“Skimo looks so stupid,” I said to my friend Arami, a proper skier and snowboarder who has lived her entire life in the Andorran mountains. “The gear, the colors are terrible; the skis are so small you can’t really ski with style; the weirdly large helmets, the tight suits, everything looks ridiculous.” “Yeah,” she responded, “but so does cycling.”

I was taken aback by this comment and initially took offense. In my mind, some of the best cyclists in the business have swag and style. I watch Matthieu van der Poel flying up a cobble climb, or Tom Pidcock railing a descent, and I think, man, that looks cool, but that is only because I am in it. To the average outsider, even when he is riding a bike, Van der Poel just looks like another goofball in spandex.

What I have come to learn about Skimo is that, as an outsider, it looks so dumb, but once you are in it (aside from the colors), it makes total sense.

I told Amund as we were driving through France, on our way back to Andorra after finishing Pierra Menta, “Your race suit makes you look like a mix between Count Dracula, some bad guy from the original Batman series, and a band member from Devo.”

“Every time I see you in your race suit, I feel like I am following the Green Goblin,” Amund responded.

The Italian guy who designed cycling clothing for Castelli circa 2002 never retired; he just moved into the skimo world. Nothing can possibly match in this sport. My Dynafit skis have hot pink, yellow, black, and green on them. My race suit is a deep sea green with neon yellow and grey streaks on it, put there to, I guess, connote speed? I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing this outfit anywhere outside the confines of a skimo race, but when you have it all on, and you are going up a mountain almost as fast as a chairlift, and then bombing down untouched terrain, the clothing and the gear (aside from the colors) start to make sense.

Our clothing color choices were the product of what was in the store that fit. This is the issue with skimo: the equipment, clothing, and gear are not purchased by a large market. Like cycling in the ’90s, skimo has a very niche group driving the industry. It’s only post-Armstrong era, and the influx of more people riding bikes, that a demand to not look like a complete knob at a coffee shop became viable. There is no Rapha disrupting the skimo clothing market because 5% of the people that race skimo in the world were probably at Pierra Menta. Coloring aside, the equipment also reminds me of cycling from the pre-Armstrong era. If you have ever ridden a bike from this period and compare it to a race bike today, it feels like shit.

When I first started racing, there was this attitude that uncomfortable was faster. Stems were long and slammed down. Tire pressure was basically what you could pump them up to without them exploding, and their width was about the same as my thumb. Yet, my Ventum NS1 with DT Swiss wheels is probably the most comfortable iteration of a bike I have ever ridden, and it would smoke not just my first race bikes, but also ones that I have ridden only a few years ago. Often, especially in the rain, braking was more of an idea; your body ached if you weren’t on pristine pavement, and your likelihood of sliding out in a corner was tenfold. The bike was slower, more dangerous, less reliable, and required thousands of kilometers of riding on it before your body finally adapted to the position.

This is what skimo gear seems to be. The skis are narrow—in my mind, too narrow—the bindings are flimsy, and the boots massacre your feet. “They call this the carbon tax,” Kylee Toth, a member of the Canadian Skimo Federation, told me when talking about how blistered your feet get. However, due to the lack of demand, the skimo industry hasn’t been supercharged like the bike industry. Coming into this sport has made me realize how someone involved in Formula 1 must feel when they dip into the world of cycling.

Because of these factors, when you see a proper skimo racer descend after trying to ski on that same equipment, you realize how damn good these skiers are. Amund and I thought we were good skiers before we came to this race, but after trying to follow the female Slovenian team of Rea Kolbl and Meta Hrovat for just a few turns on stage 3, we realized we were far off the mark.

I think our only regret from racing Pierra Menta was our boot choice. Dynafit was incredibly generous in sending us skis, boots, and poles pre-race. Thinking, correctly, that we weren’t as good as we thought we were, they sent us the Mezzalama boot. This is an excellent touring boot, but it weighs almost 500g per boot more than the top-end, full carbon race boots. Boots—particularly the weight of the boots—I have come to learn are the most important piece of equipment in the sport. Because you are constantly lifting and moving your boot, which is at the extreme end of a lever—your leg—they say that for every gram you put on your boot, it is equivalent to 6x that in your bag. Therefore, 500g on a boot is like carrying 3kg in your backpack. Furthermore, a top-end carbon boot such as the Dynafit Pierre Ginoux is not just significantly lighter, but it also gives you more efficiency in climbing as it has a larger range of motion.

Too cheap and too ignorant, Amund and I did “The Tour de France of Skimo” with what we have been told is the equivalent of a gravel bike. We were never going to win Pierra Menta; however, we both now know that we would have been far less wrecked by the end of stage 3 had we forked out the extra 2k for a pair of ultralight boots. Now that we are hooked, these boots have definitely made our Christmas lists for next year.

Post stage 3, both of us were a wreck. We had been humbled; our overconfidence was gone, and our bodies were aching—there is far more impact in Skimo than cycling, and our muscles had been damaged. The night after stage 3, we were both dry coughing. In our tiny hotel room, I would wake up to the sound of his coughs, and then he would wake up to the sound of mine. When I woke up in the morning pre-stage 4, I felt more like I was deep into the second week of a Grand Tour rather than just 3 days into a race. With new snow falling (making conditions slower), the way things had gone the day before, and with the exact same transition-heavy start from stages 1 and 2, we were no longer optimistic about our prospects.

