I denne video er jeg en lille tur i Nordskoven i Silkeborg sammen med Jeppe Bob, Mads Taul, Morten Qvortrup og med et lille visit fra Jonas Lindberg på sin xc raket. Jeg tog GoPro’et på og prøvede at fange en normal cykeltur som vi plejer. Vi kørte lidt af ruten med Devils Drop, “dh” nedkørslen, Madam Blå, Den Røde sløjfe. Vi tog også ud og gappede cykelstien og kørte lidt på Spanden og et lille fedt rut spor som der er nogle der har lavet ved siden af.
Jeg synes personligt ikke at Nordskoven er det fedeste sted at køre, primært fordi at jeg synes der er alt for meget grus derude som lidt ødelægger det, fordi at jeg faktisk synes de har lagt nogle super fine linjer derude. Sporet kunne klar sig med et langt mindre lag grus så der ikke var så meget kan kunne skøjte rundt på. Når det er sagt så er det et fint spor nogle gange at tage en tur ud og hygge sig på.
Spor som Spanden ligger i et lille slags “freeride” område. Så vidt jeg har forstået, ikke hæng mig op på det, så må man i grunden køre hvor man vil i dette område så tosset man vil, dog må sporene ikke blive for dybe eller have for meget slittage. Dette give mulighed for nogle folk der kan trække nogle nye linjer, som i kan se så kører vi et lille rupspor til sidste i video’en der er blevet trukket af nogle xc gutter.

This is the video from Enduro 2 in Davos day 2. Day 2 was like day 1, pretty amazing. Placing in the top 10 the first day resulted in a pretty early start on Saturday. And after two lift rides up we were met by the most amazing view of snow-covered mountaintops right after the sun had gotten up. As you can hear in the video I couldn’t get enough of the view.

Ridgeline on the way to Stage 1

A small transfer on a snow-covered ridgeline lead us down to the start of Stage 1. It had to start a bit further down because of the snow. Team Denmark ended up being the first ones down the trail even though we offered Nick Beer and his teammate to go first. Stage 1 was a pretty cool singletrail out in the open with loads of tight corners where I and Bob found pretty different techniques to ride it well. Bob did a smooth endo in most of them whereas I just clipped out and slid around, while maybe not the best it worked out fine and I got a bit of drift on, so to speak.

The big one of the day was the transfer to Stage 2. After finishing Stage 1 it was still only 8.30 and we got over to the funicular in the other end of the valley to get all the way to the top. The transfer on the across the snow-covered mountaintops were supposed to take 1.5 hours but because of the serious snow and need of a lot of hiking, it took more like 2.5 hours. Due to this, they decided to cancel stage 5 of the day, which turned out pretty lucky for Bob and me.
The transfer was absolutely amazing and well again, the snow-covered mountaintops really just made it feel like an adventure.

Hike to Stage 2

Stage 2 was a super cool trail with a bit of mud and some super tacky dirt. With lots of open terrain it was a hard one to figure out where you were allowed to cut the course, so we pretty much just stuck to the main trail the whole way down. Stage 3 was the pedally stage of the day with a 2 minute uphill in the middle of the stage it for sure made your legs burn.

The steed and the view

Stage 4, last stage of the day and longest stage of the weekend. Techy flat rock up top that you really had to power through and then just before it began to go real downhill, I smashed my rear mech on a rock. From there on it was a pumping mission and after the flat part was done it was so much fun. The trail flowed really well and you could carry a lot of speed through some of the more open sections.

I the end of the day the time we lost on Stage 4 because of the smashed rear mech ended up costing us 4 places in the end if Sunday. Kind of a bummer to know that a mechanical put us so far back, but that stuff happens.

Can you spot the riders?

This webisode-ish video is from the race Enduro 2 in Davos. Enduro 2 is a pretty simple format, you ride two together in a team, time starts when the first rider crosses the start, time stops when last rider crosses the finish. So you basically race with your mate down which is pretty sick and different from anything I have tried before.
Bob and I raced as a team, this is pretty convenient as we are pretty much the same speed. In a French cup, we had a 13-minute stage where we placed within half a second of each other.
Enduro 2 is a 3 day race of blind racing, which means you don’t get to see r train the tracks beforehand, that can also make it a bit hard if you race against locals which I like to think we did here in Davos because well, there were some people who I definitely think shouldn’t be faster than us haha.

