Metabief…
Mad name eh? Might sound like Zuckerberg’s at it again with his old foe Musk but it’s actually pronounced meh-ta-bee-eh and was the venue for the first French Cup of the year. They held the MTB World Champs there back in 1993 but this weekend it would be Thomas’s first French National-level race ever. Bring it on.
We were back in the UK last week, sadly for a family funeral but we needed to set off early doors on Friday morning to be at Metabief in time for the track walk in the afternoon.
After some logistical planning, we’d left the van at Geneva airport, packed with bikes, kit and everything we’d need for the race weekend. Everything, except the things we’d inevitably forgotten in the thick of it all.
This move actually worked even more in our favour than expected. Not only did it halve the driving distance from Les Gets, but it also put us on the other side of the G7 shenanigans taking place on the south side of Lake Geneva.
Leaders from the Group of Seven are meeting in Evian this week, where they are busy solving the world’s problems whilst expending excessive amounts of time, money and resources. In some cases, they could even be wasting oxygen.
The police presence has been enormous, with vehicle convoys everywhere and more roadside control points than you can shake a stick at. There have apparently been 3000 police officers accommodated in Avoriaz and there’s none of my favourite bog roll left in Carrefour. It was nice to be away from it for a few days.
We touched back down in Geneva on Friday and breathed a sigh of relief that the bikes were still in the van. We decanted luggage from the UK trip and offloaded the rest to the girls who’d be heading back home to prepare for exam week.
We said our goodbyes and waved them away as we left the airport parking and passed a line of three massive tactical police wagons with serious-looking armed operatives.
The UK had been chilly and it was lovely to be back in blue skies and late twenties. We cracked the windows and filtered onto the motorway towards Lausanne. When we reached it, we peeled north and wound up into the Jura mountains. An hour and a half, and a Subway stop later, we pulled into a parking space at Metabief.
Our friends from Morzine Race Team rocked up soon after. We helped them erect their pit tent and set off together to walk the track.
That brings me to the first forgotten item of the weekend, walking shoes. Having spent the first half of the day slapping around airports in my Vans, I was looking forward to some grippy, cushioned trainer goodness. Not happening sunshine! The rubby bits would be rubbing for the rest of the weekend. At least we could catch the chairlift to start at the top.
Metabief is another cool DH track. It’s about three and a half minutes long top-to-bottom. It has several wide-open fast sections, a long left-to-right traverse where you just start getting used to staying off the brakes and building speed before you are on them again for a series of steep, rocky technical switchbacks.
There are three road gaps. The first is near the start, elevated way above the road, long, flat and fast. The second is a short, low skip across a road but it lands into a stepped rooty section in the woods. The third is a high timber platform dropping deep into a steep transition into the woods with a beautifully shaped catch berm to carry all that gravitational acceleration away into the forest.
When you emerge from the woods for the last quarter of the track there is a long 14m sender before a bike park style section and a sprint across the fields for the line.
Luckily, the lads had already ridden the track because we’d made the journey three weeks earlier. We knew there were some big features and had agreed it would be good to tick everything off and get a couple of top-to-bottom runs in before race weekend. Once again, a lot of the field had already raced and practiced here extensively, so not having to learn it from scratch in training would be a big help.
We’d also booked accommodation with our friends this time and on the walk they announced that they’d brought stuff to make fajitas. Result, because we’d also forgotten our backup pasta, sauce and Parmesan meal pack.
The booking.com apartment was a 10-minute drive away in a nearby village called Malbuisson, with views overlooking the delightful Lac de Saint Point. We unpacked, fixed some bike issues, gratefully wolfed down a deliciously prepared fajita spread and retired to the balcony for a cold beer while the sun set across the lake.
The next morning, we were up and at them. I’d brought cereal and cereal bars, but surprise, surprise had forgotten tea bags and milk. Friends to the rescue.
The format for T’s weekend was roughly as follows:
Friday afternoon – Race plate collection and track walk (Done)
Saturday morning – 1st grouped training session. 1hr 30mins
Saturday afternoon – 2nd grouped training session, 2hr 15mins
Sunday morning – 1 warm-up run, followed by 1 seeding run.
Sunday afternoon – 1 race run.
The lads got into it and ticked everything off on their first run. It was then a case of practicing different sections, experimenting with different line choices and keeping their eyes peeled for other better options.
As the day went on they would ride things faster and faster, which would also open up new ideas and options with the extra speed. Towards the end of the day they’d try to put in a full top-to-bottom run or two to get a feel for linking it all together and sustaining the intensity for the full descent.