However, from the outset, we were vibing. Throughout the week, if I did a quick skin change, Amund would be fumbling with his. If Amund nailed his crampon mounting, I would still be trying to untangle them like a bunch of electronic chords that you forgot about in your closet. But in our first transition, as I quickly locked into descend mode, I turned to look at Amund, and he was doing the same. Shocked, we exited the transition still near the front, and then in the next one, it was the same. We were flowing; we had found our groove. It had taken 3 days of racing at the world’s biggest skimo event, but we were no longer looking like the imposters that we were. Our transitions were smooth; fixing issues like snow sticking to the skins or bindings not functioning properly became instinctual. On the descents, we were ripping; we were no longer being passed but were overtaking other teams. My quads were burning, but instead of giving up and feeling overwhelmed by the length of the runs or the technicality of the terrain, I was putting together consecutive turns that made me look more like I was in a Warren Miller video than Jerry of the Day. It was exhilarating, and aside from being taken out twice by a falling member of the Guardia Civil team, we had a relatively flawless race, and we ended on a high.

Pierra Menta was a massive challenge. As I sit here typing this, back in Andorra, my shoulders feel like somebody stabbed them with daggers, my left big toenail is black, and I may have done some real damage to my psoas muscle, but I have not felt this satisfied from doing an event in years. When I arrived home at 9:00 PM last night, I was buzzing and could not shut up while talking to Elly about all the stories I had accrued from the week. I felt like a kid that had just gotten back from summer camp.

So, conclusions:

Pierra Menta (PM) is an incredible event. Does it deserve the moniker of the “Tour de France of Skimo”? I would say no. The Tour is more grueling and demanding. In PM, the stakes are not as high, and the level is not the same. From an endurance perspective, it would not take much for Pierra Menta to reach that status, but it would require at least three to four more days of racing (interestingly, this is what the original founder of the race proposed).

However, this race is special on so many levels, and I think it is far closer to capturing the challenge of the Tour—and far less expensive to do—than any Gran Fondo or riding event that is accessible to the general public. The rush of adrenaline from surviving the descent of a couloir and the satisfaction of completing the ascension of 4 huge peaks while fans scream at you and a helicopter flies above is the same feeling that a Grand Tour rider experiences regularly. The stories that these risks create and the challenges that are overcome are the best aspects of both events.

There are a lot of posers in cycling. It’s a product of the post-Lance and post-COVID bumps. I know guys that have $15,000 bikes, custom shoes, and kits that would cost more than most people’s wardrobes, but struggle to do a 60km ride and will comment on other people’s sock height. But, there are no posers in skimo, only Amund and me. To ski down some of the slopes that we skied or to traverse some of the ridges that we traversed and make the time cut, you either have to have won the genetic lottery by having a VO2 max above 80, along with the arrogance, overconfidence, and massive egos that come with this gift (Amund and I), or you have to put in a crazy amount of work. Amund’s and my aerobic capacity relative to our finishing place—some 4 hours and 39 minutes behind the overall race winners, William Bon Mardion and Xavier Gachet—is a testament to the fact that you can’t pretend to be a skimo racer. Svein Tuft, a former Canadian pro cyclist and one of the hardest and most notoriously strong men in the peloton during his era, said to me before taking on PM, “Skimo is probably the most demanding sport out there.” Now, I believe him. The range of skills, physical abilities, and mental capacities required make this sport inaccessible to anyone who wants to cosplay for the weekend. Which is why, I think, the vibe is so good, and the clothing is so bad. People aren’t doing this sport to impress others; they are just doing it for themselves.

Even as I write about it, a part of me is hesitant to sing Pierra Menta’s praises, as a lot of what makes the event so great is its level of anonymity. This isn’t Ironman, a World Major Marathon, or a Gravel Earth Series Race. There are no real influencers or people smashing selfies on the start line. Everyone comes to race. For 700 euros (1400 per team), I was housed and fed for five days and received my entry fee. I got to race on a course that expanded my mind and challenged me in ways I didn’t think possible, all amongst a beautiful and authentic backdrop. In a globalized world with Aussie-style cafes and H&Ms on every corner, when you travel, so often you can feel like you are just in an iteration of the same place; yet racing this race and being in Areche was a unique experience.

I have images burned into my mind: an old French couple in wool sweaters sitting in lawn chairs in the middle of a pristine snowy valley, taking in the sun and sipping wine as we raced by; a kid, no older than 9, smiling and screaming with countless other fans who must have skinned up at the crack of dawn to summit a 2700m peak in order to cheer for us; a chicken hanging out at the doorstep of our hotel, sporadically pecking for grubs against a backdrop of white-capped peaks. The event wasn’t like the North American race model that I am so accustomed to, where organizers are desperate to manufacture an experience while simultaneously pillaging you for every dollar you have. Like many things French, it was utterly confident in its awesomeness, and didn’t seem to want for more.

So, as I rack my 64mm skis for the season, and start looking at my new Ventum NS1 and GS1 hanging in my garage, to Skimo, and Pierra Menta, I want to say thank you. I will definitely be back next year. Up next, Sea Otter, Levi’s Gran Fondo and a journey to California to see what has happened to the American cycling scene.