The SkiBike Shop

I was just seven years old and sick as a dog, the stifling summer heat and humidity, I had the whopping cough and I had it real bad.
It's just a bad cold, the boy will soon be over it.

Coughing at night till I vomited blood, couldn't eat or drink, just the coughing and the sickness.
A rushed trip to the doctors, hushed conversations between the grown ups, no smiles, needs penicillin.
Lying in my sick bed staring at reflections on the ceiling, on the radio they play "Summer Breeze" by the Isley Brothers on a continual loop it seems... "Summer breeze makes me feel fine, blowing through the jasmine in my mind".

I awake, it is dark, vague muffled night sounds but inside my head the all pervading sound is a very high pitched whistle like the sound the television makes when there are no more pictures late at night and a tiny white dot remains in the centre of the screen. Tinitus, I still have it to this day, I don't normally even hear it unless I am highly stressed or it is exceptionally quiet, a bit of an affliction for someone who would earn money as a sound engineer.

Sound engineering is a much an art as a science, different engineers can work on the same mix, achieve different results and yet both can still sound good. As you tweak and tune the parameters you often sweep up and down, back and forth till you find the "sweet spot" where it all works best.

This morning I swapped over the Alpine SkiBikes foot pegs between the "old" black and "new" silver frame. I then took the silver frame up the local test hill nearby at Le Crozet and went for a few hours ride.
What a difference, yesterday I was afraid to push the skibike for fear of loosing control. But today, with the ability to grip the frame with my feet I felt totally at one with the machine, everything fell into place. I was in the zone, I had found the sweet spot, I didn't want to stop riding.... ever. I didn't need to go fast, I had the precision to place the bike into a skid, carve, side slip, stand on the pegs, go through bumps, everything, it all just worked, brilliantly.

I didn't need to go fast - it all just worked, brilliantly.

Fortunately Carl Day has a spare pair of Alpine SkiBikes foot pegs from his old DaBomb skibike project, he has promised to send them to me here in France. Then I will have 2 dialed in, fully working skibikes that I can trust. I have some people lined up for demo rides already, perhaps next week?

I have really been mixing it up today, my first port of call was a meeting at Annecy le Vieux. I was there to sign the contract and pay the deposit on a flat in Cluses that I will be sharing for a few weeks in February with my, soon to be retired, cousin Paul. To my own amazement I set the meeting up, via the telephone, in French. Then met and discussed the finer details, including how I wanted the bedding arranged. I have either done very well or will be in for a surprise in a few weeks time.

Annecy is a lovely old town next to a huge lake and surrounded by hills and mountains, a bit like a smaller version of Geneva, best of all it is only about 30 minutes from the ski resorts of the Aravis. So it was a brisk drive uphill to Le Grand Bornand, right past the Firem factory at Villard sur Thones with a skibike sign hanging from the side.

I have been really looking forward to getting my "new" skibike on the snow and riding it. It's not really new though, it's the original Marin East Peak that I converted way back in late 2009, then rode in Scotland, Andorra and France skibob style.

The cosmetics of the frame needed a little tidying up, so I sent the rear triangle to be blasted and powder coated. I put on new Suntour forks of the same type as I have already been using and a similar coil suspension unit at the rear. I put in an adjustable stem in order to get the same amount of rise that I am used to, although with a fair bit less reach. The sliding elements are second hand Head "Big Easy" 95cm skiboards in good condition.

The result turned out much as I was expecting, the ride is fine, the hard and undamped rear suspension is something I have become accustomed to. Being a medium frame, unlike my other skibike which is large, it felt more nimble. I immediately felt at home with the shorter reach and the slightly different feedback this creates.
The Head skiboards seem to have quite a forgiving nature with a delightfully smooth transition from grip to slip. Sadly there was one element that doesn't work and radically curtailed my test session.

My new old Marin based skibike - needs better pegs!

The skibike adapters are by Russian manufacturer Ski X Bike and are near identical to the Alpine SkiBikes adapters I have used for many years now, so no complaints there. But for your feet they come supplied with a pair of round knurled BMX pegs. I had my doubts about these, I tested this configuration with Tommy from BikerMads in Stockholm last year and found them to be very slippery in the snow. Annoyingly today was exactly the same, the pegs are sharp enough when dry to snag clothing, but the merest hint of frostiness and ice fills the grooves to leave a totally slick surface. This is worse than useless, as you have somewhere to put your feet, but the minute you need to apply pressure, your foot shoots outwards throwing you off balance. After a couple of wobbly moments at quite low speeds I lost all confidence and limped back to the base station. I will swap out these pegs for the Alpine SkiBikes design and try again, but this leaves me a skibike short.

So please if; Tommy at BikerMads, Serge at Firem, Martin at Bullskate, Thierry, Wayne or Carl read this and have spare pegs to sell or new products to test and endorse, please mail me as soon as possible. I am hoping to use the bike for demo rides next week, but couldn't take the risk of letting a novice on it in this condition and couldn't properly demonstrate riding if my feet slip off at every turn.


