Finale Ligure Italy is one of the most well known mountain biking destinations in the world, but is it better than the world renowned Whistler Bike Park?
A lot of people will only go on one or two big mountain bike trips a year. The question is, if you’re looking for the most bang for your buck… Or fun on your bike… Should you head to Finale Italy or Whistler Bike Park?
In this video we share of first day in Finale Italy, where we hire the guiding company, Backcountry Finale to take us on some of Finale’s lesser known trails, as well as some of it’s MOST well know trails.
Join us to see how day 1 in Finale stacks up.
Links from show:
Backcountry Finale Shuttles/Guiding https://www.backcountryfinale.com/
Trailforks ride log https://www.trailforks.com/ridelog/view/70091208/#trails
Shawna’s Instagram https://www.instagram.com/smhengel/
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Timestamps
00:00 Start
01:14 Start of day 1
01:35 Airbnb apartment tour
03:41 Riding into town
04:24 Ride 1 – Private trail
05:38 Ride 2 – Up & Down trail
08:45 Ride 3 – II Conte trail
11:31 Ride 4 – Green River trail
13:28 LUNCH
13:38 Ride 5 – Crestino trail
16:52 Rocche Gianche trail
20:39 Ride 6 – DH Mens trail
This week we’re pushing the limits of our bodies and our minds. Hey there. Ah. And headed to one of the most famous mountain biking destinations in the world. Finale. Laquaryi, Italy. Finale is a breathtaking mountainous town resting on the Laquarian Sea. Man, that’s cool. And not many people know this, but it’s commonly known as Whistler by the sea. Cool. In this video, we’re going to ride some of Finale’s lesserk known backcountry trails. Oh, so glowy. Show you some unbelievable views, our pursuit to continue eating all of Europe’s best food, how close we came to disaster, and even our attempt to ride some of the hardest trails in finale. Oh yeah. On this trip, we share the inside scoop as we explore this mountain biking mecca. Rate the trails and overall experience of the trip. Oh my gosh, this is so flowy. You’ll know exactly what it’s like to be in Finale. Join us on this adventure to see if Finale really deserves to be compared to the worldrenowned Whistler Bike Park. Holy moly, this is almost my worst crash of the whole trip right there. After five amazing days of riding in Molini, Italy on no joke the hardest trails we’ve ever ridden, we are off to our last stop of the trip, Finale Lui, Italy. Finale is just a quick hour and a half drive down the road from Wolini. All right, so checking out our sweet Airbnb here in Finale. This is our little outdoor porch coming inside. Check out the inside of this place. It’s really cool. It’s like a studio, but it has two bathrooms, toilet room, I guess, with a sink in there. Our bed, and then back through there, there’s another bathroom, which has a very small shower, as they do in Europe. I bang my elbows on everything. And then a full kitchen. This is actually a fridge right here. They like to do the hidden fridges around here. And then there’s a hidden dishwasher back there, too, which is super cool. Look at all of the artwork they’ve done around here. It makes it feel very homey and just like inviting and nice to spend time in here. So, we’ve got a cool view down here. If you look outside, you can actually see a castle right there. You come out here and get your nice sun castle castle. The ocean’s actually, I don’t know, a 30-minute walk that way and a 10 or 15 minute walk down to town in the bike shops and the shuttles or a 7minute bike ride. Very easy. and quiet. If you notice, all we hear are the birds, maybe a car every once in a while. Another incredibly valuable important thing to us when we’re in a place like this, there is bike storage back here. So, there’s a nice spot to store our bikes and the Airbnb host has a bike washer hose to use out there. This place has been really awesome. We actually put a link to it down below. If you guys come to Finale and are okay with being up out of town, which we absolutely prefer, put the link down there so maybe you could check it out. Anyway, hope you enjoyed our tour. First day of riding in Finale. We’re going to put this bike together and go have a [Music] ride. Getting ready for our first day. Making some breakfast. Still feeling kind of tired from Molini. Definitely. Should be a fun day. Going to explore someplace new. It’s going to be awesome. Tired. Today we are