The Swiss Alps. When those words first crossed over from my mouth and finally registered with my brain, all I could think was “can I really do this?” It wasn’t the physical challenge I was worried about, because like most people, riding like that is a mental game for me. Confidence yields zero constraints.

After hitting the mountains hard the few days leading up to our journey (don’t say adventure), I began to loosen up, but riding the Blur TRC didn’t fit in the confidence > constraints equation. I’ve always been more comfortable on a 29’r… Luckily, Rudy from Santa Cruz Switzerland hooked it up with an XL Tallboy LTC – now we’re talking.

We began our day with the most expensive cup of coffee I’ve ever had (Zurich is pricey), before heading out to the general vicinity of Klosters and eventually, Davos. This section of the Alps is steep, very rocky and very technical. Well, once you traverse the easy hiking trails and climb out of the valley up a 22% grade road. Yeah…

I went over the bars twice, which was to be expected and managed to double flat but surprisingly I made it out in one piece.

I’ll do my best to shift through the linguistic cassette in the Gallery, which, I might add, was one of the hardest to edit down in the history of the site. See for yourself why!