Downhill Mountain Biking

What a busy day - one of those days when you have too many pictures and don't know which to choose.

We picked up our bikes and I began to realise that this would not be any ordinary mountain biking, but would involve going up in a ski lift and haring down dirt and gravel tracks to the bottom of the mountain at breakneck speeds. Terrifying. I started on the little wooden jumps, close on the heels of a rather more experienced four year old to try and get my confidence. It didn't work.

Then we took the bikes up on the ski lift, to Palafour, 500m above us. The boys took off at speed, and Marina and I were left alone, pushing 50 and trying downhill mountain biking for the first time. I was terrified at moments and can't say it was a completely happy experience. I got off and walked a few times. I nearly cried once, almost fell off on rather too many ocassions. However with no other option for getting down we had to persevere. Finally thank goodness we made it to the bottom, and did indeed have a great feeling of achievement as well as incredibly achy thighs. Meanwhile the boys had been up and down twice, wandered round the shops and bought themselves a snack…. we didn't exactly set any records for our descent.

In the afternoon the boys tried Hot Jumping - going down a steep slide in wetsuit, flying into the air and landing in a freezing glacial lake. The landing is the key part - getting it wrong hurts like hell and several jumpers staggered off in pain as Marina and I looked around frantically for our boys, but it was too late, they were already on the slide…. (you can see what it looks like in the blip folio link above). That was followed by Blob Jumping. One person sits at the end of a big inflatable cushion whilst another jumps from a platform onto the cushion, propelling the first person into the air and into (you've guessed it) a freezing cold glacial lake….

Exhausted by the end of the day and ready to hit the bar. I had envisaged gentle walks through Alpine meadows and this holiday is taking a rather extreme turn.