Anyway, after coming home from my big summer trip I had two weeks and home to go build a bit for Danmarks Tag out in Ry. It was a good two weeks to sort of get a little break from riding every day, believe it or not, your body needs rest sometimes. Unfortunately these two weeks home in Denmark put me in a bit of offseason mode, I was just ready to have a little break from training and riding, basically just chill a bit. I was not too motivated to go race these two races, well at least not to perform at  100%.

But after these two weeks, it was time to get the last two races of the season out the way, Enduro 2 in Davos and the Enduro World Series in Finale.

Always a good sign when you see the Alps in the horizon

The view of the Alps coming towards you is something I wouldn’t change for anything.

Usually, for me it means that the season is starting and I am going for my 3-month road trip, this was not the case here but god it is still an amazing feeling when you come towards them.

Because it was a two-week trip we didn’t bother to bring the caravan or sleep in the car which turned out the be a really good idea. First of, you kind of forget how long Germany is, it would have taken ages to come all the way to Davos with that. It already took 15 hours or so to drive down there.
Second, the temperatures of a Swiss mountain village in September is not exactly the temperature of Denmark in September, it is cold af down there. A thing you often forget when you only spend your summers there. As you can see in the video and pictures, there was already snow some places, and just wait for day 2 and 3 where there is even more

The mountain tops of Davos were stunning

The transfer to stage 1 was not too bad

The views were sure amazing in Davos, to start with it is really an experience to race there, but with the snow, on top of the mountains, it really got that extra adventure feel.  If you only have one event you can go to throughout the year I would probably recommend an event like this. You get so much out of it and it really feels like an adventure. Fun racing, amazing trails, beautiful transfers and well just all in all a pretty spectacular experience. It is a total contrast from the also amazing van life I live through the summer.

The blind racing is for sure something to get used to. When you have no idea what is coming up your instinct tells you to ride a bit conservative,  but the time that’s ticking tells you otherwise. You need to find that fine line. The biggest challenge I found was whether or not you should save energy or just try to sprint all out and risk running out of power before getting to the finish. Something that might have happened to me on a stage or two haha.

Top of Stage 1

Megavalache got us prepared for snow riding

From the top of Stage 2 on the left to the top of Stage 3 on the right. It was pretty hard to dress properly for this event. I had just gotten some Mons Royale merino shirts which turned out to be pretty good for these conditions.

After day 1 my Votec VM was pretty covered in mud. We concurred everything from slippery roots to rocky trails to cross-country trails to snow riding. It is safe to say it was a pretty successful day and to go to sleep knowing that we awaited two days more like this was one of the best feelings ever.

The bike had a good mudbath after day 1

This is one of the reasons that I find enduro  racing way more fun and challenging than downhilling. Well, of course, downhill racing is really hard, but enduro kind of throws you into the unknown, there are almost no rules in enduro.
Can you race blind? Sure!
Can we have 3 or 7 stages a day? Sure
Can we do the whole race lift accessed so you don’t have to pedal? Of course
But can we also pedal to every stage so it is really hard? Why not

Everything can happen at an enduro race. You race new places all the time on new trails and different formats. This year I have been racing all lift accessed races where almost no pedaling was needed and I have also ridden races where you had to pedal all the way to the top yourself, and it’s amazing! It’s always new and exciting, it’s a true adventure.

