You know, sometimes you have bargian?  Sometimes you have a good idea?  And sometimes……

When we bought our Vallorie snowboard pass, there was a €20 extra cost if you wanted to use the ski lifts in the summer with your mountain bikes.  Excellent and a bargain!  Or so I thought….

We did some research and realised our bikes were more hybrid, and not really up to mountain biking.  So we did more research and bought some excellent bikes – suitable for our standard, but perhaps not for exteme use, but also suitable for normal riding.  We bought a Specialized Hardrock Pro Disk for me, and a Specialised Myka Elite for Mel.  So fairly similar, fairly light but chunky, and great front suspension and hydraulic disk breaks.

First ride was superb – showed how well they rode on the road let alone offroad!

As our offroad skills are non existent, we booked some training with Helen at Get Mountain Biking.  We did different days with Mel on a womans only course.

Of course, we bought loads of new gear – spares, locks, helmets, clothes (all colour co-ordinated of course!) – so we currently have “All the gear and no idea” - but hope that will change.

So this €20 add on for mountain biking in the Alps has actually cost me nearer £2,000!!!

Thank goodness for Chain Reaction Cycles who we used for most of our bits – fantastic prices, free delivery, and on one item I saw cheaper elsewhere they price-matched with no hassle.  They also processed a wrong-size return hassle free.