The hearty round of high fives and accompanying chorus of bro-cheers and shouts was quickly silenced by the appearance of Steve, his brand new bright yellow riding jersey dramatically stained with blood that was intermittently spurting from a puncture in his lower lip. 

The initial feeling of fear and shock was partially neutralized when, in form befitting his unflinchingly positive attitude, he smiled his trademark toothy grin and declared that he was fine. Which is when we noticed The Tooth. Or The Lack Thereof. The victim of a precision strike to the mouth from a rock low down on the scree field we had just descended following Dangerous Momo, a quasi-legend of French free-riding lore, above the Col de L’Izoard. 

The eternal question of What The Fuck were we doing riding down something that was literally from a 90’s Freeride movie will remain unanswered, but the result was a sharp reminder of the potential consequences out there in the mountains. 

While Steve headed to the hospital in Briançon the rest of us rode yet another grin-till-your-face-hurts single-track, a twisted knot of switchbacks falling precariously down the side of a mountain, followed by a fast, chunky forested rip which deposited us underneath Chateau Queyras, a medieval castle from the 13th century where we’d have lunch.

A booming thunderstorm announced Steve’s return to the party, one tooth lighter but no less eager for French single-track. Mostly just pissed at missing the morning’s fun. So as dark clouds settled in we loaded the van for the day’s second shuttle. 3,000 feet up an obscure one lane logging road, it’s surface quickly turning from packed dirt to mud, the roof of the van drumming with the barrage of heavy rain. All of us were thinking a version of, “what the fuck are we doing? It’s pouring, I just had 4 beers waiting for Steve, and now we’re gonna do a 3-hour ride through a drenching rain laced with lightning?!”

Except Blaise. He was brimming with excitement to show us a trail he promised we’d love. As the rest of us piled on layer after layer of clothing and grumbled about the bucketing rain, our French protagonist ran around in his short sleeve riding jersey, seemingly immune to the cold, unloading bikes and entertaining us with a constant stream of vaguely understandable stoke, nearby lightening strikes acting as exclamation points to his enthusiasm.

But the trail. We did Love it. A fast, flowing, contouring downhill across slopes of shale held together by the binding vines of low growing alpine evergreen brush and Rhododendron. Flashing blood red through your peripheral vision, starkly contrasting with the mineral white and gray of the rock it was growing out of.

Further down we flew down open trails across wide meadows, daring each other to go faster. Lower still we descended switchbacks so tight we negotiated them at less than a walker’s pace, with precipices you could easily fall over and not stop for quite a while. Or so we heard… 

Far below we regained civilization in the form of a paved road, and duly rode like complete hooligans to the town of Guillestre, where the night consisted of attempting to wash 8 filthy men’s riding clothes and bikes using the water supply to the koi pond, and pillaging the front desk’s beer cache like 16 year olds on a school trip.