Ladies and gentlemen,
Off to Lake Garda in a couple of weeks and was wondering if anyone has ridden out there and can recommend some trails (and their locations)? Saw an article in D**t magazine and it looks amazing, I heard the 601 and 666 trails mentioned but no specific details about them. Any help would be great. Thanks.
There are a couple of decent bike shops in Riva del Garda, one of which offers or at least promotes an uplift/guiding service although it was only running one day a week when I was there. Cant for the life of me remember them but I would recognise them if I saw them.
I would google them and send them off some emails. Both shops have hire fleets too and at least one had (basic) english speaking employees. The majority of the trails are of the very long, very steep fire road climb variety. I was told there were some slightyly more fun trails about they aren't the main draw and I received some funny looks when I tried to explain I wanted to hire a dh bike and get a lift to the top of a mountain .
Bring some factor 1 million sun block with you.
I was out there last year and boy did we get a shock!
We took the cable car up to nearly the top of 601, then pushed most the rest, Mrs Shin wasn't very fit but even so it still took a couple of hours to reach the top.
Then the decent. Even with the cannondale profits we had hired i had to give up and admit i couldn't ride any more than the briefest of sections. By uk trail centre standards it would be classed as rough black/downhill. We ended up bailing out and decending several vertical kilometers on road, finally getting back into Torbole after dark!
Another day we got an uplift to the top of Tremalzo (mountain on west side) and decended all the way to Limone. We got lost, we were supposed to end up back in Torbole but in didn't matter, instead we had a bottle of wine and got the ferry back. 
That was a much better day. It was mostly loose, firetrack stuff, with shear drops off the sides. Not very very challenging apart from on the brakes.
After that I took up sailing for a few days, it was much more relaxing and to be honest alot more fun that trying to route find in italian.
Note: If you are getting the cable car be aware that it only takes bikes at certain times of the day so you can be stuck waiting for ages.
Send me an email if you have any questions.
Cheers guys, that gives me a few locations to check out I take it it gets pretty warm out there then?! 
There's nothing there, it'll be rubbish; you'll miss ashridge 
Lemurian
I take it it gets pretty warm out there then?!
35 to 40 degrees when I was there in early july.
I was in Riva in May, was 31-32 degrees most of the time. Didn't get a lot of riding in unfortunately, MrsMomo does not like off road cycling (no matter how much I try!)
Another cool vid here from Lago di Garda.
#601 is cool but there's a lot of other sweet stuff to do too, for example:
Plus a lot of cool trails above Limone ... some more info if you dig about on Dave's site.
Andreas Albrecht also has a new trail book in English that's well worth ordering, order it here...
http://www.gardasee-gps-roadbook.info/en/
Look on
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.meranobike.it/&ei=IXA7SsbfBePOjAe10pAV&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=1&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dmeranobike%26hl%3Den%26rls%3DGGLG,GGLG:2007-31,GGLG:en
before you go....wish I did
Its ace but challenging terrain. 601 is described as Heaven or Hell.
I escaped from my family holiday to do some riding last year. I found some nice trails above Limone. Up road / fireroad and down the side of steep valleys towards the lake. Really stunning - I will be returning for a longer trip some time for sure.
If you get a hiking map you will see that the trails shown on it are numbered e.g. 601. There are some numbered signposts too, not as many as e.g. Switzerland so don't rely.
Just 'cos it is a hiking trail doesn't mean it is ridable, some are more like climbing than hiking.
It's been a fair few years since I was there, but there were some really challenging trails above Malcesine with a couple of hire shops in the town. I was given two options at the time, the tourist route or the freeride route. Went for the freeride route thinking I was an experienced black route basher and the top part of it was way beyond what I was capable of. Looking back on it now, I'd say it was probably rideable but then again, I've done a lot more serious rock riding since then.
The rest of the route was nice twisty singletrack out in a forest before descending into Malcesine again.
The guys in the shop gave me a route map but it wasn't the best I'm afraid.
Still, this was about 8 years ago, so I'm sure things have moved on since then.
Haven't had a chance to get on STW for a few days 
But cheers guys for all your posts, been a massive help 
Glad I found this thread, the wife and I are contemplating a biking holiday in Garda in September.
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