Season Diary - Day 31

Saturday 22nd March, 2025 - Val d'Isere, France.

Race day.

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Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, wherever you are in the world, and welcome to the 2nd annual Killy Mountain Klassique - a fast paced, adrenaline fuelled rampage around the Tignes-Val d'Isere ski area.

Postponed from last year - where a foot of powder saw us off doing better things with our lives - we lined up at the top of the Pisaillas Glacier for the obligatory Le Man's style running start: across the piste to clip into our skis and set off.

The rules are simple. Get from the top of Val to the bottom of Tignes, at 1,550m. Along the way, you must make a mandatory pit stop - getting out of skis and finishing a beer - and tick of at least 15 lifts along the way. Once in Tignes, get a hot chocolate (or cafe gourmand for a single lift discount on the mandatory lifts) and get back over to lunch - at the Triffolet restaurant, halfway down the pistes to La Daille.

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The gathered crowd watched in awe as these atheletes scampered across the pistes ... or rather, the confused group of French clients and their guide watched, confused, as these useless Brits got in the way as they tried to bootpack up to their traverse.

Setting off from the top of the glacier in second place, I watch my friends peel off down the pistes to the right. I tucked and ran, skirting under the base station of the Montet T-bar, violating track limits, and bounded down to the Pays Desert poma.

Setting off up the lift, my friend Sam raced past heading down to the same. Rats! I can't beat them for speed, but if I can stay ahead of him on the up and over, that's a success.

And I did. Catching up with me at the foot of Datcha, I let him go at the top, pulling into the pits for an early tyre change.

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Setting off again, I skirted down Solaise, but stopped, plan foiled on the way down; the Loyes Express lift was closed! A cheat code for scoring more lifts, between it and Bellevarde it turned the ascent up Face into two chairs instead of the normal single ride up Olympique. Double rats!

Anyway, adopt, adapt and improve. A loop down and up Fontaine Froid (or Fontaine Phwoar, as we had re-christened it) was closely followed by the normal route down, up and down to Tignes Val Claret. From here, I scored an extra lift with a quick loop up Bollin, before heading the long way round to Tignes le Lac - Tichot, Grattalu, and Grand Huit, with a loop up and down Merles to keep the lift count ticking over.

From Le Lac, I skirted round the back and hopped up Chaudannes, completing my fourteenth lift - from here, a straight run down to the bridge.

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I clattered up to the table, Sam finishing his hot chocolate and asking for the bill. As I ordered and sat down, Rollo appeared, too. How?! All these miles of skiing and varying routes later, we arrived basically at the same time! I scoffed my cage gourmand, legitimising my 14 lift total, and ran for the gondola.

Rollo and I stared at each other the whole way up the first gondola. And the second. And the chairlift. He was a bubble or chair behind me the whole way. Again, I knew I didn't have the speed across the ground to beat him downhill, but if I stayed ahead to the top I could give myself a fighting chance to the bottom.

Down to Tignes Le Lac, again. Up Tovieres, down the far side, and the final sprint to Triffolet. This was proper Top Gear race special time. Who would bound into the restaurant, confident of victory, only to be denied by the smug victor-proper?

As it turned out, it was much closer than that. Sam took a later pit stop, partly because his beer had broken in his bag and he had to find a replacement, taking a ten-second stop-go penalty for his troubles. As he did so, metres from the finish, Rollo sailed past, claiming the victory and the spoils; come render the salad unto Caesar.

I swung home seconds later, the aftermath of this fabulous race enjoyed by all over a cold beer and excellent sticky ribs.