Maddest thing I've ever seen in a ski resort

Mountain bikes are for mountain tracks, skis and snowboards for snow resorts. It's really that simple. Whoever thought of mixing the two is probably still recovering from serious injury.

These photos were taken on Dec 23rd: we went on a road trip to Shiga Kogen ski resort in Nagano prefecture. The bike race took part on a resort piste: we were allowed to board down alongside the stragglers.

The bikes were not as quick as we thought they'd be: it looked like a lot of leg muscle power to was needed to get through some parts of the course. For the steeps, it seemed like a case of closing your eyes and hoping for the best...

Happy christmas !

Well we may not have had a lot of new snow but the conditions out on the hill are perfect. The difference this year from last year is that the tempratures keep really low, even with blue skies like yesterday the courses are keeping really fresh. It looks like the next new snow will be with us by the weekend which will help the lower resorts in the town. (We went on a tour of some other resorts Shiga Kogen and Nozawa, at this stage Kagura has the best conditions out of them all).