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The storms of yesterday had passed over, leaving the valley green and lush. If things remained this way there was an excellent chance of the boulders drying out.

Heading out to the boulders, it felt humid, but it had dried out. Squeezing through the gap in to the scivolo area some of the mello team were drying out holds on one of the competition routes. Another group were leading a route on the Scivolo slab itself, this felt more like it, life was returned to the valley.

I ambled over to a route I had done many times before, a 6b overhang which was no more than a hang off slopers, heal up and mantle. My fingers felt moist pulling down on the rock, my left inner elbow whined from the efforts of the previous day. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be happening today. I moved on to a slab, it looked straight forward enough, but the pieces were not falling in to place.

Times like these you either man up and fight it, or go find something more enjoyable to do, which is what I did. In the distance, on the other side of the valley, a road weaved its way up the valley side. I didnt know where it went, or how far it went, but I wanted to. Back at the van I swapped bouldering kit for cycling kit.

That lube I thought I packed just wasn’t there. I checked again.. no definitely not there. The rusty chain glared at me, why should I be feeling guilty, I had only had the bike a few weeks how could it go rusty already! I knew something had to be done. The options I had were toothpaste or olive oil.

The climb was on, weaving its way up the valley at a nice angle. I have decided I like switch backs, because no matter how many there are you can feel you are making progress. And it went until a tunnel loomed. In I rode till suddenly it was pitch black. I fumbled to switch on the gamma i just happened to have on my bars, but going from bright sun shine to pitch black it takes a while for your eyes to adjust. Eventually the sides of the tunnel became visible. I kept myself in the middle of the arc of light, trusting there were no rocks or holes in the road surface. The tunnel went on longer than I thought, so it was relief when I finally exited.

I reentered the tunnel prepared, lights blazing.. But it made little difference and I was riding on my senses. As I exited the tunnel I noticed a small switch on the tunnel wall.. yes, there was a light switch!

I am able to push myself harder on my bike than I can in climbing.

When life mixes work and pleasure holidays cease to be a thing apart. That is what got me started with Alpkit, and is why I am never going to be any great business person. The threads running through my life, the interests, work, personal life are a small plate of spaghetti.

This trip has turned out to be no different. Don’t get me wrong, maybe it is just something about being single that you look for things to fill in, but the tell tale signs of a gazebo, stickers and a few other bits and pieces stashed in the van along side the solitary bag of clothes are a dead give away that I have gone back for another plateful.

I think it is about being involved, having a role to play.

Col recently took his family to Australia. He took less than I (or he) would pack for a day at Stanage and he was away for 3 weeks, wife and 2 kids! Anyways back to this Italian trip, where did the strands of spaghetti in my bowl lead?

The meat of the holiday was Melloblocco, a week of some of the best bouldering in Europe. I had no form to speak of, but I was looking forward to roughening up my fingers on the rough granite blocks and closing down some long standing accounts.

The river level was dropping noticeably, the rain had turned to spits and spots but there would be no climbing this morning. It was time to get a coffee on, let it’s warming aroma soak through and be thankful I wasn’t stuck in a tent. Van life, it sits somewhere between the tent and the bright lights of the Centro Polyfunzionale just the other side of the raging river.

I spent most of the morning in the van trying to catch up writing about a previous trip to France before hitting the climbing gym for a short workout.

The evening was rounded off with Patabang, a fantastic film about the climbing, the characters and the change in attitude to climbing in Val di Mello during the 70s. I hope this will be made available to a wider audience as it is well worth a viewing.

Wednesday should have been better weather, and it was but it wasn’t good enough. It was 10 before I rolled the door open of my van and got the coffee brewing. I fiddled around a bit, worrying if I should try to start selling the CAC t-shirts or not. What I should have done was been out climbing already, but no I was floating around the van. A pretty Italian girl drove by, parked up her van and jumped out with her pad on her back. Registered and went straight out on the blocs. Damn, no messing. I was impressed, so I got my kit together when Loz turned up. The gang were heading up to Sasso Remmeno where Barbera would be trying one of the female blocks.

