The VTT Free Raid, Les Deux Alpes, France (europes answer to Crankworx!)

Well I was lucky enough to get the invite from Commencal bikes (our generous Team Sponsor) to see the 2007 Commencal line-up at the VTT Free Raid, Les Deux Alpes in the French alps. Yes the Commencal line up kicks ass but it’s a secret to be let out in the near future so for now we’ll have a look at the competition and the amazing line-up of europes finest DH/4X and Enduro bikes.

I could turn this into an epic tail about all the amazing riding I did from village to village, riding with the rest of the Commencal team (Anne Caro, Voullioz, Karim Amour etc) the days where I logged over 23000 vertical ft, the unpasteurized cheese I gorged myself on, the fact that they had a stripper on stage after the ROAM movie premiere and ofcourse les belle femmes.

But alas I won’t bore you to death with all that garbage, but what I will say is we have something to learn from this event over here, they had every major manufacturer in Europe show up for this event to allow people to test their bikes, what a great way for the consumer to really see what your bikes are all about.

So here are the bikes and a quick idea about what the VTT Free Raid is!

VTT Free Raid: It was started by VTT magazine in france (VTT means mountain bike in French essentially) and was meant to be a showcase of all the amazing bikes offered in Europe but with a twist, YOU GET TO TEST THEM ALL!! That’s right, you can go up to any manufacturer and test up to 4 different bikes a day, there is a freeride/slopestyle park, over 50 miles of DH, 100’s of miles of XC, 4X track, DJ’s etc! So it doesn’t matter what kind of MTB you’re into, there is a bike for you.

After that there are 3 different types of competition

1. Enduro DH: Where you ride a series of chairlifts from point A to point B, 90% of the riding being DH. 61km, 40km and 24 km in length!!! This is what most people were there for, just average riders bombing 61km of DH in one day! This is way different that anything in North America, I mean this place has more lifts running in one resort than they do across Canada!

2. DJ Comp: Chase, Lenosky, Misser, Pritzel etc were all there throwing down

3. 4X: Pro only 4X race sponsored by Hutchinson

Here is a picture of the Commencal party with Max Commencal serving up a cured pigs leg and plenty of red wine, great party!

Next over was Anne signing lots and lots of posters

This party was jumping, they had to bring in security to get us out!!

Next its onto the DJ comp!

Then it was onto the bikes, most of these you’ve never heard of I’m sure, some where catalog bikes but some were quite unique and well designed.

those gussets look awfuly familiar ahem,,.. 24

VProcess bike, even though Voullioz rides Commencals, they still bought the v-process patent.

Kraftwerk bikes, with a velvety textutred finish!!??

The DC Pitbull, cool paint job

New RockShox forks out for a tester

SUNN bikes are relaunched

Here are some random pics everything from my trail riding encounter with les vaches
to icd speedway on mountain bikes, to supermoto KTM’s to gorgeous footage of the alps.

There were four areas of expo this big or bigger!

Speedway on ice on mountain bikes

Nice feed station eh, wow, brie cheese, prosciutto and fresh breads!!!