Southern Road trip Autumn 2016

Ups and downs...of trail snobbery

Meeting Wouter at Nice airport was always going to cause issues.  First off it's a long way from Chamonix, even going through Italy fuelled by cappuccino's, and secondly, Rob's van was already had three bikes and us two people.  Somehow we managed and when Jamie arrived the following day we made as much use of his rental Fiat 500C as possible.

Sospel. Home of Trans Provence.  When you drive into town and see the head of the Enduro World Series pulling up to a bar after a days riding you feel like you've hit gold already.

With high hopes we set off the following morning up a long fire-road, Bever Rally came down with their shuttle vehicle.  Wow, what have we got instore up here?  VTT internet site has loads of routes on this hillside, as does Trailforks, this should be Provence gold.

I excitedly dropped in first, when was this trail last ridden?  There's old enduro lines, but now it's full of debris.  And that's how it continued for a day and half, bar the 400 metre brake less flow trail late one afternoon that delighted all of us till we got spiked to death by Mediterranean plants at the bottom.

Ok, it was time to try something different. We saw the Trans Provence minibus heading up another hillside.  There's a trail on Trailforks called Ze Holy Trail.  Time to try it and see if it's seen more traffic.  It certainly had and we found the trail of the area!  The top required inch perfect precision between the rocks and steep chutes.  Lower down the brakes were let go of as you could really trust the traction and braking distances.   Smiles all round, about time.

Sospel. Home of Trans Provence, a guiding company.  Pay and you shall be shown the trail's in conditions, pay and you shall be driven an hour around the corner and picked up afterwards. I intend to be back, better planned and vehicle equipped to try find more goodness like Sven Martin always takes photo's of.

The weather was constantly changing it's mind.  Dolceacqua? Molini? Mention? Finally we settled on Finale Ligure in the hope of getting further enough east to beat the storms.

Classic Finale, we arrived to a bustling campsite, in mid October, and then went out to eat and drink like kings for €25 each! Things were looking up.

The following day we set off on a big pedal for the Rollercoaster trail. I've never ridden a trail outside of the bike park full of braking bumps, constant braking bumps.  We tried down the steeper side and found a real gem, the second best of the whole trip, which was mega flowy.  What Finale does well, is utilise the terrain to be fun.

Our second day was very much like the first.  Some good trails away from the main horrendously beaten up lines, followed by frustration.  Bar and aperitivi in the afternoon reminded us, the trail snobs, of how lucky we are.

France Meteo was warning of Orange Vigilance (their 2nd highest) for the impending days of stormy weather so we packed up and called it quits.

We found some goods, but we learnt some lessons too.  The main being, we are massive trail snobs!

Crossing back from Italy into France through the Mont Blanc tunnel we left Aosta Valley with snow down to the valley floor.  Winter is coming, biking time is running out for 2016.