I wondered around looking for my own dry rock but there were none other than the covered routes. Toby had spent most of the morning dedicating himself to drying one of the unclimbed womens routes, kitchen towel covered the face in a effort to stem the seepage. Finally he decided to pull on, quickly working the beta and testing the bold exit moves. Loz joined in, them me working the starting moves. I managed to get off the ground but the moves were too powerful for me. I retired still with skin on my hands.

Later some of the women competitors moved their attention from the higher boulder, quickly working the lower moves in an entirely different sequence and we saw 2 tops in quick succession. The rain had continued on and off all day, at one point a storm had passed over so a good result considering.

One pizza later, and beware asking for a large coke.. we were back in the Mello village ready to enjoy the film. I got a tap on the shoulder, it was Nicola who wondered if I wouldn’t mind translating the preamble to the evening we were about to see. Simone Pedefferi and Vincenzo Steffaneli were speaking, Nicola offered beer, he upped it to two beers yet based on my previous performance I accepted with reluctance.

Had I know a bit more I would, should have said no. You see my Italian is of a level that knowing the context I can pretty much deduce the meaning of a paragraph. Never have I been put in the position where I have had to explicitly determine the meaning of each and every phrase. What made it more harrowing was the subject matter, which was paying respect to the alpinist Gianni .. who died on the Eiger. There were many friends, and his parents in the audience, and as the introduction went on it was obvious the content was very sensitive, meaningful, philosophical. I felt slightly down afterwards that I hadn’t been able to do it better.

Well that rain that was forecast was no joke. It came down hard the whole day. Fortunately the organisers had stretched tarps over some of the competition blocks and some of the strongest climbers took lessons learnt from last year that you have to take your chances when you have them. Most of the time was spent moping in the van, no reason, just felt like it. The weather cleared slightly in the afternoon, I visited the local bank and joined the queue of local old ladies to get some 5 euro notes I thought I may need for the CAC T-shirts.

The evening got underway with some presentations. At the last minute Loz and Jill from Nottingham appeared with some friends. They are currently on a European road trip, but it was a surprise to see them here. Nicola one of the organisers asked me to do a little impromptu translation in the preamble to the film about the life of Chloe G, to be honest he could have done it perfectly well by himself! But it was pretty cool to be part of it.

After the presentations we caught up over a few beers and made plans for climbing should the rain clear.

Pulling in to Dover the shipping forecast gave way to Sailing By which in turn stood aside for the National Anthem. Radio 4 was put to sleep for another night. In my semi dormant state I thought some stars may have aligned and it might have meant something, but I guess it was just chance and I still had a long drive ahead. Filling in line 46 on the docking lane it occurred to me the last time i had made this journey was in 2001. On that occasion I had a oneway ticket, a new life in Italy to forge, this trip by comparison was just 2 weeks.

In 2001 I didn’t even know Val di Mello existed, to be honest I didn’t know anything of the mountains around Milan which was to become my home for 5 years. My ex italian girlfriend (who lived in the area) had failed to mention the fact that sharp peaked mountains rose just 30 km north out of lake Como with steep limestone cliffs, a vibrant mountaineering community, a little further north magnificent granite monsters. At the time all I remember thinking was .. there must at least be a climbing wall near by!

Well all that is a distraction, now I most certainly did know what was there, who was there, and I just had to be there! My plans were diverse.. Week 1 Melloblocco and week 2 the Italian singlespeed championships. All that stood between me and that was 12 miles of sea water and 1000k of driving.

As far as I can remember Dad had never been a cyclist, so it had come as a surprise to see he had put his heavy steel steed as part of this trips equipment stash. Despite many attempts to persuade him that it would be perfectly valid to use one on some of the long approaches to distant munros he preferred to just start earlier, or keep walking longer.

So with both of us with bikes i picked out a route we could do at least some of together. Although 54km the initial section of the Glen Tilt loop looked reasonably flat and not too far. We started off together, his pump was a track pump, awesome for getting your tyre inflated quickly, less awesome for carrying.

