The folks over at Cormaranche like a bit of nifty branding and we were there last weekend for the first race of our Regional Downhill Cup in 2026, Cormavalanche!
Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes is France’s third-largest region and stretches from the Swiss and Italian borders westwards across a huge chunk of the country. Living in the far northeastern corner means some race weekends involve five or six hours on the road before hitting the dirt.
This year there are six stops in the AuRA DH cup including:
Cormaranche
Super Besse
Col de Rousset
Le Lorian (Also the Regional Championships)
Sept Laux
Chalmazel
Cormaranche itself is found at the southern extreme of the Jura mountains. A subalpine range with a banana-shaped footprint that spoons Lake Geneva in its crook.
The village has an excellent little bike park, which is open to punters and serviced by an uplift shuttle service that seems to run for as much of the year as they can possibly manage.
All of this is in partnership with the local UCHAV MTB club, which also organises the race.
We’ve ridden there before when the shuttles were running and we’ve also been there when they weren’t, and I put in an 11-hour driving shift to get there, run laps for the lads all day, then get home again at the end of the day. I was goosed!
T raced here last year and after Millau and Rhyd y Felin this year, he was looking forward to some familiar territory to gauge his progress.
With the van packed and a tiny chalet booked for two nights we headed out on Friday afternoon towards Lyon from Geneva before peeling off the motorway and disappearing south into the juicy green folds of rolling countryside.
It wasn’t just the territory; it would also be nice to be back among familiar faces and friends for a race weekend.
We slipped straight back into race weekend protocol on Saturday morning.
Track walk, plate and transponder collection, bike fettling, training, learning, filming, socialising, strategising, maintaining calorific intake, rehydrating, filming and having a good laugh.
It’s a decent race track with a bit of everything. It’s on the shorter side, taking around two and a half minutes to descend. There are a couple of standout features, though, including a big, tasty limestone rock garden halfway down. There’s a 90-degree right-hand corner at the bottom with a wooden wall ride where there’s a chunk of time to be made up or lost, depending on how well it goes.
The second standout feature and nifty branding coup is the Big Moustache. A big ‘Hollywood’ road gap, close to the finish line and an accessible spectator hotspot. It’s probably two metres high with a ten metre gap to the landing on the other side of the road. The landing runs directly into a left-hand corner and a deep rut, waiting to punish any rider coming in fast and out of shape.
In the U15 category, there are obligatory bypasses for bigger features like this, but having moved up to U17, Thomas is now free to ride all the features on track and should indeed need to, to be competitive.
This weekend that meant he would need to tick off a first time over the Big Moustache as part of his free practice session. That’d be enough to give me a sleepless night but he dropped into a train of three mates led by an experienced U19 sender and without a second thought, they all sailed over it like it weren’t no thing.
It might sound straightforward but we watched numerous riders come up short over the weekend. The sound of rear tyres and wheels exploding volleyed off into the woods like the crack of a gunshot. We also witnessed several big crashes, usually rut-related, and the medical support aftermath which is not great for the patients or the parental nervous systems.
Thomas was pleased with the day’s practice and the progress he’d made. We wrapped up for the day, met a big group for a bite to eat in the evening then hit the sack ready for race day.
Race day consisted of two race runs. One in the morning and a second in the afternoon. The fastest time of either counts. No practice this time, so another dad mate ran a couple of shuttle laps first thing in the morning in his pick up so our guys could warm up on another trail.
The racers all got into it and Thomas put down a decent, clean descent and a good time on his first run. No issues and he felt there were improvements to go faster.
The Frenchies love a leisurely, social lunch so we had a couple of hours before play resumed. A mate of mine offered the loan of his ebike and another his riding company. We headed off for a couple of fun laps on some other trails in the park to blow off our spectator cobwebs.
We returned pumped with fresh dopamine and big grins and I headed off to the snack bar for a post-ride coffee. In a weakened state of resistance, I succumbed to the nifty branding and got stuck into some merch, picking up a nice bike park Cormaranche Big Moustache cap and some matching socks.
I sipped coffee and inspected my purchases as Thomas’s second run time crept closer.
My phone started buzzing.
It was Thomas.
“Yellow” I said
“Hiya. How do I put the windows up on the van?”
“Just put the key in the ignition, turn it one click and the electrics will come on, then put the windows up.”
“OK…”
Then a pause.
“I think I’ve just locked the keys in the van.” He said.
Now. I was struggling to figure out how that was even possible until he explained it.
He had already locked the van with the windows down when he rang me. When I told him to put the key in the ignition, turn it one click and put the windows up, he’d done all of that whilst leaning through the open window. He then stood and watched helplessly as the window shoved his arm out of the way and the van swallowed its own key.
“Uh oh.”
20 minutes ’til start time for his second race run, no spare key AND his bike was in the back of the van. Jeeze!
YouTube didn’t help, especially because of the glut of 20-minute videos for 20-second solutions. One way or another, I was getting in there, and fast. I picked the smallest piece of the sliding rear window and tried to push it out. The bottom gave a little but it was stubborn.
More force was necessary, and my flesh-coated arm was probably not the best tool for the job. I commandeered a two-metre length, 15cm diameter cut branch from the verge and started shoving harder from a distance.
Divine timing got involved and gifted me a jolly old local reporter who just happened to be mooching up the road. He couldn’t contain his glee as our predicament unfolded in front of him.
I hadn’t noticed him until he asked French if he could take a photo.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” I said as I turned to look at him.
In one hand, he had a notepad and a pen. His other hand was hovering over the grip of an SLR camera hanging from a strap over his shoulder. His fingers were gently dancing, ready to draw and shoot if he got the green light.
The situation was still some way from maturing into an amusing anecdote for me. He, on the other hand, was having a whale of a time.
I continued shoving at the window, and he joked aloud about what a great story it would be that the English were here and vandalising vehicles.
A group of lads opposite were enjoying the show as they tucked into their lunch from the comfort of their camping chairs.
The reporter was a chirpy old bloke who meant no harm, so I gave him a laugh of acknowledgement and a smile at his banter game, but I wasn’t budging on the photo, so he sauntered off to sniff out another story.
I gave up with the branch, borrowed a screwdriver off a mate and got brutal. It wasn’t long before I’d rived the window out completely and was shoving Thomas headfirst through the gap.
The group opposite found that extra amusing and gave us a little jabber of congratulations as Thomas popped back up in the driver’s seat and opened the doors. We liberated his bike and he scurried off to catch a shuttle bus.
It turned out that he needn’t have bothered. Two red flags meant that he ended up waiting in the hot sun at the top for an hour and a half.
Our group installed ourselves at the Big Moustache road gap with the other spectators and waited for everyone to come through. One by one, they all came back down safe and sound. Some had had mechanical nightmares or costly moments, but some had scored decent results, Thomas included, with an 8th place in the U17s.
As a first-year rider in a group of 60, 8th was excellent progress. He’d had a couple of issues on the way down, including a lengthy foot unclipping issue and was confident he could have done better. They all think like that; it’s the racer mentality.
We’ve thoroughly enjoyed Cormavalanche two years on the trot now. The organising team and volunteers do a terrific job and the proximity of the Big Moustache to the finish line makes it an exciting and immersive finish arena for spectators and riders alike.
This was a solid result for Thomas back at a level that he’s used to and a perfect stepping stone to his first taste of French National level action at Metabief in a week’s time. Let’s go!
