Back in the Esterel!

New year, and plenty of fat gained during the holidays to burn off (actually, less than I expected, but still...). So on this sunny winter Sunday, I was more than happy to join my colleagues Philippe and D.B. (code name used to protect my mystery colleagues name...) for a bit of mountain biking in Massif d'Esterel (a great place for it!). Apparently it was going to get "technical" this time around...

The Esterel looked rather gorgeous this morning, there was a kind of layer of mist covering the landscapes, with the tips of the mountains coming out of the mist. The mountaintops almost looked like islands in a sea of mist... Beautiful.

Things did indeed start rather technical, with a rather steep single track, heading down the slopes, towards Lac de l'Avellan. And how did I fear ? Things did indeed get rather technical (there were plenty of roots and slippery rocks to worry about), and I have to admit I even got off the bike a couple of times. But I managed to get down to the bottom, without actually falling and hurting myself. Well, almost... Of course, just as I reached the end of the single, there was a dead easy bridge to cross across a stream, where I naturally slipped, and fell (nearly into the stream!). Nothing much got hurt apart from my dignity (apart from a slightly scraped leg), so we carried on.

No more technical singles for me then, so we decided to pedal up to Mount Vinaigre, which is the highest peak in the Massif d'Esterel, measuring a lofty 618 meters. Not that high, perhaps, but the views from up there over the Esterel and the Cote d'Azur are pretty amazing. We had about 350-400 meters of height difference to deal with all in all, which actually didn't feel all
that hard.


So I suppose I've made some progress, then, I'm pretty sure it was much harder the first time around, last year!

Heading back to our cars, we had a go at some somewhat easier singles than we did at the beginning of the ride, it was all great fun!

All in all, a splendid way to spend a Sunday morning!