on with it at last. I lay face down on the seat

and the starting bell clanged. I lifted my spikes

out of the ice and I was off. I’d hardly gone

a couple of metres when I could hear them

calling ‘Rake!’ I dragged the spikes along the

ice, but the bucket carried on picking up speed

along the Junction Straight. I was raking more

seriously by the time that I swept into Rise,

which is the first corner, and I was now starting

to get a proper feeling of speed. On the straights

the run is just over a metre wide (about four

feet) and you can see the low ice walls rushing

past you out of the corners of your eyes. Then,

when you hit a curve, you swoop round a

higher wall of ice before dropping back into the

half-pipe run again.

On the straights the run is just

over a metre wide (about four feet)

and you can see the low ice

walls rushing past you out of

the corners of your eyes.

The Cresta Run is unique in that it is a natural

ice run – the only run of its kind in the world.

It is seasonal, rebuilt each year using the earth

banks on the hillside and fresh snow, which is

then compacted and sprayed with water to turn

it to ice. The run starts in St Moritz and winds

through the ten turns down a valley to what

used to be the village of Cresta, now part of the

district of Celerina. The steepness of the slope

ranges from 1 in 8.7 to 1 in 2.8.

I felt like I was going fast, but I knew that I

probably wasn’t. What I really wanted to be

able to do was to steer the bucket properly, and

that, clearly, is something that you can do best

when you really are going fast. By the time I

was approaching the bottom half of the run

I had eased off the raking. You can take the

bottom of the course a lot faster, but steering

the bucket was still frustrating me. Either it

wouldn’t steer at all, or it was hyper-sensitive.

There are proper skills to be learned here. I was

happy to have made it all the way down, but

I suddenly found that I was breathing really

hard, like I had just stepped off Britain’s

Fastest Bike!

Why was I so out of puff when I came off the

run? It’s not as though I had actually sprinted

all the way down, after all. I had been lying on

the bucket. Some of that breathlessness will

have been due to the altitude. There is less

oxygen in the air up in the mountains, so you

puff harder when you’re doing any kind of

exercise. Most of it, though, was due to the fact

that I had been tensed up all the way down. I

had been holding every muscle tight as I tried

to pull the bob this way and that. Still doesn’t

sound like I should have been out of breath?

Then give this a go.

Providing that you are fit and able and aren’t

suffering from a bad back or anything like that

(don’t come crying to me if you do yourself a

mischief ), lie face down on the floor. Now tuck

your elbows in with your hands facing forwards

and raise your upper body. Next, keeping your

body perfectly straight, raise yourself up on

your toes as well so that your chest, stomach,

knees and legs are parallel to the ground. Don’t

stick your bum in the air. Then see how long

you can hold yourself there. It’s an exercise

called ‘the bridge’ and it’s used to help improve

your core strength, the muscles in your torso

and your legs. You have to keep everything

tense, and after a while it is knackering.

Another one to try – very simple: just stand on

one leg and raise the other one up and down.

riding the cresta run    223