Day 2: Mondial du VTT in Les 2 Alpes

30 Jun 2011

Day 2: Mondial du VTT gets underway. All the activities yesterday afternoon had clearly continued into the evening as when we got to the expo area this morning the place was jam packed with corporate tents. First order of the day was meeting up with Pascal and Florent at 2 Alpes Sport Emotion for a photo-shoot on the Vallée Blanche. Our dedicated photog Tim set off with Florent whilst Dan and myself got out the bikes and headed for the trails down to Venosc. The great thing about this trail is that if you were that desperate to get riding in the morning you do not need to get on the lifts – the trail descends immediately from the far end of the village down to Venosc (village name matches that of the trail) and you then get the lift back up to 2 Alpes. So whilst we warmed up on some steep fast berms Tim was working hard chasing Florent around. But it definitely paid off as he came back with some pretty special pics. The afternoon saw another photo-shoot, again up on the Vallée Blanche side of town but this time with Steven and Fabien providing the action. As per the morning Tim returned with some special pictures. Check out this selection of the best from the day…

Into the evening we discovered one of the really great features of 2 Alpes. How often do lifts close at bike parks before you have had enough (just one more run…!)? With the summer evenings staying light well past 9pm, if lifts close at 4 (which so many do) then that’s another 5 hours of fun that we miss out on! 2 Alpes keeps the Diable gondola open until 18:00 and the Venosc gondola open until 20:00. And from the top of Diable you can still get to just under half the named trails on that side of the mountain, and have 1440m of height to play with down to Venosc. The result is that if you can handle it, you can ride lift accessed trails from 9am until 8pm. But expect to be battered at the end of it! Will be heading up onto the glacier tomorrow to see if we can put in a bit of practice for the Megavalanche next week. 3200m down to 960m should be a challenge! Also expecting some action on the Urban Slopestyle in town. Just a lot going on at 2 Alpes right now.

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