PALE MOUNTAIN MEN
A crew of MTB legends head deep into Italy’ s Dolomites for an overnight backcountry adventure
A crew of MTB legends – Cédric Gracia, Geoff Gulevich, Brett Tippie and Richie Schley – head deep into Italy’s Dolomites for an overnight backcountry adventure
stefano had told us it'd take 40 minutes to reach the alpine lake. but after an hour, the top still wasn't visible and the complaining began
Come on guys, it's beautiful up here!
When we join Cédric and Richie at the top, the panorama is unreal – it’s like being in a sleeping crater surrounded by towers of grey rock, the crystal clear turquoise lake reflecting the type of perfect sunset you only get at 3,000 metres’ altitude. The view is amazing, but the main sensation I’m feeling is relief. I’m in the Dolomites with some of the best riders on the planet – freeriders Geoff Gulevich, Richie Schley and Brett Tippie and all-round racing legend Cédric Gracia – and a few minutes ago, they’d looked just about ready to lynch me and my friend Stefano!
THE 40-MINUTES MAN
Stefano, our guide, had been tasked with organising something epic. After arriving in the Italian resort of Canazei late the previous night and spending the morning in the bike park, we’d gone for the real mission – an overnight trip to the Lago di Antermoia. Stefano had told us it would take just 40 minutes to reach the alpine lake. But after an hour, the top still wasn’t visible and the complaining began. In the end, it took three hours of gruelling riding and hiking to reach the summit (thankfully, we were able to load our bikes onto a service lift for the last part, while we climbed steeply on foot for another hour and a half). With our crew already mightily pissed off and no guarantee of a good night’s sleep – we’d be staying in a rifugio (mountain hut), which sometimes turn out to be stone cold, with a single bathroom between 50 people and just one gigantic bedroom with bedsheets that are never changed – there were times on the climb when I feared that Stefano (now known as ‘The 40-Minutes Man’) and I wouldn’t make it down from the mountain alive!
Thankfully, the guys are now super-stoked because it’s so damn amazing up here. And when we enter the rifugio, our spirits lift even further as we discover it’s newly refurbished, with lots of bathrooms, rooms for four people max, great mattresses and fresh sheets every day. And then there’s the food! We tuck into a four-course meal with risotto and steak
washed down with a couple of glasses of grappa (Italian brandy). All the hardship to get here was worth it!
PANINIS AND PRIME TRAILS
Day two starts pretty early because of a technology failure that told us sunrise was earlier than it actually is. Tippie has brought lights, though, so we ride around in the blackness, waiting for the dawn. The Dolomites are known as the ‘Pale Mountains’ because of the colour of the dolomite rock, and in this light the terrain has the feel of an alien moonscape. By chance, we discover a hidden valley with a rocky, sandy singletrack trail to the summit. It’s a natural arena surrounded by towering walls of rock, with scree slopes generated by the erosion of the dolomite stone. Cédric, Brett and Richie immediately hike up the slopes to ride virgin lines, while Gully scopes out a rocky technical line that’s more to his taste.
After a good breakfast back at the rifugio, it’s time to take the long way home. The first section is a prime 40-minute downhill – fast, steep, loose and rocky, with a few slow, technical parts. Then we pedal along the flat for 20 minutes, awed by the landscape, to another rifugio where we stop for espressos. Next is fast, fun singletrack through the forest, before we head back out into the open. We ride across rock faces, along very exposed singletrack and down some gnarly lines, for more than half an hour. When we stop to eat some paninis, we revel in that feeling you get when your hands are sore from gripping the bar and your face aches from smiling.
After lunch, we enjoy one of the most epic 20km downhills we’ve ever ridden. All the complaints about the hiking yesterday seem irrelevant now, and the only concern on anyone’s mind is that we have to leave tomorrow. We’re definitely going to come back and explore more of these remote alpine trails.
when we stop to eat some paninis, we revel in that feeling you get when your hands are sore from gripping the bar and your face aches from smiling