Before The Skank

A few hours before our final Apres Skank of the season, Dan and I rode up a mountain or two. I was cursing him a bit as he slammed on ahead of me, driving the power up the steep incline. I couldn't understand it, I was the one who'd been true to the wheels all season, and here comes a first timer putting me utterly to shame! My lungs were screaming but I was determined to keep up with this less than ideal position I'd found my throbbing legs and indented pride floating about in. We reached the top and took these photographs.

"Onwards and over then, old fella" I wheeze at my loved one...

"Naaaaah, I'm going back down, only had one hill in me" he informs me.

So we went our separate ways and I arrogantly couldn't help feeling marginally relieved as I plodded on through the ever twilighting trees with a good few hills left that were going to be done contently within my own moderate pace on this Saturday in late April.

Back at the flat, soon after nine pm, the boys and I popped open a bottle of fake champagne and made some sort of a toast to the long rollercoaster of a winter we'd seen arrive in a gust of endless powder and depart in a bundle of similar such white filth, only a bit slushier.

The next ten hours or so gradually unwound into a happy whirlwind of cheerful cheers-ing + writhing around the same sticky layer of small floor space in The Office bar, blasting out all of our favourite tunes + leaping about, in full support of my two hundred buck aluminium knee friend. All of our faves from the season finale were there, and so marked the completion of our Chamonix life.

Around five am I put my strict voice on and told all of the strangers that were in our flat to eff off; there were a lot of incredibly drunk local French girls having it away with all the boys in sight as well as a crowd of half naked Swedish gentlemen who'd lost their clothes pacing around the place looking confused but surprisingly content in their revealing state.