The Swiss love their mountain biking and twice each year Evolène plays host to two big events; The Raid Evolènard and The Grand Raid.  Today it was the turn of The Raid Evolènard and, this year, it incorporated the Swiss VTT marathon championships.  The main event was 62.5 kilometres long, with 2660 metres of ascent.  For more sane people, there were shorter distances of 35 and 24 kilometres, plus some races for the children at 3, 6 and 8.5-17 kilometres.  I watched the start and dashed up to Lac d’Arbey (@1780m) expecting to see the leaders coming through, but, incredibly, they had already climbed 700 metres (to 2,000 metres) and covered more than 13 kilometres in the 35 minutes it took me to get there !  Having done some mountain biking myself, I take my hat off to the strength and stamina of these guys and gals.  They must be incredibly fit.  Remember, this is all at altitude. I also had a little time to take some other pictures during my return to Evolène.

These riders would soon be on the other side of the valley – above the tree line at nearly 2500m !

The eventual winner was no. 2 (2nd from right) who just beat no. 3 (4th from right). Both finished in 3h 10m 20s

This picture was taken from our balcony.