My new favourite place- Part 3

It is possible to beat what you thought was a world class trail when in Gap

I woke after a warm nights sleep. The wind had died down too as I ate my breakfast and took my time to pack everything away. I was in no rush today. It was very mild even at 8am & the scenery was stunning.

View under the road bridge near my campspot

From my research I decided to bolt on an extra descent onto a circular loop ride near where I had ridden yesterday. The climb would be long, beginning on a very minor backroad, and then slogging up a fire road. Over 2 hours later I was nearing the top.

The first part of the descent felt familiar, like Saleve or Servoz. Within beech and pine tree terrain, roots, switchbacks, fast and fun. Again, part way down I stopped to take in the views when it cleared momentarily. Lower down things opened a little and began to feel like the southern alps should. Dry dusty ribbons of singletrack through pines and spiky bushes. And then really open terrain, rocky, baron and dry. Grippy and a fun. It was never to steep and just seemed to keep going and going. It clearly see's a reasonable amount bike traffic through the season, but not too much to cause braking bumps, a few cut corners that had been covered with tree branches, but otherwise perfect biker singletrack.

At the bottom I couldn't quite believe it, the trail had made yesterdays look average!

A little contouring climb around and then this red shale rock trail came into view on this steep hillside. The top switchbacks even I walked. As the trail got lower they got better and better, and then more flowy high speed goodness to finish! A mini bonus descent.

Can you see the trail?

The circuit continued up, away from the lake side through another tiny peaceful hamlet. Oh yeah, I forget to mention. Besides one old dude in a van near the top of the first climb, I hadn't seen anyone all day.

The last descent I dropped into was actually quite disappointing, it had seen some forestry action so was quite wide up high, lower down it got a bit better, but the trail was strewn with large pebbles. You can't everything though can you? And it gave me more inspiration to explore this area to try find more gems...

I will be back with friends and in the future hopefully guiding groups. Finale Ligure might have it's seaside, coffee and cheap pizza along with world class trails, but here the trails and views are just as good!

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