With the SkiBike disassembled and back in the boot, it was time for a spot more skiing practice to fill the afternoon. One advantage of this was that I was able to use the smaller chairlifts that Grand Bornand will not allow you to take a skibike on. One of these gets you to a wild "back country" area with a couple of gentle pistes that run for quite some distance. It was very chilling both spiritually and physical as a keen East wind had picked up and started to blow in cloud. There are also huge off piste opportunities in this area and there was powdery snow in abundance, what a joy this area would be by skibike, we need a skibiker blog helicopter.

Le Grand Bornand - The back country area

Today I wanted to test out my latest skibike evolution, the disparate collection of components had been rapidly assembled just before my departure, so I didn't want the first runs to be up some grand and inaccessible peak, what I needed was a local test track.

Le Crozet and Lelex is one of the closest ski stations to Geneva, just 15 minutes by car from the airport and is on the Jura mountain range. I knew that snow was expected but wasn't prepared for the high winds and near blizzard conditions at top station level. The winds had shut down all but two drag lifts, which laid waste to my skibike test plan.

I had been intending to do a little ski practice anyway, so donned my Raichle Flexon boots and trusty Saloman SnowBlades. There is great value to doing a bit of cross-training, certainly within the first couple of runs I felt grumbling from a whole different group of muscles. In spite of the Scottish conditions I persisted and really enjoyed the simplicity of just feet and skis without any contraptions to get in the way.

Looks photoshopped - Le Crozet in a blizzard

Tomorrow the forecast is for good weather, I need to visit Annecy in the morning, so might do my test at Le Grand Bornand in the afternoon.

Today was still balmy and warm with clear skies, up on the Jura mountains, my local snow gauge, it looks like the snow line is heading up to around to the peaks at 1300m or 4000 feet. In previous years it has been right down to the base about now. I saw some alto cirrus or mares tail clouds yesterday, often a sign that there is a change in the jet stream that powers the weather systems.
Much as I would still like to go out today, my hands are stiff, much aches and I have a fine display of fresh bruises to display, so I am giving my rattly old bones a chance to recover. The flat looks like a squatter hovel, so a little housekeeping is in order too. One benefit of the tidy up is that I have found my camera's USB lead, so I will be able to sort out some pictures for you.

Skibiking has been featured on evening prime time TV here, I have been promised a link so that I can see it, but for copyright reasons I won't be allowed to share it with you :-(
Furthermore, an English health magazine are to feature skibiking at Le Grand Bornand, although sadly not till autumn.

On our recent days trips it was interesting to see that the lifties are no longer freaked out by skibikes, let us ride alongside all the other sliders and allow us to demonstrate the best way of fitting onto the chairlifts. This is a massive improvement on the situation just two years ago when they insisted at one resort that it was just one skibike per chairlift. It is also interesting to see how other snow users no longer seem to give us as wide a berth, some cutting in dangerously close at times. For my part I have been riding over cautiously on the crowded slopes to avoid collisions, luckily I didn't have any, although I might have left some in my wake.

Have a Happy New Year SkiBikers there will be more to come in 2013.

Today was the last skibike ride with Carl Day as he will be heading back to blighty tomorrow. We started the day playing a game of catch up as I worked my way round the lift network with Carl about 15 minutes behind me at every link.

The pistes were just as busy as yesterday so we tried to pick out the lesser used runs and head off piste to the many open snowfields still on offer. As the day wore on the snow softened and had a lovely buttery quality, but there was always the danger of hitting one of the scraped icy patches just under the surface. You could see the caterpillar tracks in them, not good. This area badly needs a cold snap and a fresh dump of snow or it will be a very short season.

The day offered some great last day highlights; watching Carl emerge from a pisted tunnel spectacularly sideways, then later seeing him drop off a ledge at speed, become fully airborne, then land it without crashing. To say that he is happy with his new Lenz Brawler would be an understatement. That he has progressed so far in under two weeks of freestyle skibike riding is exemplary.

Sad though I am to see him go, I can look forward to some food, rest and a good lie in tomorrow.

Heading back to Morillon - last run of the day

After yesterday's soaking and a rare early night, I was up just after 5am to collect all my skibike stuff drying on every radiator in the flat. I then forced down two cups of coffee and some excellent Galette des Rois, a tasty almond flavoured cake traditionally served at Christmas, not dissimilar to the English Bakewell Tart.

Then to my surprise it was gone 7am and time to hit the road in order to get on the first lift from Morillon at 9am. There was quite a bottle neck trying to get over the hill to Les Carroz to meet Carl for our day's riding. Fortunately the weather had improved, but some of the pistes were boiler plate hard, good to practice that carving technique.

Once Carl and I had made our rendezvous we ventured over towards Flaine where the snow was considerably better and improved markedly as the day wore on. We both found a sweet spot where our riding became both fluid and rhythmic, got to keep some of that mojo going at all cost. We were able to meet up with the man who bought Carl's first skibike and had an impromptu coaching session with him.
We completely forgot the passage of time and had to make a mad dash back to our respective base camps before the mountain shut down for the night. I could have used a headlight on my skibike for the last run and wasn't back at the car till 6pm.

