Megavalanche 2022 Final - rocks, running and ruthless ruts! The ultimate MTB race sans good snow.

Mass start mayhem at the 2022 Megavalanche finals. There was way less snow than usual this time so the majority of us had to line up on the rocks which was a bit slower but probably safer than the narrow slither of snow that remained up top.

I got a reasonably good start behind my friend from home Liam Moynihan until we joined the snow at the first right hander - The entry was more like ice and I spun out as soon as I arrived. Thankfully I got going again quite quickly but it then meant I was in busier traffic and someone veered across and took me out. A bunch more riders went past and this was critical to my race. The snow was soft and once just a few riders have gone over it the deep ruts make it almost impossible to ride and it turned into a high altitude running race which my little legs didn’t much enjoy! Haha

I found myself in a bit of space on the traverse until catching up with a train of riders which was moving slower than I wanted it to. Premek Tejchman caught onto the back of the train too which started off a bit of a ding dong battle between us for the rest of the race. We eventually got past and I felt strong on the main climb up above Alpe d’huez. After Oz (just over halfway) I started to feel pretty cooked though and I was struggling to make ground. The last few minutes were really tough and in the end I had to settle for 25th position, just 20s back from 16th. The guys in front of our gaggle had big time gaps ahead and I was really pleased to see Liam take 2nd over all! Great result!

We’ll be back next year I’m sure…

Footage captured using an Insta360 One RS action camera and quickly edited using the Insta360 app on my phone. For more info, check them out for yourself:

https://www.insta360.com/sal/one_rs?i...