Switzerland and South Tyrol 2014

[LeeLau]

Delicious!

Now on to South Tyrol we land up in the Vinschgau valley in Meran

Our home base is actually the little village of Rabla just west of Meran. Our first trek took us up the Ashbach Gondola. It's busy with hikers and pretty much prime hiking season so we spent a fair amount of time trying to make sure we were good guests on the trails and wandering around in sub-alpine. While it's always fun to see new areas of the world I can't help thinking that we missed out on cherry trails elsewhere. It turns out that this zone is still new for biking so a lot of the really good trails are reserved for hiking only and not for bikes as yet. Understandable but we still got a brake burner descent to end the day all the way from 2200m to the valley floor at 600m. More here

[pureantigravity]

How much dough $hould someone stash away to plan for a trip like this?

[LeeLau]

Realistically. About 1500 Eur a week if you're self-guided or 2000 EUR/week if you're guided - ie riding with a local. You can do it cheaper too. Camping, eating by shopping at grocery stores etc. AirBnB is a bit harder to get at the smaller towns so hotel and accoms prices are going to be probably the major cost

[LeeLau]

On another ride in South Tyrol we ended up at the small village of Hafling Dorf at about 1300m where we start our ride. From Halfing Dorf we climbed to Wurzer Alm and continue on to the Stoanernen Mandlen (the Stone Men) on a mix of first double track then single track on a tech challenging climb.

After a photo op at this stunningly beautiful location surrounded by Dolomites and mountain views we descend on fun double track through fields and rolling terrain to a hut called Möltner Kaser (1806 m) to eat KaiserSchmarm and drink beer.

Following this pleasantly indulgent lunch break in typical South Tyrolean sun we broke off our subalpine food coma-induced to ride technical challenging single track where the roots and drops made us recall our North Shore bike handling. Then we were back to Wurzer Alm and a final climb to Hafling Dorf. Our guides from Otzi bike were Klaus (the owner), fast Freddy. Boris from the Hotel Design Tyrol also joined us for the day showing his fast freeride steez.

More - http://www.leelau.net/sharonandlee/s...e-merano-2000/

[LeeLau]

We spent the next couple of days at Brixen and Bruneck in the heart of South Tyrol

The Brixen Testival was going on at the same time that we were there. This bikefest would be a great way to demo bikes, go on guided rides, meet fellow riders and see what this area has to offer. We just had a half day to spare so did a quick run of the new 6.6km flow trail off the Plose Gondola, then went back up and rode down one of the other traditional bike trails creatively named 3, 5 and 7. More here

http://www.leelau.net/sharonandlee/s...l-and-bruneck/

[LeeLau]

The next day we travelled to Bruneck to ride with Michaela, Markus and Matthias on one of their local trails. The trails from today and from Brixen yesterday was high quality singletrack of a duffy calibre that we’re not used to seeing in Europe where frankly, often we are linking up odd patches of singletrack linked with roads and doubletrack.

Markus is also the local trailbuilder most responsible for the development of lift-served biking in the area which started when he was contracted to build the Herrnsteig downhill on the Kronplatz. Since then he’s had the good fortune to build the Furcia freeride trail and is hoping to build yet another trail. The Bruneck locals were therefore keen to take us up the Kronplatz to check out the new stuff







On to the Kronplatz

[LeeLau]

Where? Valle Aurina or Ahrntal might be one of the most beautiful places in the world that the English speaking world hasn’t heard about. 70km NE of Bolzano on the Austrian border, Valle Aurina is more popular in the winter with the snowsports crowd. However this area does offer some great summer recreation.

Today we did the Tauernweg. This is a high alpine traverse along the N and S sides of the valley; a particularly useful way to check out the lay of the land. It starts as paved road from Steinhaus where we were based then becomes gravel road/doubletrack as you climb from the last village of the valley at approximately 1400m up to the subalpine at 2000m. From the subalpine you then see astounding views and mixed doubletrack/singletrack. The trail is shares some very old smugglers routes (about 400 years ago the Ahrntal was a major route for smuggling tobacco and booze from Italy to Austria and back). At the alpine at the TauernAlm hut you can then either hike a bike another 300+m to a pass where you can look over to Innsbruck in Austria or head back down the valley.

More - http://www.leelau.net/sharonandlee/s...rina-tauenweg/