That was a bit of a sidetrack from this race report ish thing, but it was some thoughts I got because of this race because I really liked it.
I hope you enjoyed the video and maybe this write-up, stay tuned for next episode. And remember to come with some feedback if you have any, it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Fred

It is no secret that I don’t get out on the dirtjump bike as much as I used to. I guess I just spend way more time on my enduro bike, which I am having so much fun with. Never the less it is always good fun to get out and dust off some dirtjump skills, even though they are lacking a fair bit. Some tiregraps, onefooters and some try hard whips is what it is. It is still just super fun to hit some new jumps and float a bit around.
In Denmark, I think we have three main sports for dirtjumping, Hullerne in Viborg, Aarhus DirtJump Park in Aarhus and Holmen in Copenhagen. Now Aarhus Dirtjump Park is my local spot it has everything from a pumptrack, small table lines to probably the biggest dirtjump/slopestyle line in Denmark. As you can see in the video Hullerne is more trails and not really beginner lines.

Remember to go to my Instagram for more updates: https://www.instagram.com/fredleth/

Back when I was mainly a dirtjump kid Photo By Per Pedersen

And another one from Hullerne a couple of years ago. Photo By Claus Hilmar

A little Halloween video for you all. Jeppe Svendsen and I took a day in an old barn and some time in the woods to film this mountainbike Halloween video for you. I had to try to rediscover my inner acting talents and well the result was questionable haha.

For the last two years, I have been racing Megavalanche. It seems like one of those events you need to ride a couple of years before really doing good, so you can count me in next year too because I really fucked up this year.
The Megavalanche is a mass start race that starts from the top of the Alpe D’Huez glacier. Well glacier would be a compliment because let’s face it, it’s basically a slush slope all the way down where you are trying to ride your bike before realizing that it is not only way slower but also waaay harder than just getting off the bike and pushing/half running, because after all you kind of want to get an alright place in this race. Again, this year it caught me by surprise how long and physical the course was, it’s almost as if I wish I rode more cross-country because there are some serious uphills on the finals track or maybe it just feels like it because you are already firebreathing when you start at the bottom of them.

But well this video is about my qualifying run as you can probably see.And I’m just going to be dead honest with you from the start here, I missed my qualifying run. Now I might have been a bit late, which is not out of the ordinary for me, so some might say I can’t really blame the huge lift queue at the second lift of people whole didn’t have a start time before 2 hours later, but that isn’t going to stop me from blaming them at all. If everybody had just stuck to the recommended lift times we were given, then everyone would have made it in time, instead of people bombing the lifts 3-4 hours before their actual starting time. But well be complaining here isn’t going to solve anything, is it?
So after arriving at the start deeply hoping that they were delayed or something in that direction, it is a bicycle race arranged by Frenchies so delays are very plausible due to both of those facts, but I guess they kind of outruled each other. So my time had started and the official at the top simply said “go!” and then I was loose, trying to catch up 100 riders who had round about a 5-minute headstart. Now I didn’t really have time to think of any tactic other than trying to overtake as many as possible, which probably was the best tactic anyway, so nothing lost there. This resulted in some first class firebreathing along with some fine and some not so fine overtakes.

I will make a longer post soon to kind of guide you through the whole Megavalanche experience with pictures, videos and what not.

See you at Megavalanche next year!

Hello again.

So it looks like it’s been two years since I have moved my digital footsteps onto this website. There has still been a bit of traffic, but certainly not from me. Most significantly is probably the 52.899 comments I need to approve or rather disapprove because let us face it, it’s just spam. Even though I wish I would be real comments from people who had maybe missed these questionable blogs or whatever this is.
Why I haven’t been on here I don’t know. My other channels like Facebook and Instagram have been fairly busy and growing a lot, but coming onto this site again was a bit of a flashback. Even though when I see some of the videos I posted on here, it feels like it was yesterday I made them. But oh god a lot has happened since.

So what has happened? Well to start with, I’m older and I feel oh so much wiser for sure. Bike stuff, well I guess I have more speed on the bike and I like to think that I am a way better bike rider than I was two years ago. More stylish? hmm don’t know, but probably faster, even though it feels like a constant struggle to get back to 0 again every winter in Denmark. Which is also the reason why I am soon out of here for good. Well at least for a while, mountains are calling.
Riding wise I still don’t have that sensation of feeling like the bike is an extension of myself when on the gnarliest trails in the Alps, which really bugs me. Some part of me thought it would sort just click at some point and you would feel that. But I guess it is never just gonna feel perfect, which is so damn amazing about mountain biking, you can always improve and always give one percent more.
I really had some days this summer where it almost felt like me and the bike was one, and it was amazing. Everything was dialed for a week or so, full speed, everything worked perfectly, I placed the bike where I wanted, confidence was high and then it disappeared again, don’t know why. But that’s the thing, sometimes the smallest crash or weird thing can take your confidence right back to 0. So well we are getting there.