going on six shuttle rides for 23 miles on some of Finale’s lesserk known trails and a couple of the Endura World Series super rough tracks. Very slippery for breaking. Can you hear that clicking noise? That’s Emily’s hub. The bearing is about to blow up. We hope that it’ll make it through the day and we can find a shop that’ll fix it. The ride from our Airbnb down to the shuttles was about 7 minutes and a beautiful ride through town. Today we are doing a full day tour with Backcount Finale with Alisandre doing the guiding and Sandra doing the driving. After a very bumpy ride up to the trail head, we are off to ride a blue trail that comes with some very slippery corners. All right, first day in finale. Today we are using backcountry finale for a full guided private day with just the three of us. We had our friend Shauna show up from the US. First day riding for her. We wanted a guide to show us the area, get a lay of the land and not have any pressure. Easy run to start the day. You hear my bike creaking? I have some rear hub bearings that need attention. I’ll try and get that fixed today. Oo, I also got a new front brake on here and it feels very nice. I think my old one was pretty toast. Trying to loosen up here this morning. Yeah. That’ll do it for a quick ride 1.7 miles, 500 ft descending, only a difficulty of three, and a fun of five. We’re just getting warmed up. For ride two, we took a quick trip over to a blue trail, which is going to increase the speed and difficulty. All right, so this trail is called up and down. Second trail of the day. Mud pits. Mud is slick. It’s a little muddy. Otherwise, the dirt is pretty tacky. It feels like Mike’s making a mad rattle. So, I’m not really sure what it is. Sloppy sections right there. Some really nice dirt on the upper part. So, let’s hope it continues to dry out a little bit. Feels weird to ride my bike a little bit faster. I feel like I don’t know what that feels like after being in Molini. Yeah, the track is so much wider than what we just finished riding in the way. Tracks are so much more narrow there. Nice change of pace. Oh, so glowy. Oh, my poor bike. Hope we can get these bearings fixed. Feels good to go fast. I think I just held a bug. Ooh, that’s beautiful. Later on, we’re going to hit some really gnarly stuff, but for now, this is the most technical part of the trail we’ve hit for the day. You’ve got to be very precise in your line choice because these rocks are bouncing all around. Sometimes that line choice is not even on the trail. See how my line choice has adapted? Nice little roll there. Very cool. Every place you ride has a different trail surface and a different amount of grip. So, we’re just trying to figure out what that is here. Lost the front wheel there. You can try and hedge your bets by putting on a really good front tire. Unfortunately, right now, we don’t love what we’re using. Nice flow here. What is flow? Oh, boy. These are our preferred front tires if we could choose anything. It’s starting to get a little bit steep here. Got the roots roots in the water and the raking bumps and the bike lit sounds like it’s coming. Oh my gosh, this is so flowy. What is this? You got something going on? Oh, yeah. I’m making a lot of noise. That’ll do it for ride 2. 4 miles,400 ft of descending. A difficulty of only five out of 10, but it was pretty darn fun at a 7 out of 10. For ride three, we’re going to tackle kind of a short one, but it’s getting faster and steeper as we go. So pretty. Go, go, go. Watch out for cow poops. Look at this view. Holy moly. Cow poop city. Keep your mouth closed. Cows. Loud cows. Wow. Backount Finale knows exactly what we’re doing. We’re now getting into some steeper, chunkier, gnarier stuff. Oh [Music] god. Got to keep the mouth closed cuz all the cows got a mud chunk in my mouth. Oh no. Got a nice mud chunk right in my mouth. This trail is quite a gnarly combination of steep, narrow, rocky, a little wet, and some mud. It just keeps throwing it at you. Every corner is a little bit different, but all pretty sketchy. [Music] Shoot. Jeez, Emily. Very fun. It was really nice. Flowy and also the rocky the rock section. It was fun. Woo! Sniper water bottle right there. For me, this is Finale at its best. Has so much to offer. You get flow, you get some steeps, you get some natural banked BMS, some rocks. When it’s drier like this, you can really push into the bike and have a lot of fun. Inside line, outside line. Oh, outside line. bike. That was not the fastest or smoothest line. It’s all right. Trail seems like the dryness was shortlived. Now we’ve got some sketchy slippery rocks due to finding more moisture on the trail. turns and some slippery rocks. Nice. Yes, that one mud puddle was thick. That’s it for ride three. 