Maël Féron: climbing the Mégavalanche by headlamp before racing it
Chapters (27)
- Intro
- Riding up the Maïdo
- 0 The Mégavalanche Up & Down documentary
- What was going through his head?
- 0 The physical side
- Introducing Maël
- First enduro races
- The Tour du Mont Blanc
- Mégavalanche Up & Down
- The race
- His gear
- How he combines studies and sport
- His passion for video
- After school
- His dream
- His sponsors
- His Mégavalanche in Réunion
- What the Mégavalanche means to him
- Should you do the Réunion Méga?
- What we can wish him for the future?
- A next guest?
- A final word?
- My final word
- Thank you
- Thanks to the Case Bambou
- Thanks to the UCC and the Enduro Marinès for the invitation
- Thanks to the locals!
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Episode in French.
Maël Féron is an enduro mountain bike racer and an engineering student in Strasbourg.
What on earth was he thinking? That’s the question you might ask yourself when you watch the documentary Mégavalanche Up & Down, in which Maël rides up the course of the Alpe d’Huez Mégavalanche from Allemond to the Pic Blanc by headlamp, before taking the start and finishing 4th in the race.
And if you think Maël is a bit crazy, you’re way off the mark. Because this 21-year-old engineering student has a better head on his shoulders than I did at his age, and he thought things through carefully before launching into this project, even if he readily admits to having cultivated a certain ignorance to pull off the challenge.
And you’ll see that he has a clear plan, and it wouldn’t be surprising to see him take on other projects of the same kind soon.
In this episode, expect to discover:
– Why Maël decided to leave cross-country for enduro, and how he managed to cause a surprise in his first races.
– His account of the attempted Tour du Mont Blanc with Jules Auroux, which laid the groundwork for what came next.
– Where the idea for the Mégavalanche Up & Down challenge came from.
– How he experienced, from the inside, that 2,800 m climb up to the Pic Blanc at Alpe d’Huez, and above all how he managed to finish 4th behind Alex Rudeau and ahead of a certain Kilian Bron.
– The behind-the-scenes of his physical preparation to keep up with Damien Oton and Kilian Bron, and the mystery of his state of flow during the race.
– How he balances engineering school and his sport, and his advice for students who want to perform in both their studies and sport.
– And plenty of other things.
Episode links: The Tour du Mont Blanc documentary https://youtu.be/Md8fGCz_KWs?si=3PUr3bq874YcnR-Z
Mégavalanche Up & Down https://youtu.be/Q-A-4p0_WtM?si=EVQiHiwrAQsEtKaM
Robin Challamel’s Tour du Mont Blanc record:
https://www.chamonix.net/francais/actualite/robin-challamel-encore-un-nouveau-record-du-tmb-en-vtt-14h44m
This episode of En Roue Libre is supported by Shifter, the all-in-one solution for managing bike shops.
Thanks to the UCC, organiser of the Réunion Mégavalanche, and to Florent Payet and the Enduro Marinès team for making this episode possible.
