We opted for the beach holiday in Moliets near Biarritz for a complete change of scenery and sporting activity. Signed the family up for a whole week of surfing lessons and the kids took to it like the proverbial ducks. I wrecked a toe on day 3 – either dislocated or broken, not sure – so I was out of action after that. Surfing seems a lot like golfing, insanely frustrating and then just when you’re about to hurl the board against a rock you catch a sweet wave, and you kid yourself that you’ve cracked it. Don’t know that I’m all that sold on it.

So, back to the manic week. We are going full ahead on the apartments in Montorlin, ordered the roof timbers this week and the basic structural work should be completed in the next few days. I’m hoping to have it watertight by the winter. We are also alternating Montorlin with further work on Chalet Pèlerin, which is really coming into bloom.

The weather has been fabulous this week, I’ve been out pedalling just once as I’ve not been feeling good at all, so last night took the enduro bike for a spurt up the mountain as it was such a beautiful evening.

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On the construction front, the balconies are now on Chalet Pèlerin in Le Miroir so the outside is completed – I’ll be taking some photos soon. We are turning our attention to the apartment development in Montorlin and thinking about revising this project to leave the interiors of the apartments unfinished. The prices would be revised to reflect this, giving buyers the opportunity to finish the interiors to their own specification, either through us or independently.

On Wednesday I raced in a cyclosportive in Courchevel – 18km, 1200m uphill, against the clock – and came in at 1 hour, 6 secs. I’m racing tomorrow in Coeur de L’Ain, which is a 4-day tour but I’m just doing the last day – 127km.

Posted by Chris

Last Wednesday was a highlight: I took my 12 year-old daughter out on a proper road bike for the first time. It was a good one from the hire shop and we rode from close to Moutiers to Annecy. She cranked out some impressive stats for a first go – a ride of 130km, averaging 30kmph (I told her she got a tow in my slipstream but she was, quite rightly, having none of it). She loved it, but it’s tricky for her to find the time to do it on a regular basis amongst all her other stuff.

Did a race on Saturday up to Les Arcs 1950 from Bourg St Maurice and managed to knock 3 minutes off my previous time, so the training seems to be taking me in the right direction overall.

Recent outdoors activity has predictably involved a lot of cycling – on road bikes and mountain bikes. Maybe a bit too much cycling, if I’m honest. The legs don’t feel right and I think I need to reassess my training programme.

We had a great day out recently doing downhill mountain biking in Tignes. This has really taken off and Tignes is offering a free summer season pass for all the lifts. Can’t say fairer than that. It’s all single track and great fun, but it’s a serious sport now and some of them absolutely fly down the mountain – literally – so you have to keep checking back over your shoulder to make sure there isn’t some airborne nutter sailing over it.

I’m doing a 140km ride with the club on Sunday, almost to Grenoble and back, but it should be relatively relaxed. Coming up though is the Tour de Mont Blanc, which is a 320km ride over 2 days, taking in France, Italy and Switzerland with 9000m of vertical climbing. I’m doing it as a bit of a recce for next year’s cycle camp.

I finally managed the day out enduro biking which I’d wanted to do for ages with my friend who runs the Mountain Pro Shop near Albertville. He took me out around the back side of Beaufortin and we covered a huge area, most of which I’ve never seen and we didn’t see another soul all day. I’ve got a feeling that my friend may have been born on a bike as he took me over some really tough, technical stuff – I fell off within the first five minutes and then continued to do so regularly throughout the day. I was sore and bruised.

Posted by Chris

We totted up 300km cycling over Tuesday and Wednesday and I think the cycle camp guys have had a blast. It’s my last day cycling with them tomorrow.

I got my official time and placing for La Marmotte: 8 hours dead – I’d timed 8 hours, 17 mins but they don’t count the time for a particularly dangerous downhill section; I was placed 1,157 out of approximately 7,000.

Camping above Sainte Foy

The camping with my son last Friday night was a roaring success – will definitely be going again. We rode our motorbikes up to a flat spot next to a stream well above Sainte Foy, made a fire, cooked dinner over it, played a game of cards and then went to bed. We cooked breakfast over the fire and were back home by 10 in the morning. Simple stuff, but my lad absolutely loved it – you can’t beat open-fire cooking and brushing your teeth in a mountain stream.

Posted by Chris

The 5000m climb is the equivalent of rising from sea level to the summit of Mont Blanc. The last section of the race was torture – a 1000m climb into Alpe d’Huez in the blazing sunshine.

I’m told that on such a beautiful day the cols were a thing to behold but I couldn’t see through the cascades of sweat going into my eyes.

Anyway, I did it. I have been on the bike this week but the legs weren’t working very well. Guess it’ll take a while to recover.

The guys from the Bethel Cycle Club in the US start arriving tomorrow for their cycle camp stay at Chalet Merlo. One of the guys wants to have a go at the time trial over the col in Val d’Isère on Sunday, and then on Tuesday the whole group will be cycling from Chalet Merlo to Col de la Madeleine to watch Le Tour fizz past on the hors categorie climb.

The guys have a contact in the Liquigas team so on Wednesday we’ll cycle from Albertville to Chambéry and we’ll get to hang out in their start area and meet the cyclists. Really looking forward to the whole week.

Tonight, my son and I are going up into the mountains on our motorbikes with a tent to do a bit of wild camping – he wants to take his catapult and we’ll light a fire, but we’ll more likely be heating up a tin of spag bol than roasting a freshly-shot marmot.

Racing in La Grand Bo

Well, this weekend is the big one. 5000m vertical ascent. All the training and racing so far this season has been building up to this… hoping to have some decent race stats to report back next week.

In La Grand Bo last week there were 270 racers in the 100km course and I came 70th with an average speed of 29.4kph, and 8th in my category.

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The start of La Grand Bo

Took advantage of the weather and got some training in on the bike, so all set up for the race tomorrow – La Grand Bo in Le Grand Bornand, Haute Savoie. Bit of a hike to get there, so taking the family and staying the night. They might even cheer me on a bit.

Posted by Chris

In the weekend just gone the race was in Morzine (one of this year’s Tour stages). It was the biggest climb so far this year, 3700m of misery in absolutely diabolical conditions. It was cold and we actually had snow coming down on the first col at 1750m. In June.

There was a pretty low turnout of competitors because of the weather but the ambulances were still kept busy with racers suffering from hypothermia. I’ll say it again. In June.

The course included the Col de Jouxplane, where Lance Armstrong bonked a couple of years back and I wasn’t far off doing that too. I finished the 160km race in 7 hours, 8 minutes.

The progressively bigger climbs are leading up to the big cyclosportif event in a couple of weeks – Marmotte, which is a 5000m climb.

Have included a video below from recent la Beaume to Drobie race.

Posted by Chris

I’ve attached a couple of photos, the first of me looking fairly fresh, the second, on an uphill section, looking a little less fresh.

I’m up tomorrow at about 5am to get to Cluses on the other side of Chamonix. The race runs to Les Carroz.

Posted by Chris

fairly fresh

Uphill - not so fresh