Most people assume high season is the best time of the year. Everything is in full-swing, everyone is out riding and the world is rushing by. For some maybe it's true, if you love the feeling of a crowd, of the fast-pace, then there's nothing quite like it. Yet if your high season means months packed with work, races and traveling and your winter is a dead time waiting for the world to begin again, it's the bits in between you long for. Those few short weeks at the start and end of summer when the trails are perfect, the weather just warm and days long and free. It's a chance to do the little things you've been secretly planning or simply wake up and just head out.
As the race season began to unwind this year I headed up to Lenzerheide in Switzerland to catch up with two of Germany's top enduro racers, Tobias Woggon and Julia Hofmann. None of us had stopped all summer, between races, photo shoots, trade shows, events and injuries the three of us were pretty beat down. Tobi had been nursing a plan all summer though - to head up to Scalottas and catch the sunrise. Sitting at 2,300m, a full 800m above the town, you can wait until the 9 and take the lifts up with everyone else. Or you can pin the tiny, sketchy mountain roads in his creaky van and hike to the crest to watch the sun rise over the Roethorn and then pin your way back down to the valley in that beautiful, golden light...
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 It's hard to hate hiking the bike when your surroundings are this stunning. |
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While we were waiting for the sun to come up Julia and Tobi were doing skids on the slick grass at the top... At first the sun shone down in bars from a high valley on the other side and then finally there was that one moment. The very first sunlight. Think how often you actually get to see the moment when the sun appears on the horizon... it's a pretty rare thing for most of us.
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With the light up it was time for the fun part of the journey.
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On the little plain below the summit are threads of fast, natural singletrack that look like they flow from a distance, but as they were here long before mountain bikes were invented throw tricky shapes and obstacles at your wheels.
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As you head further down, the track becomes rockier, but the flat corners are still fun to try and attack.
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She was definitely a fan of their riding.
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Eventually you reach the trees and the pines here in Lenzerheide they all seem to have amazing roots that have worked their way to the surface.
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The forest singletrack just goes on and on...
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There's a great photoworkshop with Hoshi Yoshida.