2 miles, 1,200 ft of descending, a difficulty of 6 out of 10. There was some slippery stuff, and very fun at 8 out of 10. For ride four, we have one of the most flowy trails of the day, but believe it or not, it leads to my first crash. All right, this is the Green River Trail heading down. last trail before we head to lunch and then I think we’re going to go do some more classic finale stuff. I’ve said it before, I think the easy flow just lulls me to sleep and that’s when mistakes happen. Good. All good. Oops. Little tree. I just snagged it with the front tire. Yeah, that little sapling creek. Yeah. Now, I need to keep my concentration on high alert because we’ve just got more of this vast flowy section where my mind wants to lull back to sleep. These trails definitely require slightly less like fullon focus than uh the trails in Molini. These definitely require focus, but they’re not as like physically demanding in the same way. So, it’s nice to feel like you can relax a little bit. We had only one one day off. Andrew and I were both saying we feel like we could have had two for sure. Slept a ton in the last two days. This is really really great for feeling recovered, but I could definitely have had just one more relaxing day. I didn’t feel like we got to relax with traveling and errands, getting settled in a new place and all that river crossing lunch. That’s what I heard. Lunch. And that’s it for ride 4. 3.5 mi, 1200 ft of descending, a difficulty of only four out of 10, even though I crashed, and a fun of 6 out of 10. Next up, lunch. This restaurant was in a little teeny town. You wouldn’t even know it was there. And the food and service were absolutely amazing. Time to get into some of the finale classics. We’re going to start out at NATO base and we’re going to end with one of the gnarliest trails we have ever ridden. I am not even joking. First ride post lunch. Headed up to NATO base. Got dropped off. We’re going to do some longer laps, I think, down towards the sea. Trying to outrun some rainy weather. Woohoo. Pointing it down. Yeah, it started pouring on us right after lunch. So, trying to be where it’s dry. So, we’ll see. Hard to tell which way the weather is cruising in from. Trying to pick the best line through the roots and the rocks. Hard charging through some techy roots there. Sometimes these fast trails with multiple line options are actually the most sketchy because you have to really choose where you want to go. Cool forest. Not a lot of undergrowth. I mean, look at how awesome that is. Oh man, a little slippy in some of these corners. these trees and the forest is just really cool to ride in because it’s so so wide open and line of sight just goes really far. Very different than riding in Moleni or the Northwest. Yahoo! One jump of the day. Loved it. Cruising in the dark forest. If you like flow trails, when these are dry, they are some of the most fun flow trails we have ever ridden. Can you put this in there? Time for some nice lomy, slippery, rudy goodness. Not sure if you can hear it, but my bike has quieted down a lot because I took out half full water bottle and it seems like that was a lot of noise. Thank goodness. That was great. Super fun. Oh god. just a few meters of more technical. And he was not [Laughter] joking. The rock saved me. Coming in hot. Did a little uh unable to uh turn skidding into one of the boulders on the side. This section looks nice and fun, but it is slippery. Oh, this rope is so slick. Hit him with my front tire and I can feel it just slip. We just took a quick road ride from this last trail. And now we are down here on a trail I’m not even going to try and name for you, but is one of the Enduro World Series tracks that is so gnarly in person. I didn’t even consider riding this first feature up here. All right, here we go. Some rocky stuff. That cool. Oh yeah. This is that section, huh? Before was full of dirt. So before you you cut in there 2015 was full of roots and dirt and was given and you can get to in. Yeah. But then now I think the