FISE Expérience 2010 Avoriaz from olivier Batailler on Vimeo.

So last weekend I was lucky enough to be invited to another FISE stop, this time in Avoriaz, in the French alps.

Mankind's Isaac Lesser and myself arrived on the friday night to torrential rain, and doubts that the conteset was even going to go ahead the next day.

the next morning the rain had stopped, it was damp, and freezing cold, (not to self: check weather before going abroad), Isaac, equipped with mainly shorts and t-shirts, and myself, with only one hoody, rolled down to the course and rode practice before it was interrupted by rain half way through amateur.

The rain eventually stopped and the course dried, however, this is actually the least of your worries when you're trying to ride a comp in the alps. Due to the altitude, it is near enough impossible to breath.. Ok so i might be exaggerating a little, but after only a couple of minutes of riding, we found ourselves completely out of breath and violently coughing.

Georgy Domerus qualified 1st, dropping more hammers than a clumsy builder, Isaac qualified 3rd and myself, 7th.

That night was best trick, Daniel Wedemeijer laid down a perfect 360 whip to footjam, and georgy pulled a 540 barspin to barspin, earning them a joint 1st place.

French Amity rider via Mystic distro Mathias Augris was also in attendance and laid down a 3 whip fakie and 720 to fakie. Good stuff.

The next day we were all feeling a little worse for wear for finals, the party had sure been a good one.

The weather had turned the other way and was absolutley boiling hot and blazing sunshine.

My qualifying run went far from well, but somehow still landed me in 7th, Isaac however continued to kill it, perfect bars to hang 5 and 270 double whip over the hip gave him a well deserved 1st place!

The comp had now wrapped up and it was again, time to get on the drinking, the resort emptied out but there was still a few of us to make for a decent night, befor ebeing up at the crack of dawn to go mountain biking... Which was fucking awesome.

I still strongly believe that mountain bikes in no way are acceptable in a skatepark unless being used as a camp fire, and especially after experiencing how fun it is up in the mountains, i can't for the life of me see why you would want to ride that hunk of junk in a skatepark? Hmmm.

Anyway, rant over, it was truly an awesome experience getting to try that out, especially in the Alps, despite Isaac nearly dying by flying over a berm and falling 30 ft, it was so much fun.

With Isaac a little concussed and sore, we headed back to the apartment to pack up, before being taken to the train station at 5pm, which certainly gave us enough time to make our flight... as it was at 7pm... The next day.

An epic train/ bus/ tram journey followed by a 20 hour chill and we were eventually on the flight home.

It's definitely odd returning to England and it being warmer here...

¶ 13:41