Meanwhile, us parents bought a lift ticket and did another track walk in the morning to ‘stack some footage’ and gather intelligence. There was also a decent amount of hanging about, and I’d forgotten to pack our camping chairs which would greatly reduce comfort levels over the weekend.
My mate and I had bought the MTB day lift ticket with every intention of using it for riding as well as walking. When the lads headed back up after lunch, we followed suit and spent a few hours lapping the other trails in the bike park. We ticked off a bunch of jumps, gaps and drops of our own. Admittedly, slightly smaller than the ones the lads were doing, but significant nonetheless, and we were pleased with ourselves.
Great afternoon.
Thomas had experimented with some line choices, including missing out the first road gap completely in favour of a potentially faster B-line. He decided against it. This is perhaps the biggest thing we are missing at the moment. We are missing more experienced input on the best way to ride each course.
The faster you ride a track and the more precision, skill and technique you have, the more options you have available. He is already beyond my abilities, but having someone who can see beyond his current level and offer options, guidance and the confidence to go for something would be really valuable. A lot of the team and factory riders have that built in with coaches, spotters and team riders. At the moment, we don’t, but we need it.
Finding somewhere for dinner that wasn’t fully booked proved a challenge and we ended up in a campsite snack bar in front of a live Karaoke stage. We had a couple of drinks and a good chat before we realised we were supposed to collect our own food from the counter. It had been sitting in a warmer for goodness knows how long and was the most well-done pizza I have ever eaten.
Race day!.. With blue sky and sunshine on repeat, we packed up, tidied up and shipped out of the apartment. The lads disappeared one by one for their practice runs and then again for their seeding runs. They also spent a good chunk of the day tag-teaming the heavily outnumbered toilets.
Both runs went well for Thomas. He caught the guy in front of him on his seeding run but the bloke had already said,
“If you catch me up, just shout and I’ll get out of the way.”
He delivered on his word, and Thomas made a clean pass without issue and thanked him at the bottom.
Thomas seeded 18th out of 66 in the category and 87 out of 236 overall from U17 and up.
We sausage-sandwiched it for lunch from the club ‘Buvette’ and sat around uncomfortably waiting for race runs.
Thomas’s start time was 16:14 and we were already well installed at the finish line as he dropped in.
Immediately, the track was noticeably more blown out than the rest of the weekend.
It had started out on Friday dry in the open, tacky in places and greasy deep in the woods. The hot weather had slowly baked it all weekend and it had been battered by thousands of sets of tyres. Running repairs had been made, but it was now rutted, pitted and bomb-holed.
Thomas landed a bit wide on the first rock drop. His chain skipped and a shoe unclipped when he cranked out some pedal strokes to get up to speed.
He death-gripped through the motorway sections. This is where some riders take their fingers off the brakes completely, when they shouldn’t need to use them and to remove the chance of dabbing one by reflex or accident and compromising your speed in a section where you need to keep it.
He made good progress through the top section and the rocky technical section before squashing the high road gap nicely.
He held back through the switchbacks because he was uncertain about the state of the corners, given the state of the track. He knew caution would compromise his time but he wanted to keep it clean and keep moving rather than cost himself extra time.
He sped past two crowds of chainsaw-wielding fans at the 14m sender, pre-hopped the drop into the bike parky section and clipped out and in repeatedly in the final sprints for the line.
A few positives, a few negatives, some technical adjustments required but he still went a second quicker than his seeding run. Measurable progress and he was pleased.
As soon as all our lads were through, we went back and dropped the tents.
As soon as we knew podiums were off the table, we saddled up and hit the road.
We had a big journey home and important school exams coming up all round so it was time to jet.
We’d had a heads up that the motorway border between Geneva and France was closed completely. Instead, we’d take the even more scenic route west along the north shore of Lake Geneva to Monthey, then up the Illiez Valley beneath the Dents du Midi and up and over the col between Morgins and Châtel.
Our G7 traffic stop roulette luck finally ran out at the base of Col du Corbier, where a brave and extremely trusting Gendarme stepped out into our path and waved us into a lay-by for inspection.
Three of the nicest Gendarmes we’ve come across so far, cast an eye around the van, checked my paperwork then risked life and limb once more by stepping back out into the traffic to allow us to rejoin.
We’d been keeping an eye on the results on the way home and Thomas had finished 19th of 66 as a first-year U17.
Not bad sonny boy. Not bad at all.
He’s not vying for podiums yet, but context matters. First-year U17. First French National. Factory riders throughout the category. A track he’d only ridden once before.
Most importantly, though, he’s growing in confidence, keeping it clean, settling in, making progress and, above all, loving it.