Most of all I am so much richer on experiences. Yeah that sounds so cliche but holy crap those last couple of summers has been amazing, like wow. It’s been absolutely wild, so amazing I can’t really describe exactly why or how. Well probably because of bikes, van life and some amazing people and events, but you know, there is always way more to the experience than that.

Biggest of all might be my switch to enduro. I feel it has motivated me to do better at the races because I actually feel like racing is fun again. And sometimes I can surprise myself with my riding and results. While in downhill I mostly felt like I left a lot of time out on the track which you simply cannot do, you need to be 110%. Where is enduro, well I guess it’s more acceptable to leave some time on the track because who the heck is going to ride a 15-minute perfect run? Not me, yet at least haha. I guess I feel more calculated on my enduro bike, I feel I am riding better. So I’m pretty excited for what the future brings.

So that was a bit of blabbing for tonight. I will try to get better at updating this site and get better at writing too because I think I need it haha.

Cheers

Take a day with me going from one end of Portes Du Soleil to the other with my enduro bike, using the lifts of course.
Portes Du Soleil is probably one of my favorite places, there are tons of trails in different bike parks, that you can all ride with one lift pass. In this video, I am going from Morzine, where I parked my caravan to Les Crossets which is just over the border in Switzerland. On the way, I come through a couple of other bike parks.
I usually stay in Morzine because it kind of is the biggest city in Portes Du Soleil, well at least the one with the most life. And it suits the vanlife pretty well. They iconic Carrefour carpark is off limits but the community made a little gravel lost for campers and such a bit outside the city which is just fine.

I am now sitting in my caravan. I am sitting here after Eurobike and after an allright day of riding. Not the best one, but it was pretty nice. My good friend Mads is sitting in my end of the caravan, actually kind of on my end, trying to snatch some of the WiFi from the nearby Hotel. He is doing all sorts of weird things to get a better connection and trying to find out where the signal is. It is actually quite annoying, but at the same time it is really entertaining.
Tomorrow in a new day, but not a new thing. Because I am, thank god, going to ride my bike again.
I don’t know what I want to write about, but I just really wanted to. All because I just read this really amazing blog written by a girl I met on Eurobike.
I am not a big reader myself. I can’t remember last time I read a book of my own free will. I read some blogs and articles, but to be honest it is quite hard to get my attention. Only a few writers seem to catch my attention, and mostly it is not even the writer but more the topic that gets my attention. Do you know those writers that can just get your attention no matter what they are writing? I know a few, and it seems like those are the people who also think the most over all the little things in life. Instead of just letting moments go by unseen these people actually take a picture of the moment, a picture that they can then repaint with words. It is amazing how much we use words and sentences, but how few of us who really master them.
It is even more amazing to think about how much words are used bad, think about how much bullshit gets talked on a day. So many valuable words that are just used for no real reason. A lot of people talk just because they can and then there is others who just talk about the necessary and leaves everything else silent.
Now Mads stole my WiFi. Not that I used it, but he still stole it. As you can read I am one of the people who talk a lot, like really a lot and mostly about bikes or something related to them.

I have done some self filmers before, but it was this year that it started getting more serious. I knew that I was going to travel Europe for 4 months, where I would not be able to meet up with the videographers I know from home.
I was not the strongest in tech and cameras, but after some research and many hours on Youtube, it was clear that I needed a 4k camera. Those does not come cheap though, but I ended up getting one. This allows be to put the large 4k video into a 1080p project and thereby zoom and pan in post-production, a pretty amazing opportunity when doing self filmers. Everything is 100% filmed, ridden and edited by myself in the lovely mountains of Tignes