Has anybody been here riding without being on an organised holiday? We’re heading out to Europe next weekend and because we’re in the van we have the option of not going to the PDS if the weather stays this bad (Spent too many years riding in Morzine in terrible weather) and Finalé is an option.

Do you just turn up in the car park and find an uplift or need to book them in advance? I looked into it last year and it seemed that it was just rock up, pay and jump on but not really sure.

Also what are the bike parks in Austria and Germany like, or The MTB around Lake Garda?

Tom KP

We drove down last year after Verbier and had a great few days. Managed to book on for a couple of days when we arrived with Finale Ligure Freeride. They were very good, the trails were dry and dusty.
Wouldn’t want to do it without the uplift. It was HOT. They were taking bookings on the day.
Stayed on the Tahiti campsite which was central for everything.

Cool cheers. Just looking at options to avoid the rain. I can’t be doing with slogging around Morzine in the (very )wet.

I’ve ridden a couple of trails around Lago de Garda. It was wet (September), loose & technical, but not very flowy – I hear Finale is the mut’s.

I’ve ridden Finale and Garda.

Garda has a really good mixture of trails, mostly rocky but not silly tech. I’ve been three times now. 601 is a must, Navene and “Gnarly Ponale” are pretty good too. The uplift is mostly booked the day before or on the day, certainly not weeks before. I recommend Luca Bike Shuttle, who’s based in Torbole.
Look up “Michael Cycle”, mentioned in here for guiding or advice. He’s out there for about 6 months of the year and knows the place well.

Finale is mostly more flowy and the trails are cut/built for bikes, though it has a reasonable amount of tech in there too. I’ve only been once but will go again. Used Eze Freeride uplift when we were there. Most of their customers weren’t staying with them, just booking uplift. All the uplift companies in Finale offer guiding + uplift together. They don’t do uplift alone, but it’s definitely worth having the guide for linking the trails up efficiently.

The weather is beautiful here in Morzine today. I say that as I’m sitting here all packed, waiting for a lift to the airport. It’s been raining about 20 hours a day for the past week. Still fun riding, but yeah if you’ve got the option to avoid it, I don’t blame you.

What about Andorra? Or La Molina? They’re both on my hit list.

Cheers guys.

We’re just looking at options as I’ve done Morzine with really wet trails and although it’s fun for a while the novelty wears off pretty quickly.

And as we have a van we have the option of pretty much anywhere in Europe.
Also it’s nice to ride new places.

Tom Kp

drove down from Munich last year in September for 12 dys to avoid the Oktoberfest.

slept in our van. enough spots that are tucked away and secluded. spent a night on a site one evening.

riding in the hinterland and along the coast is good. riding directly from Finale to the trails not so good. bit of a slog out on town on fairly busy, twisty roads. if you’ve got your van it makes sense to park up for the night higher up/away from town and start the day higher up. added benefit you avoid climbing in the midday sun.

the hills behind Finale rise to ~1800m. and yes, the video cliche does exist there.

found most of the climbing to be easy going ~8-10%. mostly asphalt with the last stretch on track. the trails generlly rocked. can’t think of one trail that didn’t disappoint. the one down to Isallo is one to ride, along with Rollercoaster. generally flowig (that’s german for flowy). the Donna/Man DH is fun.

all the trails are easily reachable by bike.

the GF and i went for one days guided with Finale Freeride one their Defender tour. that consisted of bombing down 8 or 9 private trails, led by some kamikaze italien guide and being ferried around some forest high up in the hills in a Defender whilst watching your bikes one the trailer bouncing around. the guide was for my taste a bit laissez-faire.
it was just a case of book and rock up and ride. although full-face is smarter. didn’t feel out of place riding the otehr trails without one.

i’d recommend making the trip. the area in general is nice and if you are there with the vn then you have the option of seeing a fair bit.

i used to guide and ended up on the Lake most weekends in summer and have been for long weekends with friends. never been on a guided tour, but have shuttled with the van. the riding there is generally rockier, more technical and loose. lots of stupidly steep trails cut into the rock. most of the trails there are from WW1. intersting area. the trails are mostly “natural” and not been messed with.

lots of riding directly from Riva/Torbole. the views from up top are WOW. however, the view from Riva isn’t bad either.

quite a few comapnies offering tours. only one cable car from Malcisine (sp?).

quite a few campsites, mostly full and full with lots of germans. (although there were a good few in Finale.) not much chance of wild camping.

few german alpine parks worthy of any note.

saalbach-hinterglemm/leogang is worth a week or so of riding. if going again i would, as last time, stay in an appartment that offer the Joker Card rahter than bumming it in the van. it gives you access to all the lifts in the valley plus other stuff.

lots of bigger “freeride”/DH stuff plus miles of trails. use the lifts to save you a few hours climb and get high up.

another geheimtipp is Vinschgau in South Tyrol. it’s only three hours from Munich and we are there fairly often. it seems to have it’s own micro-climate. even in winter the south facing hills are clear up to ~1300m when other valleys are white.

lots of “enduroness”. valley is littered with trails with a mixture of natural and man-made, this time thanks to Mussolini. some classic tours and with a vanthe valley is perfect for a week. tours around Rechensee get a massive thumbs up. and from Stelvio down to Glurns.

Saalbach is ~2 hours from here and i still rather drive three hours to get to Vinschgau.

Hi Tom,

Loads of the Superenduro and EWS tracks and transfer routes are marked out, but I’ve got GPX data from 2012 Superenduro final if you want it? That was a classic year with a really good variety – and was a one day race rather than 2 for all subsequent years.

There is much much more to liguria than finale…. Try going westwards no mire than hour..diano marina, nava, sanremo, dolceacqua, and Molini

Just back from Finale Ligure last week – like alpin I did a day with Finale Freeride which had some amazing trails but necessitates spending a bit of time stuffed in the back of the defender driving up old access tracks, I burst my hand performing a skillful 20 foot nose manual before crashing into a tree attempting to clear a rather terrifying looking section (ok, I shit myself & hauled on the brakes but was too far gone to stop…) just before lunch & spent the rest of the day gingerly picking my way through the “smooth” bits…

Couple of days later (once the bleeding stopped), I hired an xc bike & got a map of the local trails – there’s loads of accessible stuff if you have the legs for it, I put 30 miles round the Finale 24hr trail & the surrounding area and had a great time, it was warm though…