best line is here. Really? Yeah. Okay. Looks familiar. Yeah. Here we go. after a nice little scouting mission of that super hard rocky line that looks so much different when you watch it on TV. Oh yeah, that is off camber to say the least. Holy moly. I just didn’t like that into the corner. Cool rock going over there. This trail’s only rated a black, but most places that we ride, this would definitely be a double [Music] black. Just couldn’t balance my way into that one. I was too far behind you to see the line on that last one. And then I like stopped and I looked at it and then I tried to roll into it. See if I can stay close enough. Nice. Until I spun out in the gravel to [Music] stay. There we go. better. Oh, super cool. Look at that off camera hillside. Going from that slippery rock to this super lomy section is a massive trail surface change. You have to adapt so quick. That is just a slippery route. Holy moly. This is almost my worst crash of the whole trip right there. I thought it was a super chill corner. Yikes. The bruise on my calf from my something bike sounds beat up. Now we’ve got the tightest corners that we’ve seen all day. Not to mention, this is starting to get steep, and brake control is so important. Too much and you’ll slide out. Too little and you’ll send yourself into the trees or the bushes. [Music] Nice. Ew. Thank goodness for our corner training in Molini. Those were all definitely doable. Ride five in the books. It’s 8.5 mi, 2200 ft of descending, a difficulty of 10 out of 10. That was so gnarly and an 8 out of 10 for fun. We loved it. Now we’re on to our last ride of the day, and it is one of the coolest by far. We are riding DH Men’s, perhaps one of the most iconic finale trails. Finishing up our day here with a lap slashchecking out downhill men’s track. to see what it looks like in real life. We will stop and from there there is the the steepest section on the sea. Okay, it’s really nice. We stopped there to to have a look. Sounds good. Okay, now we’re in dry loose conditions. Big change from earlier. Uh environment wise and trail conditions wise totally different from in the forest. Pretty pretty. Now for the iconic DH men’s trail. Love a good jump. Not many of them in our recent riding excursions. So fun to hit a [Music] few. Sam pit. [Music] Stay right. That is a drop, Emily. [Music] Oh, it’s so cool. I like it. Ride this one [Applause] again. That’s so fun. I like that style of trail. That’s like so fun. I like all the drops. Oh, and the ocean. The sea’s so pretty. [Music] This is 100% one of the prettiest rides we’ve ever done. Race speeds here. This trail is actually super gnarly. It’s very steep and it’s incredible to see the professionals race down this so fast. steps. Take that line and then the straight down line here. Picking my way. Sliding my way. Not the best line right there. Okay. Get back on here. Yeah, it’s very slippery for breaking. Better when you can be on a little bit of the rock. I think mis calculated that a bit. I got to look forward especially here because there’s so many different lines you can take straight hereoo rock. Oh wow. How do you choose when they’re racing down this? There are marked off lines but you still do have quite a bit of choice. It makes for a pretty interesting event. So much choice, man. That’s cool. This off camber rock section is super gnarly, but better than the alternative. Trying to keep up on the timeline. Pretty good. Rock, roll, steady. Cool. This next section feels as crazy as it looks. Not sure that was the line. I want on this smoother part. Rowdy stuff in there. Oh yeah. Serpent time. Very slow. Tight on the stairs. Woo. It’s cool to have done that section of trail. Yeah, that was fun. That was really cool. Oh, it smells so good. Goodness. Jazamino. Finishing up the ride. Look at this. So cool. The sea, the trees, the flowers, buildings, bike trails. Freaking awesome. That’ll do it for our last ride of the day. 3 miles, descent of 800 ft, difficulty of 8 out of 10, fun of 10 out of 10. That was one of the coolest trails we’ve ever ridden. In our next video, we’re headed out on a solo mission. That means no guides, no help. Try and figure it out ourselves. Yeah. And we are going to ride some of the gnarliest trails Finale has to offer. Oh, this is cool. Thanks for watching. Please like, share, and subscribe, and have yourself a fantastic rest of your day. [Music]