Day 39: Getting Muddy again in Wagrain

8 Aug 2011

Day 39: More downpours and sliding about in the mud. We woke to low clouds, constant rain and cold – it’s supposed to be the summer but it looks nothing like it right now! But I guess it had to happen to us sometime during the URT – we’ve been pretty lucky with the weather so far. We had a few admin issues to deal with in the morning that seem to just be unavoidable on a trip like this – not very interesting though. We finally got out on the bikes in the afternoon, just as the rain reached it’s heaviest! But on a trip like this you just have to man-up and grow a pair!

Wagrain ski area has a number of lifts, but at the moment the bike park consists of just the ‘Flying Mozart’ gondola. This takes 2 people and 2 bikes in each cabin up to the mid station, giving you 320m of height to lose again on the bike. There is one main route running down the hill, which actually consists of 3 different ‘named’ trails all joined up – ‘Upper On Air’, ‘Lower On Air’ and finally ‘Symphony’ (the scene of yesterdays slopestyle). All the other trails come off this main one and then rejoin again at various points further down. The main trail is big sweeping berms with doubles in the straights, and can therefore be ridden by anyone. And the other off-shoots are more technical trails, steeper, with roots and some northshore sections. What this means is that groups of different rider abilities can spilt up and rejoin again all the way down, and ‘stay together’ for each up and down circuit.

We had a good couple of hours slipping and sliding around on some pretty treacherous roots. The weather was miserable and there was hardly anyone else out on their bikes. But we did meet up with Matthäus, Flo, Daniel and Jonny who were up from Salzburg for the day and could therefore be considered ‘locals’. We did our best with the pictures but it was definitely hard going with the dull flat light and constant rain, so it was only the blurred background images that really worked. Not bad considering, but hope for better weather tomorrow.

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