There were a few ups and downs, but he was steady, our difference in speed was most notable on the downhill sections where he would most definitely make sure the brake pads were in constant contact with the rims.
We parted ways at Forest Lodge and i polished off the remaining forest track to join the singletrack to the Falls of Tarf. The valley forked, steep sided it was obvious I wasn’t riding out of here. Neither was the path too obvious so. I push and hauled up the most likely looking sheep track until the hillside flattened out, but being grassy it wasn’t immediately possible to ride. The ground was soft so there was a lot more walking on this section than I had expected. The slow progress taking me further and further into the wilderness made me anxious, so I was relieved when i could finally ride again and join Fealar Lodge, the most distant point of the trip.

I was now on well surfaced track which weaved a path along the hillside before making a 7km decent to Daldhu farm. Another climb stood ahead and the surrounding still felt marvellously remote, it felt like. I had done a lot of riding and I still had a lot to do!

The decent to Shinagag was very good, even if I did veer off the path a few times where the path widened out over the hillside.

From here all that remained was well surfaced track back to the Old Bridge of Tilt, it had been a great introduction to what to expect from Scottish riding.

32/18 54km

From the first look on the map this route looked like it was going to promise a great ride. Ben Alder is itself a shapely mountain and circumnavigating it was going to be really interesting.

The route makes a leisurely starts in Dalwhinnie following the shoreline of Loch Ericht on good forest track to the impressively grand Ben Alder Lodge. From here the climb began, never to steep to a plateau at Loch Pattack with a big view looking up to Ben Alder itself.

Having already racked up a decent number of kms it feels marvellously remote, the approach had been made and it was time to bite into the committing part. Leaving the track onto a cool singletrack section that traversed the plateaux to the Culra bothy. From here the next section looks like an improbable ride. The valley sides steepen into a headwall with no apparent route through.

Still on singletrack the route weaved its way up deviously through the boulders, twisting and turning it was all surprisingly rideable and delicious riding at that. Passing a couple of guys working on the path the final climb to the pass was indeed too steep to ride, it was an easy push to the top.

The view opened up to the west. Revealing a fun downhill section that would eventually sweep south east into the Bealach Cumhann and yet more downhill all the way to Bennalder cottage, giving around 400 metres of descent of 7km.

The fun ended abruptly at the cottage there was no more down, and as a famous song of the 90’s said, the only was is up!

And it was a lot of up as well, an unrelenting 2km, 500m carry up steep grassy hillside. Placed out of context and it hadn’t been for the descent I had just done this would not have made any sense at all. The climb was steep and my front wheel kept brushing against the slope.To ease the carry i removed my wheels and lashed them to my frame. Now the bike was better balanced and slightly easier to carry, I had to think of it as a cumbersome rucksack.

The climb did ease off slightly at the top, but it did feel pretty endless. The guidebook promised a great view and another 7km of descent, perhaps the best of its kind in the country, I wasn’t disappointed.

Taking a few moments to get my strength back i built my bike back up. Then with sweaty palms I dropped down into the descent..

I tried not to get tunnel vision, i wanted to take it all in but Concentrating on the track ahead the impressive craggy walls of Ben Alder passed by in a blur out of the corner of my eyes. This was good stuff.

All too soon i was back at the bothy, my track made an impressive line, i had ridden that and hopefully will do so again! It was actually one of those rare rides when you don’t feel there was more uphill than downhill.

iO 32/17 53km

Col had this idolised vision of himself cycling home for Christmas, from Nottingham to Cambridge, with a Turkey on his back. He had even worked out a route, 160km using bridleway wherever possible. It was a novel idea.

I did however have some doubts over some of the finer details. Firstly the time of year didn’t promise much daylight riding time. Secondly it was a long, long way, neither of us had cycled that distance and some slightly more accurate mapping stretched it out to 260km. Thirdly the turkey had to go. It took a couple of years but finally we were ready to give it a shot. The route was the same but the date had shifted to June, well outside turkey season.

We set off after work knowing we would have daylight until around 11pm. The route was both logical and illogical. It neatly followed the Midshires Way into the Threeshires Way taking us pretty close to our end point. Unfortunately this took us completely the wrong side of Northampton, making a big anticlockwise loop, in short two sides of the triangle instead of the shorter direct route.

