Imagine how pleased I was to get a text showing Fabien’s house under a foot of snow the day before setting off! Oh well, bikes on board, ferry booked and 15 hours later after driving through the whole of France at 1°C or much cooler, I drove into the gates of the apartment at Eze and started unloading the bikes in the stinging, freezing rain – and Fabien didn’t want to test in Britain because the weather can be bad!

I met Paul and Fabien the morning after and went through the plans for testing and also the forks, cartridges and other parts we had prepared. Then it was time to suit up in the Dainese! The idea being that if I ride the course I can relate more clearly to what Fabien and Aurelian are telling us about feelings and sensations through the suspension. To say I was like an exited schoolboy at the prospect of riding with Fabien would be a bit of an understatement. I was due to ride with Fabien at last years test session but a torn medial ligament in the old left knee kept me on foot for the full four days. It wasn’t until Fabien’s catastrophic knee injury in South Africa and his incredible WC win 12 weeks later in Maribor that I realised that a ligament injury can be a performance enhancing measure...

Above: Fabien pleased to see me finally reach the top!

Fabien’s plan to ride San Romolo an hour’s drive away in Italy and Peille on his doorstep were scuppered by the snow – a foot deep at the top of Pielle and two feet deep at the top of San Romolo. That left us with a choice of about six or seven national/international standard tracks to choose from, all with decent uplift roads!!

I don’t want to bore you too much with the details of the testing other than to say that with the bikes I took, the tracks I rode and the work with Fab’s Mondraker Summum, we pretty much have all the popular bikes tested to death with settings and valvings all dialled. Orange, Trek or Mondraker, whatever you plan to ride next year give us a call for a personalised valving set-up.

Above: Aurelian chose the right bike for he job, hey, easier to pick up a trials bike!!!

On the first day we rode, mud, wet rocks and sand, on the second day we rode through stinging rain all day, the track was in turns fast, steep, rocky and with some VERY muddy berms and wet roots. On the third day we rode a very steep track consisting of sticky mud on slippy rocks with some ridiculous drops and on the final day we went back to day two’s track and went back to day two’s stinging rain all day! If I thought I was riding out of my skill level or comfort zone on some of the sections, then the invitation to ride Fab’s personal ‘freeride’ track was sure to set off alarm bells in my head! ‘There is a jump/drop into the river at the bottom, it is easy and you can roll it if you don’t want to take-off’ should have translated as... ‘If you have an 8ft long bike it will be possible to roll this drop, but in the event that you are riding a normal DH bike at least Aurelian and I will have some extra entertainment as you launch sideways off the take-off and land stiff-backed into the river below...’ FREEEEEERRRIIIIDE!!!!! Suffice it to say that if you thought Fergus’s secret steep track at Glentress was steep!

Above: On top of the world ma!

Above: Mmmm, an empty road!

All in all we had a very successful few days and the dedication that Paul, Fabien and Aurelian showed to riding and testing demands a great deal of respect. There are British riders who are less prepared to ride in the mud than these guys! Let’s just say that if it rains this year at Champery these guys have got the skills and the settings - I don’t think I’ve ridden more in the mud for about five years!!!

Above: Bloody hell lads, cheer up it's only a bit of rain!

Oh, and then for the final day’s treat Fabien decided to take me for an easy motorcycle enduro ride, ‘nothing extreme’... To be fair, the riding was challenging in many aspects, we had snow, ice, mud, loose rocks, ridiculous climbs and ridiculous descents, all of it was absolutely beautiful! An incredible day. I guess it’s just that riding in Wales doesn’t prepare you for riding along a mountain goat track with a 3,000ft drop to one side and just enough room for the handlebar with the tyre on the edge of the trail, the kind of drop that you might survive, but without a helicopter the bike stays where it lands! Forever... I guess also that a 15 hour drive, four days DH riding (more runs than I’ve done in the last two Masters World Champs put together!), not enough dormir and too much vin rouge aren’t the best preparation for a four hour ‘proper mountain’ enduro ride – I sucked...

Still, that’s what testing is about isn’t it?! Pinpoint the weak parts and work on those – I’ve got a lot of work to do before the next visit!!!!

ChrisP

Above: The only reason we stopped was 'cos we ran out of paper to clean the goggles!!!!

Below: So muddy we changed forks rather than carts...