scary course to ride.

The Junior girls race was on the same day as we tested the course in the afternoon so they went off to their race and they got a first and almost a second but it was not to be due to technical problems. We got a good nights rest ready for our race the next day early in the morning.

The rain had turned the track from being quick and technical over night to being a mud bath that was near to impossible to ride. We started off at the back of 130 riders and right from the word go we had to work our way up through the field. We all made a lot of places up from the start and as we went round on the first lap we came to realise that apart from one or two bits on the course it had all become impossible to ride. It turned in to a running race of who had the best stamina for running and not riding. It was a great experience racing in a pack that big and riding a place that technical. Our best rider in the youth finished in a well respected 5th place, and I finished in 56th.

Overall the whole race was a new experience for me and a great one to. The Juniors were next to race in the afternoon and the course had dried out a bit for them as the weather changed and got very warm. We then headed back to the hotel to rest and celebrate the racing and get ready for the journey home.