We were both riding singlespeed, like there is another option right, and navigating by the 14 A5 route cards I had created by splicing together OS maps in Bing. Emergency backup was an iPhone and Google maps, and yes it was used!

Col has already covered much of the ride in his gritty account in this Daring Deed so I am not going to repeat his story.

The Tour of Mont Blanc is an 11 day trek around Mont Blanc. I didn’t have 11 days, I wanted to keep a lunch appointment with a friend in 3 days time, but I did have a bike and just enough ignorance to think I could do it.

Despite my carefully preparations things didn’t start well. I had forgotten to replace the retaining pin in my new brake pads and lost a valuable 30 minutes searching the car park. Boy, I was glad Paul Errington wasn’t around to see this. I then started unpacking, I had too much stuff, there is always too much stuff, too much indecision and apprehension. Alpine start lost.

Time waster, amateur, I was lost before I had already started. It was time I just got on with it, no more thoughts. I locked the van and buried my doubts.

Pootling down to Les Houches I picked up the track to Col de Vosa which, stunningly, I managed to miss via some rubbish route finding that took me to the higher point of Bellevue. From this 650m climb it was apparent that my 32/18 ratio was going to be wrong, but the alternative was 32/16 which even more wrong. This made me feel better, singlespeed simplifies so many things!

Another weighty decision was to carry my d-SLR. I figured it was unlikely that I would be doing this many times and wanted to get some great shots, but after the first few snaps the batteries were on red. Oh great, suddenly I was facing 1kg of dead weight to make my life more difficult than it already was. Not so smart, maybe I should sign up for some tips from MTB photographer Benji Haworth.

From Les Contamines the long 1000 metre climb to the Col du Bonhomme started to kick in. I was optimistic at riding a good part of this, but was soon disappointed. I pretty much pushed it all. A guided group came past, sturdy looking fellas standing up on their granny rings. They rode past me and at La Balme I was all ready to bail, the push/ride ratio was in serious negative figures.

Option 1: Quit, bivvy and return to Chamonix tomorrow. Option 2 : Commit don’t quit, keep pushing, explore the unknown, go beyond the point of no return. I was stressing about making it in 2 days, but what was wrong with 3, or even 4 if I had to.. the important thing was to get around and live this adventure.

With the pressure released I got back to it. The hills didn’t come any less steep but I knew the wall was in my head. I knew I was playing mind games and worked on a strategy to win.

It rained overnight, not much, just enough to make my kit heavier. I was away by 7.30 and psyched as well. The angst of the previous day had past and I was ready to drop into Italy. My muscles warmed as I ascended the tarmac road to La Ville des Glaciers, then track to Refuge des Mottets where trekkers were busy preparing themselves for the day ahead. Riding turned to pushing as I got stuck into the obligatory 600m push to Col de la Seigne. It was tough, I hadn’t had my coffee, but I had nothing else to do so that’s all there was to it.

My progress was measured by these high mountain passes, long climbs hiking out of the saddle. Each pass was another brick out of that wall in my head. Kilometres, even though there were many were of little significance in comparison. The aim was smooth progress, keeping the tyres rolling however slowly, each rotation would bring me closer to a descent. There was no point in playing the hero and riding 10 metres in the red and then having to rest 5 minutes, better to cover twice the distance in the same time with half the effort! With singlespeed there is no dishonour in pushing.

Some Spanish guys had the pace on me but as Val Veny came into view I really turned the tables on them. It was time to unleash my 600m of potential energy, I was driven on, legs pounding, up, down, up, down, swooshing and hooting. Small rocks scattering under my wheels, pinging against my steel frame, but I didn’t care, I was rolling again. Then I started to chase it down, the bike shuddering and groaning underneath me. The backend squealed one way or another but I kept it on course, kept it true.

