The Trail to Recovery Week and Beyond Week 1

My recovery from shoulder surgery and attempt to become a downhill racerI can't do much at the moment as I have my arm in a sling. My surgeon has told me to do no physical activity (even turbotrainer) for the first two weeks after surgery. As I can't talk about my training routine I shall talk about my passé in mountainbiking.

I started biking when I was about 15. Before then I had been a ski racer. After a serious of bad injuries ( I tore my ACL twice in my left knee and dislocated both my shoulders) I decided to hang the ski boots up. I started off riding cross country and all mountain stuff to help recover from my ACL reconstruction operation (yes I should have been on a roadbike or a turbotrainer...). I really liked riding bikes and decided to save up to buy an enduro bike. This enabled me to start tackling more agressive tracks and even start doing some easy downhilling. I started to love the downhill side of biking and soon pedalling became only a tool for getting to the top of downhill tracks. After a few years of having fun riding DH I decided to sell the enduro and save up to buy a second hand downhill bike. After playing around on the downhill bike for a few months my dormant competitive side from the ski racing days started to come back. I felt I really wanted to have a try at a few races.

I entered the Avalanche Cup in Oz and Oisans and the Megavalanche in Alpe d'Huez in 2010. I had already done the Megavalanche in 2009 for a bit of fun but it was an absolute catastrophe.I turned up in Alpe d'Huez the night before the race. I missed the start for my qualifying wave ( I felt very stupid...) and ended up only being able to do the Mega Affinity. In 2010 I decided I wanted to have a proper go at the whole thing. I started training with a buddy who was doing the race with me about 2 weeks before the Mega. Our training consisted of riding downhill at the Flegere track in Chamonix for about 3 hours every day. The track was bout twenty minutes long and 100% downhill. It really helped with my downhill endurance and my skill level improved greatly in those two weeks. We had no real goal in those training sessions, we would just take turns to lead and the person behind would try to keep up with the person in front who was riding pretty much flat out. We would ride for about 1-2 minutes at a time at the start of those two weeks and this grew to 3-4 even 5-6 minute sometimes at the end of the two weeks.

I was feeling pretty good coming up to the Avalanche Cup in Oz. It was the first time in my life that I was able to ride a 5 minute track without stopping. I rode the track the day before the race trying to learn as much as I could without getting to tired. I was quite pleased with my race runs even though I fell on both runs. I felt I rode flat out and gave all I could. I pushed a bit too hard on some parts of course that I felt I could handle at the speed I hit them the day before but the track had become a bit looser in the mean time. I was still pleased with my runs being less than a minute off the winning time with the crashes. I felt that without my crashes I could have been within 25-30s of Kovarik's time. Not bad I thought for my first downhill race.

Here is a GoPro Chest Cam of my run

https://www.pinkbike.com/video/172369/

The Megavalanche was less enjoyable. I only put my name down in May so I ended up being second last row in qualifying race. I did my best to work my way up the field but unfortunatley I snapped my chain in a crash about 7 minutes into the race. I went over the bars in a traffic jam in one of the more technical downhill sections and my chain got stuck in my chain device. When I tried pedalling after the crash my chain just snapped. I did my best not to get passed too much on the flat sections. I also had a problem with my front brake near Alpe d'Huez. I lost one of the bolts that secures the caliper to the fork. I was lucky enough to find a rider with some allen keys on the climb at Alpe d'huez. I tightened the other bolt as much as I could and kept going. I was able to pass a few people on the downhill to Oz but most of these passed me out again just before the finish as I couldn't pedal and had to push the bike along with my foot. I ended up finishing 70th. My buddy finished 61st. This meant we both qualified for the Megachallenger.

I was in the third last line for the race the next day. The Megaladies had gone just before us so the snow was already pretty rutted up. I found it very difficult to pass riders at the start and got stuck in some pretty bad traffic. When I finally got clear of this I was able to pass some rider but I found myself flying iover the bars before long. I did my best to pass as many riders on the glacier but it was more of a cross country running race than a downhill race. When I got clear of the glacier I was pretty far back (probabley about 150th). I was then stuck behind some slower riders for a long time and anyone who has done the race knows that there aren't many opportunities for passing on that track after the glacier. For the rest of the race I passed as many rider on downhills as I could and tryed not to get passed on the flat sections. I really started to feel tired near Alpe d'Huez and I knew than those two weeks of training weren't enough (I know most of you reading this are going "well of course it wasn't sufficient, duh !"). I ended up finishing 78th. I was quite disspointed with my result but I was pleased with how I had rode after the whole glacier experience. My buddy started 3 lines ahead of my and managed to squeeze through all the traffic and got out of the glacier in 3rd position. He rode as well as he could but being on a DH bike he was at a disadvantage and got passed on the flatter sections. He ended up 13th.

I spent the rest of my summer enjoying myself riding about 4 times a week. I didn't bother doing any other races.

My shoulder started acting up in September. I had already had an operation (Bankart procedure) on it so I went back to see my surgeon after 2 weeks rest did no good. He had me do an ArthroCT scan. It showed my anterior labrum was torn again. This meant my should was no longer stable in the joint and could move about which was causing my problem. Surgery seemed the best option and I decided to have the procedure done after my end of semester exams in University. From then until my surgery I didn't do much riding as I didn't want to further aggravate my injury. I started running about 3-4 times a week to keep my fitness level up.

I returned to France on the 21st of December and had surgery on the 22nd. All went well and my surgeon said I should make a full recovery.

Next week I am going to talk about my training routine I have planned.