And tomorrow we ride, with Serge Mermillod and his friend Thierry and there will be four of us, which I think is a skibike first.

A mad dash back to our respective base camps before the mountain shut down for the night

When I first discovered a passion for skiing, I surprised myself months later by having my first ski dream...
I had put my skis on at a Scottish, possibly English or even Welsh ski station (something I had never experienced at the time) and it was raining heavily from grey leaden skies. There was a Poma drag lift, with a narrow snake of Dendix dry slope material leading up a gloomy, heather covered and totally snow free hillside. "Don't worry mate" the cheerful liftie told me "It's snowing up on the mountain"...
Perhaps it was a metaphor for the afterlife, some old scab from a childhood filled with Catholic dogma, or perhaps it was prescient of what was to come many years later?

I had made made arrangements to meet with my number 1 skibiking buddy, Mr Carl Day. He was to be taking a short vacation in the attractive resort of Les Carroz, just over the hill from not so attractive Flaine. I drove out from Geneva to the linked resort of Morillon and arrived at base station in the pouring rain.
I have never been at a ski base station in rain before, not even in Scotland, wet snow perhaps, but rain never. The weather might have been damp, but my spirits were high, in fact the nervous anticipation had reduced my intestinal fortitude somewhat and I had to make an urgent toilet stop.

As it turned out Carl was equally excited and hadn't slept at all and with good reason too. He was about to make his very first runs on a Lenz Brawler, possibly one of the best freestyle skibikes money can buy, although my French buddy Serge Mermillod would disagree.

Our plan was to meet up and use the interconnecting links of the "Grand Massif" to visit Flaine and its wonderful high altitude monster descents. But unusually all the interconnecting links were shut by high winds, so we had to move to a sudden plan B.
I was still able to make my way over to Les Carroz from the Morillon sector and together we spent a happy, but very taxing few hours sliding about and crashing out on the sheltered tree lined runs above Les Carroz.
In spite of the conditions we soldiered on, Carl smashing part of his helmet during a spectacular high speed crash and both of us getting thoroughly soaked through in the grossly damp conditions. There wasn't even the opportunity to take photographs, it was too wet at the bottom of the hill and (wet) blizzard conditions at the top.

Skibiker Carl Day - bruised and battered

With sagely wisdom Carl called time around 3:30 in the afternoon, which was just as well. My return trip to Morillon was somewhat obtuse and took me the best part of an hour, in quite horrible conditions of; high winds, low visibility and poor light.

Uncharacteristically I returned to my car before the last lift had stopped running, it had been somewhat brutal for a first day of the season and the start of The SkiBiker SkiBike Blog Tour 2013.

I had some free time today, so have updated the "How to SkiBike" page. There's no way I could explain everything on a single page, but it should give anyone planning to try out skibiking a rough idea of what you should be learning. Some people learn skibiking very quickly and would find themselves doing the advanced techniques by the end of their first day.
Tomorrow I am heading out to Les Carroz to do some riding with Carl Day, it has been a while, I hope my body remembers what to do as well as my brain remembers me doing it.

Well I've made it to Geneva and I really had my doubts, arriving here at 15 minutes past midnight on Christmas Day. Why am I always caught out by last minute disasters that conspire to make for such a mad rush on the lead up to departure day?
On this occasion it was Uncle Fester my tired old Ford Fiesta who threw me a curved ball when one the wheel bearings seized up last week. Most galling was this was not down to neglect, but as a consequence of poor servicing technique on my part a month ago. So my precious pre-Christmas skibike building week was reduced to a mad scramble to source and fit more replacement parts. Exactly the very last thing I needed before a gruelling 700 mile journey across some tough and remote terrain.

Uncle Fester - travelling light in 2010

That sorted, I approached the assembly of a spare skibike with some gusto and blasted through it in a few days, transforming a pile of disparate bits into quite a tasty looking machine. There will be more on this subject soon, once I have had a chance to test it out, see how it behaves and draw some conclusions. Thanks to this manic output, for once I was waxing skis on the evening before the ferry and not the same morning.

I am beginning to think that Uncle Fester is a member of UKIP (a UK Euro Sceptic political party) as every time I hit foreign soil he throws a tantrum. Having crossed the channel, just past Brussels, I could hear a vague whirring noise from behind me. Sure enough once I had stopped and checked, the other wheel bearing was showing signs of a rapid demise. This was around mid-day on Christmas Eve and in continental Europe it is more important than Christmas Day itself. I stopped by a garage where the proprietor was still working and he confirmed that I was well and truly shafted.
I had a think and not wanting to spend all Christmas stuck in Brussels, I decided to keep going and see how far I could get. After all it was only another 450 miles to Geneva, what could go wrong? Keeping my speed below 50 mph the noise level was tolerable, although progress was painfully slow. By the time I reached Geneva the sound was akin to a Lancaster bomber on final approach, but defying my own risk estimate, I had made it to civilisation and a bed for the night.