Flattening out under the gaze of Mont Blanc the TMB shoots up right to Courmayeur. I knew this would be yet another long push so I took the easy option along the valley, my momentum only absorbed by the climb into Val Ferret which was steeper and more continuous than I remembered. Once up it was a cruise along the valley floor dodging fellow tourists.. it went on, and on until finally there was no more valley floor and the track rose up to Rifugio Elena. Now, I gave this a real good effort, making the initial steep section but fading in the middle flatter section before a dose of Haribos perked me up for the final section of hairpins.

I took some pictures of the glacier, some pictures of people taking pictures of the glacier and ate some more Haribos while considering the 500m push to the col. It was to be, or so I thought, the final long climb of the trip. This thought pleased me as I tucked down into the familiar position behind my handlebars. It was well windy on top, not a place to hang around when sweaty and tired, so I pulled up my pants and launched myself off the other side into Switzerland.

The scene was huge, so many new things seen.. big toes slamming into the front of my shoes, breaks squealing at the end of their life, gotta hold it, can’t let it get away from me. Elbows and knees bent trying to absorb the hits. It was superb singletrack which took me past La Fouly, through woodland and meadows, past donkey trekkers and day trippers. Below Champex I left the TMB to follow the road rather than pushing my bike up another 500m.

Arriving at Champex I committed to the original 2 day time frame and wolfed down the focaccia that had been burning a hole in my Gourdon all day. It was good to take on some solid food. The following section was, more than any other section, to be the most testing hand in these mind games I had been enduring.

The final section started quickly, nice downhill and I thought I would be at the Col de la Forclaz in an instance. Then it started to ascend gently, then steeper before rearing up into another 500m climb over rocks and trees. It was a bit like all of the worst sections of the WHW alongside Loch Lomond, but for 500m. I hadn’t seen that coming. After you have used a 1:25,000 scale map it is hard to readjust to 1:50,000.

I passed a guy on day 50 of the GTA. He was going self supported and was looking for somewhere to pitch his tent. He told me I wouldn’t be riding my bike much, I didn’t have any come back but I wished him well.

Eventually the tortuous path traversed to Bovine and I was really back in the saddle and descending steeply along the rocky path through trees in fading light, which by the time I reached the road was 100% dark and still 21km from Chamonix.

Other than being pretty inconvenient, with at least 5 lights in my van it was just plain embarrassing. I was struggling to make the most of what I had; the flashing green leds of my SPOT tracker and a mobile phone, so when I eventually arrived at Le Chatelard on the Swiss/French border (to be honest I had completely forgotten I was in Switzerland), I had to think carefully how to proceed. #1 Call a friend.. but he was sleeping. #2 Try hitching.. but it was now 11pm, and it wasn’t a busy road with only BMWs and Audis passing by. The only solution was #3 a second bivvy until it was light enough to continue.

That cool beer in my van was inviting, but not worth risking 20k of unlit twisting mountain road. Still it was a cold night, just above zero, right at the limit of my lightweight sleeping bag. The early morning view of the Aiguilles from the Col de Montets was spectacular, I wouldn’t have seen it last night, everything was good again and I was back in Cham for breakfast.

Route Details
The short descriptions I had found on the internet prior to arriving were brief. None followed the TMB in its entirety, but did indicate a loop was possible in 4 days. Picking up a map for the first time in Chamonix and thumbing through the TMB trekking guide and realising it was a 11 day trek put a few doubts in my head.

My 1:50000 scale map gave little idea of the terrain, in fact the fat purple line of the TMB obliterated any indication of tarmac road, track or path. I would experience joy when the unrideable singletrack ascent I was expecting turned out to be road and pain when it was the opposite. Check out MapmyRide for my TMB route.

Distance: 142km
Height gain: 5750m
Total riding time: 29hrs

Day 1: Les Tines to Les Chapieux via Les Houches, Col de Vosa, Les Contamines and Col du Bonhomme
Day 2: Les Chapieux to Le Chatelard via Col de la Seigne, Grand Col Ferret and Col de la Forclaz
Day 3: Le Chatelard to Chamonix via Col de Montets

A couple of weeks after my ride the Ultra Trail Mont Blanc (UTMB) took place and was won by Killian Jornet in 20 hrs 36 minutes. He didn’t have a bike. Check out this video for an idea of the route.